Tag Archives: fired

I’m sorry but, you’re fired

I just don’t think we have any room for you here, not enough room, not with these numbers. What are we supposed to tell the shareholders? Nobody wants to see you go, well, nobody except for Maggie, but her objections … well, I probably shouldn’t have said that. Let’s just say that … I can assure you that Maggie had nothing to do with … with this. And between you and me, Maggie’s not going to make the next round of cuts. So don’t think of this as Maggie over you, I mean, nobody’s winning here. Sure, it might be hard to walk out of this office and not notice Maggie sitting there pretending not to smirk, but just think …

yrfrd

You know what? Forget I said anything about Maggie. And please don’t tell her what I just told you. Because if she confronts me … look, I’m going to be real with you here. I’m thinking that we’re going to fire Maggie. But I shouldn’t have told you that. I see now how that was a mistake. But I can’t take it back, and I’m realizing now how you don’t have anything to lose, because we’re already letting you go, and so I’m sure getting in Maggie’s face and telling her what I just accidentally told you, I’d bet that would bring some measure of satisfaction. I can see her just sitting there, not looking up at you, but smirking, smiling as you pack up everything from your desk into those boxes.

I don’t know why they make us give you these boxes. I mean, do you really have many personal belongings here? At work? Sure, I guess I’ve got these photos, although, I’m not really attached to any of them. If I were in your position, I’d gladly leave everything here, “You get rid of them,” I’d tell whoever shoved a box in my face, telling me, I have to be out of here by the end of the day. Of course, if I were in your position, I wouldn’t be in my position right now, and so I guess they wouldn’t be my picture frames. Would they be yours? No, that doesn’t make any sense.

What I’m trying to say is, jeez, I really shouldn’t have brought up Maggie. Look, I’ll be straight with you here, OK, if you tell Maggie what I just told you, I’m going to have to deny it. All right, Maggie’s going to come storming in here, talk about lack of professionalism, because again, I really shouldn’t have said anything. Do you know that you’re one of my first firings? Not the first. But definitely the second. The first one was Charles a while back, but he probably knew it was coming. And in his case, I think I said too little. I’m not sure I got across the whole let go aspect of the termination. Is he still coming in? Regardless, that definitely went a lot smoother than this is going right now.

Basically, if you tell Maggie, I’ll deny it. And it won’t end there, OK, because I can’t deny it and then fire her next week. She’ll be like, “I knew it!” And I can’t take that, not from Maggie, jeez. And so I’ll have to keep her on, indefinitely, probably. And so do you want that? You want her to keep her job? Or do you want her to get fired?

Obviously we haven’t made any final decisions regarding Maggie, or any of the cuts really, I’m just thinking that, there’s no way she makes it past next week. Which, yeah, it’s just unfortunate, you know, the whole company is just resizing or rescaling, or restructuring, what do you call it? There’s a lot of rebranding. Like this is new for me, letting people go, that’s like a rebranding. Man, I hope this gets easier. For me, I mean, you seem to be taking it all in stride.

And who knows? I mean, it was a bad quarter, yeah, and it sucks that we kind of have to go quarter to quarter here, but what if the next quarter is good? What if it’s really good? We’re probably going to be looking at some un-restructuring, which, I think you’d have to talk to HR again, I don’t know if they’d make you go through the whole interview process. Did you interview with me? When you first started? I mean, so yeah, you probably wouldn’t get me again, not unless they re-rebrand me back to hiring. Right now it’s strictly firing.

Not firing, you know, let go. Man, thanks for being so cool about this. Like especially in regards to Maggie. I seriously can’t stress enough how much I shouldn’t have brought her into this, OK. And like I said, even though I’m pretty sure we’re going to let her go, she’s definitely staying if she confronts me with any of this. Hell, I’ll suggest she gets promoted. So yeah, just keep your chin up, all right. Do you need a box? Because I have all of these boxes if you need to … like if you want to carry anything out. Yeah, I don’t really get the boxes.

But just, you see her smiling, just don’t even smile back OK. Just have like an inside smile, the smile of satisfaction that you get from me telling you … I mean, I’m not telling you … but I’m telling you telling you, Maggie’s out. But only if you don’t even look her way. Because any sort of nonverbal communication, like even a knowing smirk, OK, and she stays. Cool? All right. Sorry to see you go. Best of luck out there. You’ll be fine.

Hey, we should grab drinks sometime, now that I’m not your boss anymore. Ha. All right. Can you send in Rich on your way back to the desk? You know what? I should probably get him myself. Don’t worry about Rich. All right. Great. Thanks.

