Love Song for Lost Jobs, live from Corporate America!
there is no beginning and there is no ending
Sitting at the nail salon in the middle of the day, weighed down with lunch, I’m craning my neck to watch TV (as if getting your nails done isn’t ergonomically fucked enough). We break from Rachael Ray’s drunk aunt joie de vivre, and a Bath Fitter commercial comes on. Kind of a shoddy local ad, but regardless, the guy looks happy. I’m trying to determine whether he’s an actor, or a real, professional bath fitter; his zest for upgrading tubs is so convincing, so pure. I want to soak in the fruits of his honest day’s work. And I think to myself, maybe I should be a bath fitter. Maybe that’s the next step in this endless pursuit of next steps.
One of my favorite moments in television—second only, now, to this inspiring Bath Fitter commercial—comes from Mad Men. I’ve mentioned it at least twice in past newsletters (my repository of cultural references is scant). Don Draper is breaking it off with his side piece, Faye Miller after getting engaged to Megan. Faye exclaims, “Well I hope you're very happy, and I hope she knows you only like the beginnings of things.” Simple, scalding, perfect. It makes you wonder what a scorned catch like Faye might do with the rest of her life. How she might start over.
Blame my love of story, but I’m obsessed with chronology, so I’m always thinking about beginnings and endings—the final exchange before one’s world shatters, the first bite in an unfamiliar city. The way they bleed into each other, connecting the shadow of who you were then with who you are now. What is the present moment, anyway, but the droning anticipation of one or the other?
Beginnings make me anxious. I hate them. There’s no honeymoon phase with me. Everything I’ve ever meaningfully began, from jobs to relationships to movies over 90 minutes long, I’ve done so from a place of complete and total skepticism. I don’t think I’ve ever started something and been like, “this is gonna work out for me.”
Endings, though? I can do endings. Sometimes I zip through the last hundred pages of a book because even if I love it, I want to finish it, wash my hands of the characters and their cleverly hatched neuroses. I’ve broken up with all my exes a million times each, high on the speedball of relief and heartache, knowing they’ll be back and, thank god, I won’t have to start fresh with someone new. I’ve never been fired but I’ll tell you right now, I’d probably enjoy it more than getting hired! I feel grimy when I buy a new sweater and godly when I stuff it into a garbage bag for donation.
I don’t know what any of this means. I’m not a pessimist, nor am I averse to change. I mean, I’ve gotten bangs, for crying out loud. I go for coffee with girls I don’t know. But there’s obviously something deeper and sadder to my sixth sense for watching things end before they begin. I retreat back into the comfort of the faces and bars and bad habits I’ve always known, wondering what it would have been like to embrace the uncertainty of early stage anything.
I’ve lived in Philadelphia for seven years. It’s the only place I’ve lived besides my hometown. It’s hard to say whether Philly’s ever felt like home, which is really more of a me thing considering almost nothing in my life ever has, not even “home home.” But being anti-beginnings and all, I could never bring myself to move. To live and die somewhere you are totally lukewarm about would be sad if it wasn’t probably the case for most people deep down. I think they call that contentedness. I suppose I am content.
One evening a couple months ago, I grabbed Sweetgreen for dinner with my friend George. I distinctly remember not sleeping a wink the night before. So I was in that weird fugue state where you’re hanging by a thread, but also your most charming and conversational. Your last two brain cells are suddenly fucking Noam Chomsky and Eve Babitz. Everything is interesting and worthy of your strongest opinions!
Anyway, George had just had this jarring, out-of-character experience. He was walking through a crosswalk when a girl laid on her horn and almost hit him, despite his having the right of way. In response, he threw his iced coffee through her driver’s side window. I can’t even type that without laughing my ass off. And let me tell you, George was distraught recounting it. “Philly has CHANGED me,” he said, and we lamented the city and its unique ability to turn one mean, either out of boredom or assimilation with the locals. After George threw the iced coffee, he darted.
“We should move to Pittsburgh,” I suggested. George is from Altoona and went to Duquesne, so he possesses that western Pennsylvania sweetness beneath the cultured urban veneer. We’re the same in that way and just about every other way, really. “We could go to the Andy Warhol museum and Fallingwater!” Little did I know my strung-out suggestion would swiftly come to life.
Only a select few people know that for the last month, I’d been interviewing for a job in Pittsburgh. Things were looking promising. I started romanticizing “the Paris of Appalachia” like it was Paris itself. Leave it to me to dream about some post-industrial, basically midwestern, podunk city. But if you consider the fact that I’m from the middle of nowhere, you might see how I’d like to get back to my roots. In Pittsburgh, I could afford a house with a yard. In Pittsburgh, I could get my Steelers fan parents out for games. In Pittsburgh, there would be nature and bridges to run (446 of them, to be exact) and sandwiches with french fries on them. In Pittsburgh, I would be far away from everyone I love, which would be rough, yes, but imagine all the writing you could do in a couple years of geographic isolation! It doesn’t matter where you are in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh is always 4.5 hours from there.
On the morning of my third interview, I was still in bed when I heard a ping from Microsoft Teams. (Is it actually called a “ping” or did we all just agree on that without asking questions?) The internal recruiter informed me that the position was “being put on hold for reconsideration in the new year”… aka it was eliminated in the inescapable, company-wide budget cuts. Nice enough of him to contact me hours before the workday began, but his message was abrupt and chilly, and I was gutted.
