Canned

This is the story of how I got laid off.

It was such a typical day. I ran through the door of my office building, poured myself a cup of coffee, and talked with some coworkers for a few minutes before turning on my computer. I checked my e-mail, opened the document I was writing, and settled into work. A week before, I had met my boss. He worked from an office in Argentina, so that was the first time I met him in person. We discussed all the projects I would be taking on in the near future and made a few predictions about the latest merger. (These predictions did not include me being canned.)

I got a call requesting that I come up to the conference room. Not unusual. I jogged upstairs, swung the door open, and was surprised. The room was empty except for the person who summoned me – one of my favorite coworkers. The phone in the center of the table was on. I had no idea what was happening. I took a seat, and the phone call commenced.

The HR lady on the other end of the line wished me good day. My boss joined the call. As soon as he uttered the phrase “continued excellence,” I got the idea. It was like being kicked in the face. My coworker, bless her, left to find me a box of Kleenex. The rest of the call lasted two or three minutes. My boss finished. The HR lady let me know when I would have to clear out my office and when my last severance check would be mailed. By this time, I was lying on the conference table weeping. What would I do for money? How could I support my family? How could I ever get health insurance again in an economy like this? I was free falling.
 
And then the HR lady said that there was help for me. Thank god, because I sure felt like a wreck.
 
She proceeded to read off an 800 number. I could call it and speak to a trained counselor who would help me with my “difficult transition.” I stopped weeping and gave the phone a dirty look. Seriously?
 
I was allowed to leave for the rest of the day, so I did. I drove home in a fugue state. My ears made a sound like wind. I called my husband. He was like, Well, you hated that job! Chin up! Be happy! Now you can do what you really wanted to do and screw technical writing.
 
I agreed with him, but I still felt hurt in a fundamental way. It’s one thing to fantasize about leaving a job that you don’t feel fits you very well. It’s something else entirely to have the choice taken from you with an impersonal rejection.
 
That was in November. The first weeks were rough. I worked hard, diving into a big writing project and doing my best to keep up a routine as if I were still employed. Every few days, I’d be gripped with fear that my family would starve, get sick while uninsured, or sink deep into debt. Then I would peruse job openings. Most of them filled me with dread.
 
I knew what I wanted to do. I have known it all along. I knew that anything else would make me very unhappy. I had never felt right in my old job, and that’s probably why I got canned. My heart wasn’t in it. I was always counting down the minutes to five o’ clock and praying for Fridays. Each time I worked on a new version of a manual, I experienced a deep sense of futility. I knew that I would be rewriting the same document in a few months, the next time a new feature was added. I knew that every day I spent doing something I didn’t care about was a day that I wasted.
 
Around the end of December, my fear started to subside. I opened up to the possibility that my husband and I would be able to support ourselves and our daughter with profits from our company. Jeremy had been running Outland while I was working at Motorola. He did a fine job, too, so we had plenty of work coming in.
 
Being laid off deals a grave amount of hurt and disruption to one’s life. So many people have had to endure this humiliation and deal with the resulting financial damage since this recession began. I don’t think it’s usually a blessing, but in my case, it was.
 
I work hard every day on jobs of my own and jobs that people hire me to do.  If anything, I work much harder than I did when I knew that a fat paycheck would sail into my bank account every two weeks. For the first time, I am doing exactly what I want to be doing. I no longer entertain depressing thoughts about the futility of life or meting out days in coffee spoons. Doing a job that fits you right can bring an incredible amount of peace. I only wish I had figured this out sooner.