i went into work yesterday while listening to bad religion on my ipod. i needed a little punk rock to soothe my nerves. at eight thirty, the day was already a rough one. my coworkers and i were expecting layoffs. we had heard rumors about one month out concerning the fate of our jobs. we had gathered that our little site was going to be okay in the end, but that some of the engineers and probably all of sales were going to lose their jobs.
as the month drew to a close, we had heard differing reports of moving offices and outsourcing sales teams. on wednesday morning, the day we were expecting to see the layoffs, we all logged on to instant messenger hoping to swap news with the east coast offices. traditionally, our company has tried to get through the layoffs as early in the morning as possible (this was the fourth round i had seen in less than four years). so, by eight or nine in the morning on the west coast, we should have been hearing about what was going down in boston. but all of the normal channels were dead.
i got the axe first. it was rather shocking because i honestly expected to be told ahead of time. it turns out that my manager's manager's manager had informed everyone down the chain of his decision about ten minutes before i got called into the little room. the woman from human resources and i sat in the conference room (at the big ten thousand dollar table) while she tried to get my manager on the phone. she was having problems dialing correctly. "did you dial nine first?" i asked. she was starting to get frustrated, so i suggested that she call the front desk and use the employee directory. finally, we got through to him and he read me the script. the woman from human resources handed me a blue envelope with two checks in it. i looked over everything, shook her hand, and left. then it was back to my desk to collect my things and tell my coworkers. i sort of snuck out the back door, i didn't want to be the guy that they had to call security on because he was taking his sweet time and setting booby traps.
the first thing i did was call my girlfriend, then my parents. i talked to the people still in the office on my cellphone to try to get more news. but for about an hour, there was no news. then, slowly but steadily, they started calling in engineers and editors. in the end, they laid off over half of our office. the company is moving out of the building they've been occupying for over nine years and taking a smaller office elsewhere in the city. not only that, but the site i was working on, webmonkey.com, is effectively dead. no new content, no new writers.
i spent the rest of the day drinking and answering the phone. i took a few hours for myself in the afternoon, had a nice dinner, and generally tried to look at the larger perspective. i also decided that for the next two weeks, i am going to do nothing at all except play the guitar, write, and read.
today's music is bocephus and blonde redhead. i slept in and cooked a solid breakfast. there's a beautiful sunny sky over the mission. granted, i'm only on day two, but unemployment is quite nice so far.