I’ll burn every bridge that I cross

Don’t burn your bridges? Fuck that, I want to burn every bridge that I cross. I want to go to work and storm out of there in a big huff, a huge, “You know what I really think?” type of berserker rage, my finger pointing every which way, “That’s what I really think!” I’m causing a huge scene, I’m flailing my arms around, plates of food dropping on the floor, the manager goes to call security, “somebody get the cops, he’s out of control.”

burncross

I’ll swing around to the dining room, I’ll take a bite out of some guy’s hamburger, sure, they’ll eventually drag me out of there, whatever man, you’ve got to sedate me? Whatever, bring it on, chain me up and throw me in front of that judge, “Listen son, you’re obviously very disturbed, so the state’s going to go ahead and offer you a choice: hard time in prison, or a treatment facility a couple hours north of the city …”

And I’ll cut him off, I’ll burn that bridge to the ground even before I cross it, I’ll be like, “Hey asshole, don’t call me son, OK? You’re not my dad. And what, you think I’m interested in your plea bargain? Get the hell out of here. You’re a joke. This system’s a joke.” And they’ll have to wheel me out of there, I’ll be screaming the whole time, little specks of foam flying out of the corners of my mouth.

After the sentencing I’ll be in prison orientation, maybe some public advocate will try to appeal to my more reasonable side. But I don’t have a more reasonable side, so he’ll be wasting his breath telling me all about how, “You might be able to shave a couple of years off of your term if you show a little good behavior.”

Good behavior? This guy won’t have any idea who he’s dealing with. I’ll play nice, for a while anyway, I’ll tell him every time he revisits my case or comes to check up on me, I’ll be like, “I’m being really well-behaved. Just ask any of the guards or the warden. I’m like the model of a well-behaved prisoner.”

And he might be skeptical at first, because honestly, it’ll be hard to hide my smile, that sinister grin just waiting for him to offer me the slightest inkling of trust. It’ll take a little bit, but I’ll wait, a couple of weeks, how often do those guys visit the inmates, once a month? More than that?

Finally he’ll feel like he might be getting through to me, I’ll contact his office and tell the  secretary that I need to see the advocate. He’ll show up to the meeting room and I’ll ask him, “Hey man, did you get my letter?” And he’ll say, “Letter? I don’t think so. When did you send me a letter?” And I’ll look down and say, “Oh … I guess I forgot to …” and then I’ll slam my foot down on top of his foot, like as hard as I can, and I’ll scream out, “Stamp it!”

A classic prank, but taken to the extreme, because listen buddy, I am where I am because of me, not because of some stupid guy in a suit claiming to be on my side. You know who’s on my side? Me. You know who else? Nobody. And he’ll be screaming in pain, hopefully I’ll have at least knocked a couple of toenails off.

I’ll have the maximum sentence, no time off for good behavior, it’ll be the absolute worst behavior that you can imagine. They’ll tell me to shut up and I’ll keep talking. They’ll scream out, “Lights out!” at the end of the night and every single time, I’ll scream out, “Lights on!” in reply. For meal time at the cafeteria, I’ll always cut the line, I don’t care how big all of the other inmates are, I’ll cut, every single time, I’ll go right to the first person in line and say, “Hey man, you mind if I back cut?” and I’ll just do it, I won’t even wait for a response.

Eventually they’ll have to let me out, I mean, it’s not like I’ll have killed someone or anything. And even though at my parole hearing I’ll get a lot of warnings about staying away from my old job, about not trying to make contact with my old boss, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Day one, buy a nice suit. Day two, go back to the restaurant and ask for my old boss.

“Hey boss,” I’ll still call him boss, even though I won’t have worked for him in years, it’ll be like an added layer of discomfort, just like that crazy grin I won’t really be trying that hard to suppress, “I just wanted to say … I’m really sorry.” And I’ll extend my hand, knowing that he’ll take it, if only to get me out of there.

And right as he goes for that handshake, I’ll pull back, really dramatically, I’ll do a really obnoxious laugh, “Ha! Sorry you’re such an idiot!” and maybe I’ll consider going on another rampage, but no, I’ll just laugh and walk out of there. And if my parole officer calls? Fuck that guy, he thinks he’s doing me a favor, telling me he’s on my side? He’s not on my side. I’m on my side. That’s it. If you’re thinking about helping me out, help yourself out, and stay out of my way.