I won’t act like I was over the moon about the job itself, but for once in my life, I was more excited about this fresh start than I was about leaving Philly; the beginning held more aspirational weight than the ending. That never happens for me. And so I did my best to take it as a sign that my contentment here in Philly wasn’t for nothing. I have great friends and I’m only gaining more. My apartment is beautiful, walking distance from work, and right off the trail that I run every day. I have a job that I truly enjoy, with a team that’s like family, that pays my bills and even allows me to save. Coming down from this blue collar fantasy bubble wasn’t so bad.
It’s funny, I beat myself up for neglecting gratitude when I realize the power of counting your blessings. And then, like clockwork, the rug is ripped out from under me. I am reminded why I don’t thank god every day.
On Monday, we got a mandatory meeting slapped on our calendars about “the future of the business.” If you work for a large public company, you know that’s a red flag. I tried to stay optimistic. We have a new president, and maybe he just wanted some face time. But walking around the office, I watched the energy grow somber. Emails started getting cryptic. People kept talking about “the big news today.” What news? I pinged my boss and immediately, she asked me to go somewhere private to call her.
“Now, don’t react,” she said, “but I didn’t get that mandatory meeting. I got a separate mandatory HR meeting, and I’m pretty sure I’m being axed.” I lost my balance just sitting in Starbucks. It felt like all the oxygen was being sucked from the room. Little did I know, a mass layoff was underway. One by one, people I spent 40 hours a week with for the last two years were asked to pack up their offices. And not one, but both of my bosses were impacted.
Ok, I hate endings now.
I sat at my desk shaking, trying not to cry, waiting for leadership to formally break the news to me. That the two people who took me under their wings when I changed fields and joined this team, overwhelmed by all the jargon and acronyms and meetings… the ones who always made clear that life comes before work, and that I never had to fear taking a day off… the ones who never stifled an ill-timed laugh… were now reduced to email addresses that I had to remove from standing meetings. It felt like the sickest fucking joke.
Our VP pulled me from my desk and walked me to her office with her arm around me. I could tell this wrecked her. I always know when corporate people are performing humanity, and this was not that. There was warmth and weight to her slender arm, our beautiful, young, sensitive cancer of a VP with her mermaid hair and 20 gold ear piercings and astrology books and decorative pillows. She must make a zillion dollars a year.
“The one thing that gives me even a shred of comfort is knowing the company takes care of all these people, and for a long time,” she noted. But severance talk isn’t enough for me. I can’t stomach the thought of my friends stepping into this bleak market with nothing to do for the coldest, most depressing months but apply to jobs and lose sleep and let their facial hair get unruly.
My mind drifted to this pleasant, storybook image of my boss waking up the next morning, stretching out slowly while birds sing and soft light pours through her window, and she is really, truly happy to not work. Sure, it’s not my fiction to write, but we all have our ways of coping.
The past couple days have been heavy. People keep apologizing to me, telling me they’re here to support me through “this transition.” Isn’t a “transition” supposed to be a process? When the work doesn’t stop and you’re already in one-on-ones with your new boss, there’s no gentle progression from end to beginning. And there’s certainly no time to grieve. I’m reminded of my sister and my best friend both passing away from cancer, the way I feel guilty all the time for being alive. Being employed feels like a similar affront.
I think the weirdest guilt has come from learning how much emotional stake I have in my job. Or rather, the people. Haven’t I learned that any expression of sentimentality toward corporate life is cringe? Isn’t it pathetic to care this much about people you build email campaigns with, whose middle names and favorite bands you don’t even know? I’m just covering my bases here; I don’t actually believe that shit. I sincerely, annoyingly believe that love is—or can be—your side project at work, if you care to not hate every second there. To spend all that time in close communication with people and not at least try to love the shit out of them feels insane to me. Boring, really. Closed off people bore me. Open the floodgates! I want to remember you for the rest of my life. And I certainly want to take it hard when the powers that be decide stock prices are worth more than your livelihood. (PS did you guys know layoffs increase stock prices? I just learned that against my will this week.)
I was recently at a girls’ night with a few familiar faces and a ton of cool strangers. I hung in the corner with three girls, swapping porn preferences and baby names and all that good first hang stuff. One disclosed that she was unemployed. We did not extend her any feigned pity. We said, “girl, GOALS!” And we meant it. Because when you ask me about my dream job, I really have no answer. I don’t dream of labor. But I do dream of people. And those two bosses, the ones I’ll probably soon never hear from again, well, I’d go back to work for them any day of the week, if only in my dreams. We’re all bath fitters there.
Fucking love this one, Dia. Wanted to highlight a bunch of different sections and remember them forever. You have a gift for putting human experience into words
“ . To spend all that time in close communication with people and not at least try to love the shit out of them feels insane to me. Boring, really. Closed off people bore me. Open the floodgates! I want to remember you for the rest of my life. And I certainly want to take it hard when the powers that be decide stock prices are worth more than your livelihood.”
This definitely hit for me. I loved the piece overall. When I think about work relationships I definitely would rather know some flare about people vs nothing at all. The nothing at all people make the job flavorless if you will. Even if it gets me sad or anxious from corporate wide staff decisions I definitely would rather feel gutted vs not feeling anything at all (especially within my own team).
Man I’ve seen the bullshit corporate “rethinking this req next year” thing FOREVER. Truly why waste time interviewing people for a job ultimately not being hired for. It bothers me… and I’m glad it does because it shows I care.
And looking at endings before beginning even start … whew yep. Can relate. Great piece my friend ❤️.
Thankful for you today, and tomorrow, and everyday after.