Today marks the first day of my separation from the greediest, most vile company of which I’ve ever (shamefully) been a part. The shit-canning followed the following itinerary:

9am – Clock in to work.

9am-11:29am – Work dilligently and enthusiastically. As prior posts had mentioned, I hadn’t received a bonus in quite some time, and I was slated for a pretty decent one, given my hard work, in October. “Alright, now I can buy Christmas presents for my family!” I thought to myself.

11:30am – Manager arrives at my desk. “You got a second?” he says. I follow him into the meeting room, where the resident HR lady (which I believe is largely a ceremonial position, given the lack of any real accountability within the company), waits.

Everything was carried out by HR lady, who “had some bad news.” She laid it out on the table, weaving a story about how business volume was down, and how they’re having to consolidate and eliminate some positions to stay profitable. I look at my manager, who refuses to make eye contact with me. He doesn’t say a word. Not a single word…

…coward.

So I’m asked to turn my key in. I slide it across the table. I glance back at my manager. Still looking at his feet.

Coward.

In an almost unfathomable act of kindness, they allow me to stay until my lunchbreak, as to avoid the awkward ‘walk of shame’ back to my desk to collect my things, of which there were few; You don’t want to make hell look like home, after all.

But then, they realized that was probably a bad idea, and they made me leave at noon. My manager, I guess, was pretty eager to send the memo out.

This is bittersweet. As the sole provider for my family, we are now officially a ‘no-income’ family. On the flip side, I no longer have to drive home every day contemplating whether or not I truly have a conscience if I’m willing getting up each morning to work in such a crooked, evil industry.

What frustrates me the most is the likelihood that I won’t be getting the bonus I busted my ass for (as described in the past several posts), which means that I will no longer be able to buy Christmas presents for friends and family. It was slated to be a pretty decent bonus.

I’m not so naive as to actually believe that my being laid off was simply due to a lack of business coming in. As demonstrated in previous posts, there was plenty of business coming in….I just wasn’t receiving any of it. I have documentation that very strongly suggests this as well. Could I take it to an attorney and have a case against my prior employer? Probably. Are they worth the time and stress it would take to do that? I doubt it. I’m sure this decision was at least partially based on the incident that evolved regarding unassigned, short-fuse submissions, and my working them after hours.

So what’s next for me? It’s hard to say. Unless I land a job that is equally as soul-destroying as this one, I don’t imagine I’ll have a reason for keeping this blog going. That, of course, is assuming I’m able to find a job, being the proverbial ‘99%’ and all.

My employer-paid health, dental, and vision insurance run out as of midnight tonight. That means I have 8 hours to get a flu shot, and my eyes checked. Might as well stick them with a couple more claims on the company insurance policy before I’m out of their lives for good.

What have I learned from these past 3 and a half years? I guess primarily, it’s easy to become a slave to money. It’s easy to do the bidding of someone if they’re paying you a competitive amount for it. It’s when they use that as a means to exploit you, though, is when things go south. I don’t think anyone with a soul could truly enjoy this line of work, any more than a single mother could truly enjoy stripping to put diapers on her kid.

I don’t anticipate making as much money at my next job (whatever that may be), but I think this time around, I’m going to aim for something that is a little more balanced on the pay vs happiness scale.

Coincidentally, my wife and I both have interviews tomorrow.

Maybe we’ll just leave the country.

C’est la vie, for now.

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