Axed Out
by: yoftahe

THREE WEEKS BEFORE:  Company meeting at the local Marriott on a warm, breezy Friday afternoon.  The walls of the conference hall reverberate with wave after wave of applause as the CFO announces the closing of a second-round funding that saw INITECH securing several million bucks from some four big-name VC firms. Golden rays slant through the windows and creep their way towards the ceiling as the CEO, and the string of all other known C-yourfavoriteletter-O's go through their ritual pep-talk. At dusk, we all file out to the bar downstairs, and celebrate the news with a happy [hick!] two-hour happy-hour.  

TWO WEEKS BEFORE:  The intensity picks up a notch... and spawns li'l feverish projects with code names such as "the battle zone"... INITECH technology goes live at its first major deployment... and again the flimsy walls of our cubicles reverberate with roaring applause... sound of popping champagne bottles... and sound of celebratory foosball tournaments...   

TUESDAY NIGHT:  At the culmination of an 80-hour week that saw me working through the weekend, and into the wee hours, i walk out at 10:30, dazed, but relieved, and smug, and serenely high, as though a cranial tornado has suddenly subsided. The evening breeze slaps me playfully as i step outside, and i'm so grateful. The world is beautiful, work is great, goodwill is plentiful... so, i take a longer way home that crosses over the Charles river, and head towards the Mass General Hospital subway station.  On my right stretches a spectacular view of the Boston skyline. The landmark giant billboard bearing the red CITGO star blinks and twinkles, reminiscent of the Korean made lightworks that adorned the landmarks of Addis during the festivities of the tenth anniversary of eeseppa/eeseppaako. It's the animated center inside the frame of this poster-view of the Boston skyline. Strong breeze wheezes over the bridge, so i lift up my arms and unabashedly sing out loud my favorite song of Tilahoun's... "eyoooooooooooowat.......... sitnaaaaaaa.... aaaaaafiqeNNNNNNNNNNNN.... kaaaaTe-ge-bEEEEEE... 'yalech.... ha... ahahaaaaaaaaaaa .... aaaaaa.... aaaa... aaa ..."  

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Beautiful sunny morning of late Spring. Straggle in to work around 10:40.  As i head over to my cubicle, i stumble across empty packing boxes stacked to about my height.  I study them for a moment, but the not-as-yet-caffeinated brain, unable to tackle the riddle, postpones it for later.  So, i throw my bag on the desk, my jacket on the back of the chair, and navigate my way towards the espresso machine.  As i walk back to my desk, double espresso in one hand, maple sugar oatmeal in the other, i run into the chief architect of INITECH who greets me with a fond, and yet strangely malformed, smile. I plop down and commence the rituals of the start of day -- flick my monitor on while watching mischievously for my neighbor to grimace as his monitor shudders in reaction, and click through emails while slurping spoonfuls of oatmeal.  Over my waist-high cubicle wall, I see one of the managers pop into a conference room with an employee, and pop back out three minutes later... and repeat that with yet another employee. Still, the un-caffeinated brain sees no cause for alarm. And then... 

… And then comes the tap-tap on my shoulder. "Could i talk to ya for a minute?" says my favorite manager. An extra nice woman.  As she leads me into a conference room in another wing of the company, we unusually had little to say to break the awkward moment.  as i walk into the room after her and reach back to close the door, a marketing VP comes through.  I expect him to say something like... "ooops!  sorry, i didn't know the room was booked", and recoil... but instead, he determinedly walks in and sits to the left of my manager.   So we gather, vertices around this triangle of death -- with me at the far end of this eerie isosceles.

What happens after this is mostly a blur.  I remember noting how my manager's lips quivered faintly and wondering why this seemed so much more emotional for her than it was for me. I remember signing a release form, handing back my security card and keys, and being told that i can't walk back to my desk without an escort, and being told that i should talk to a transition-solutions consultant before heading out.    

Sitting in this bare and otherwise empty office is the "transition" consultant whom i'd mistaken for a new employee while grabbing coffee earlier.  "Transition", "outplacement"-- the latest PC euphemisms for that spontaneous leap from the cutting edge of the high-tech world to the bleeding one. He asks for my last name, and when i tell him, spends a few seconds scanning through a list to find it -- my first clue as to the extent of the layoff.  Close to 30% of INITECH was being let go.  The norm these days in the high-tech world is that your contract is terminated on the spot, and once you meqmes the axe, you are barred from approaching your desk without an escort.  What about my private e-mails?  What about my personal files?  What about the gif image of Lalibela that i use as a screen background?  Pack up my mess while some sales VP stands over me, and walk out the door for the last time... smiling the whole time.  

LATER THAT MORNING: No bitterness, no anger, some sadness at leaving a rare kind of place, some confusion about what to do next (I mean next that same day), but mostly a relief.  Spend the day doing things i had wished to do, and never had time for -- gallery-hopping on Newbury Street, visiting the notorious South End at one end of the red-line, and carousing at a little cozy jazz joint close to home, and noting for the first time that there are far too many hours in a single day of the work week.  

FIRST DAY AFTER: Clean my apartment clear of all Canadian coins behind the couch cushions and all pennies in the cracks between the floor boards. Save on soap by skipping shower.  

A FEW DAYS LATER: Outpour of kind words and gestures from friends sweeps me off my feet, with one minor glitch -- having to re-narrate the story of my plight to 857 different friends, and having to listen through as many similar words of encouragement and understanding and ye digaf condemnation. I begin to wonder if, perhaps, I should don black attire, le hazen meqqemeT, and wait for friends to come for ginbar masmetat, instead of mingling and schmoozing in search of job leads that will allow me to use my hard-earned skills such as pedicure, manicure, male-dominatrixing, posing as a hit man, as a thumb-wetting pad, as a stamp licker, etc…

FRIEND: How long do you think it's been in the planning?
ME: Probably six weeks or so.
FRIEND: Those bastards, how could they not give you advance notice?
ME: Cuz I could wreak havoc to the system in a fit of anger.
FRIEND: But still, how could they betray you so much and have you escorted out?
ME: Betrayal? I had no pact of life-long loyalty with INITECH. A marriage of convenience inji eko alqorrebnim.
FRIEND: I hope those bastards eat the dust…
ME: Actually, i hope NOT, cuz I'm still invested.
FRIEND: OK, anyway, ayzoh wendimE, be at home around 7, I'll stop by tinnish laSnannah.
ME: Actually, I've been locked up all day running job searches from home, and I hope to be out by then. Besides, ere sile-egziabher, FRIEND-ye, I'm fine, and hazen lai alteqemeTkum.

While the market is in a slump, i've secured membership at several doomsday cults... and in the process, i've upped my caffeine consumption and i'm down to a single layer of stomach lining before black goo comes gushing… well, it's not a pretty picture. [ Does any state give refund for emptied coffee cups...? ]

TWO MONTHS LATER: Light at the end of the tunnel. Oops! It just zoomes past.

TWO-PLUS MONTHS LATER: Discover a new calling as the village therapist calling on fellow jobless ex-colleagues to, when in despair, imagine how much worse it could have been if INITICH had been their first job straight out of academia. That was hardly a setback in the optimism and overblown ambitions of a year ago, but it's a crippling drawback now. Nothing short of a custom prepackaged skill set sells these days. Gone are the ambitions of building an enterprise and investing in potential and all those highfalutin' ideals.

So, i'm thinking of starting NOT a business, but rather, a REVOLUTION...

NOW: A new city, a new skyline, a new tune.