Your Unemployed Daughter

photo credit: KayVee.INC
Think your layoff was bad? What if you had to leave the country? What if it happened twice? Guest blogger and all-around fabulous guy “Tony” (who really did not deserve what happened to him, btw, but is doing just fine now, thank you for asking) gives all of us whingers a little perspective …

I GOT LAID OFF. BLOODY HELL

It is New Year’s Day 2009. My gorgeous, hilarious, darling girlfriend
of 18 months is wandering around my apartment wearing knickers (hers)
and a 15-year-old grey hoodie (mine). She looks amazing. I make her a
cup of tea. We sit on the couch and I think about where to take her
for brunch.

Then she breaks up with me.

Not exactly what I was expecting (eggs and grits was going to be my
order, since you ask).

I cry. She cries. She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of my hoodie. Thankfully, she’s never been so upset that I’ve had to see her cry before, but when she does, I can’t help but notice that she looks beautiful.

We talk for four hours. I kind of agree with the split. We cry some
more. We laugh. We cuddle. She takes off my hoodie, gets dressed, and
leaves. Later that night I fold up my hoodie and see mascara marks on
the sleeve. I cry.

Flash forward, two weeks later.

(A bit of background: I’m an English dude who’s been working in NYC for the last four years. I love this town, I love my job, I love my NYC pals, I love my colleagues, I love my apartment. I feel like I belong here. I am fit and well; I have money in my pocket. In short, I am as happy as a pig in shit. A lot of really excellent, A-grade, premier shit.)

I’m at work. It is a Tuesday morning. I’m in early and the office is almost empty. I have a dentist appointment later that day.

My desk phone rings. The name of our HR person flashes on the display. She asks to see me. I walk to her office and my stomach starts to churn. I have a hunch like one of those 1970s TV detectives: Something ain’t right, I tell ya (rubs stubble-covered chin thoughtfully).

HR person asks me to come in, shut the door, and sit down. She begins talking, but I’m only hearing about every third word. Phrases like: “position impacted,” “restructuring,” “new direction.”

Then I hear the killer blow: “Your position has been eliminated.”

It’s the sort of line that would sound good coming from the lips of a Hollywood hero as he puts a bullet in the head of the psychotic villain in a sci-fi blockbuster. Instead, it comes from the lips of an overweight HR person wearing a pink sweatshirt.

I am laid off. I feel like every molecule of blood in my body is rushing
to my head at 100 mph.

HR person pushes an envelope in front of me and describes the numerous documents inside. I blurt out, “How much money do I get?” (I realize this sounds a tad tacky, but I don’t care, I’m just trying not to puke.)

The penny has dropped, you see: My employment visa is such that if my job ends, my visa ends. So, it’s goodbye NYC, hello England. My bottom lip starts to wobble.

I leave HR’s office on shaky legs and go back to my desk …where I find the IT guy shutting down my computer. Shame he was never that quick when I had a problem with the printer. I pick up my work-issue BlackBerry. It is locked. The password has been changed. I want to throw it against a wall. Hard.

I gather my belongings with trembling hands. By now, a few of my co-workers have arrived in the office. I tell them the news. They gasp, cry, scribble down their personal email addresses and hand them to me. Clearly they’ve heard stories about the IT department spying on – sorry, I mean “tracking” – employees via their inboxes.

I put fruit I brought to work that day on my neighbours’ desks. Later I think that’s a bit weird: Would you eat fruit that appeared mysteriously on your desk?

On my way out I pass a buddy, a finance guy. He has no idea what’s happened. I shake his hand and tell him goodbye. He chuckles. He thinks I’m joking with him, and he’s waiting for the punchline. I croak out the word “fired.” His face drops.

The account ladies, who have become my office mums, if you will, hug me and tell me they will pray for me.

I walk out onto Sixth Avenue, where I sit on a bench with my head between my legs. The tears come. I get funny looks from people walking past, people with jobs to go to. Wankers. Oh shit, the dentist. Not today, thanks. I cancel the appointment using a pay phone, which smells of urine. I try to wedge the handset under my chin while I dig in my pockets for change (how much do pay phones take these days anyway?) but the slimy handset keeps slipping and falling. 

I slip into autopilot and stagger a few blocks to the office of my ex-girlfriend (the one from New Year’s Day). She comes down to her lobby. I tell her I got laid off. She hugs me and drags me to the nearest Starbucks. She is amazingly kind. She tells me it’s going to be ok, which is all I wanted to hear.

