***
The bombshell explodes Friday morning.
Things start out benignly enough. I see Jodie off early morning; she’s got a bag packed and intends to drive up North direct from work. She seems more relaxed and happy now, and I’m glad for that.
But the atmosphere is tense when I walk into the office. People avert their eyes. I instinctively know what’s coming.
I’m called in for a ‘conference’ during which I get the standard termination bromides. I’ve done well in my job, but the company is “moving in a new direction” and cannot retain people who “are not a good fit.” So, everyone “needs to move on.” Translation: the pro-CEO faction is pulling a coup and getting rid of people who are less than enthusiastic about the company’s “new direction.”
I tell my inquisitors that I see through their game and that I can identify a political hatchet job when it’s performed so blatantly. This raises a few eyebrows. Then I leave – no need to clear out my desk since everything of importance is already inside by briefcase. They can keep the ‘Team Member of the Month’ awards hanging on the walls.
The security guard who escorts me out isn’t a bad sort, and he’s obviously embarrassed. I wish him luck, then head to my car and drive to the nearest watering hole.
I’m halfway through my martini when it hits me full bore – I’m 37 and out of work. My career had seemed to be humming along onward and upward. Now I’m out. Knowing that the disaster was politically motivated makes it no less painful.
Tradero and Cooper both call me. They, too, have been fired, as they were prominent members of the anti-CEO faction, ‘my’ faction. Tradero fumes and blusters. Cooper says he’s freed up now to pursue his dream of founding his own business. Right. Cooper always was a big talker.
I make the conversations brief. I don’t want company for my anguish; I need to be left alone for a while.
I need the comfort of a woman – I want Jodie.
Yet, how can I approach her now? We’re not equals any longer. I’m unemployed, while she’s an up and coming attorney. Whatever ‘equality of the sexes’ spin you might try to put on things, a man needs to be a breadwinner at least as capable as his spouse.
I’ve never had to think in such terms before. Everything had always gone well in our professional lives; both of us had been on the upward track ... until today. But Jodie’s my wife! It’s her role to support and sympathize with me – though thick and thin, for richer or poorer. Right?
For the first time I can identify with guys like Rex. I remember when he lost his well-paying factory job downstate. Monday mornings he’d been driving for hours to get to the job site. He’d stay in a cheap room until Friday evening when he’d drive back up North to be with his wife and kids.
The job was a huge step up for him. He and his wife were shopping for a house downstate and talking of a better future for their family when the layoff notice came. It was “nothing personal” the company spokesman said, and “everyone has done a great job,” but the company felt that it could do better by outsourcing the work overseas.
My situation is nothing as bad as Rex’s, though. Is it? I have marketable skills and money in the bank; I own the lake house in the clear. And Cooper might be onto something about founding a new company; maybe I could go that route.
Yet the whole thing has struck my sense of manhood a tremendous blow. I try to tell myself that things will work out, but deep inside, I can’t believe it.
4. Final solutions
I resist the temptation to drown my sorrows. I leave the bar and go home – shower, eat, try to nap, watch TV. All the while I’m hoping that Jodie will walk through the door; maybe she’s forgotten to pack something. I’ll reach out to her then and ...
But by late afternoon, it’s obvious she’s not coming. I think of the weekend stretching before me like a vast wasteland. How can I navigate through it alone? I prepare to leave.