On her recommendation, I get a pay-as-you-go phone. It contains about as much technology as the plastic crocodile-shaped toy telephones I got for my 3-year-old nephews in Toys R Us. This phone is not ideal when you’re trying to talk to the company lawyer in L.A. while standing on the corner of 42nd street.

I go into Pret a Manger for a cup of tea. The girl behind the counter asks, “How ya doin?” Well, I tell her, “I just got laid off,” my voice cracking. She looks genuinely upset. She puts a brownie on my tray and says, “The brownie’s on me.”

I try to say thank you, but the words get stuck in my throat. I start welling up. Yep, tears fall. Over a brownie. I sink into one of the big comfy leather armchairs with my tea and nibble the brownie. But my stomach is too squelchy to eat and the brownie makes me feel a bit sick. I hide it under my napkin and dispose of it discreetly.

I will never forget that girl’s kindness.

I arrive home at 1 pm and call my sister. She is shocked and upset, but
businesslike. Get organised, get home, she tells me. My parents are on
holiday. If I tell them what’s happened, my mum will worry like crazy and it will ruin their trip. So I tell my sister to keep it under her hat. 

However, we agree that my mum probably already knows I’ve been laid off. She’s kind of a witch in that way – a lovely, sweet witch of course. She’s always known when I’ve met a girl or broken up with someone or if I’m having a hard time. (A week later when I finally tell my parents the news, my mum finishes my sentence – spooky.)

I call friends. They are shocked, but then take the piss out of me and tell me we’re going to have one hell of a leaving party. I get emails and Facebook messages of support from pals. I am offered so many spare rooms in England, I don’t think I’ll ever have to pay rent again. I am incredibly touched by everyone’s generosity.

The ex-girlfriend’s dad texts me with what I believe is the very definition of tough love: “Sorry to hear terrible decision made by [company name] fucksticks. Don’t get sucked into depressed, working class bullshit. You are an incredibly talented guy. Get it together, get pissed, and go bang on some doors.”

(When he says “pissed” I presume he means the American usage, angry, rather than the English usage, drunk. At least I think he does. Surely banging on the doors of prospective employers, clutching my resume, seven Heinekens in, would not be a good career move.)

His text ends, “Now go get drunk with your soccer buddies.” What a guy. Love him.

I collapse on my sofa and then realise with a gulp: my furniture. How do I
get rid of it? Craigslist. Another gulp as I realise what weirdos I am bound to encounter. How much would I charge? Right now, I think I’d sell the whole lot for 500 bucks. Wow, funny how your standards drop when your life is in freefall.

More de-cluttering. (Why the hell do I have a Slinky in my cupboard?). Eat soup. “Keep your strength up,” that’s what my mum would say.

More de-cluttering. I’m kind of enjoying it. This may have something to do with the gallons of adrenaline that are surging through my system. I think I feel happy. But I know the emotional crash is around the corner.

I switch on my iPod. The Bravery: “This is Not the End.” Then their track “Angelina,” which contains the lyrics, “Nothing good is set in stone.” Thank you, The Bravery, for those wise words. Not exactly Shakespeare, but it’ll do.

There is a shipping company down the street. I head over to get info on sending boxes back to England. Big fat boss guy behind the counter is talking on his cell phone. A young girl is dealing with a customer. She holds up a sealed Fed Ex envelope and asks her boss, “How can I photocopy the documents in here?” Her boss gives her a withering look and snaps, “Do you know magic?” The girl shakes her head. “If you don’t know magic,” he says, “I suggest you open the package, take out the documents, and photocopy them.’”

I wouldn’t trust these guys to send a cup of coffee next door, let alone seven boxes of my possessions 3,000 miles across the Atlantic.

I like to go to theatre on my own and it just so happens that tonight I have a ticket to see the acclaimed play August in Osage County. I have been looking forward to it for weeks. It’s a depressing three and half hour epic that skips around such topics as divorce, death, child molestation, incest, drug addiction, and family turmoil – just the thing for my state of mind.

Why couldn’t I have booked The Little Mermaid?

Nevertheless, the play is brilliant.

Afterward, I go to McDonalds and eat McNuggets. I haven’t been inside a McDonalds in about five years but tonight, all rules go out the window. I walk around Times Square. Again, this is something I never do. Tonight, it looks beautiful. I head home and go to bed, my head buzzing.

The next day I book a trip to San Francisco, a spur of the moment, fuck it kind of trip. One last hurrah before I move back to England.

While I’m there, I get a text from a boss at my former company’s parent company in London. It reads: “If old nasty people gone, do you want your job back?”

I call the boss and tell her yes. Three days later, I am back at work and all is right with the world. Three months after that, I get laid off again.

Seriously.

But that’s another story.