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At Risk for Awesomeness

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I got a letter in the mail from the NYC department of labor recently, telling me that I was to have a mandatory meeting yesterday to discuss my resume. I was a little thrilled by this, because as you know, I’m attempting a transition to copywriting/social media/general web-content-spewer, and I’ve been laboring for the past month about how to best talk about 13 years of being self-appointed Queen o’ the Internetâ„¢ on my resume when no one’s technically been paying me for my leadership and benevolent rule.

Figuring that everyone else there would be bums, I put on an adorable summer dress to show that I’m both presentable and spunky, and I didn’t even pair it with flip-flops. I had to spend the workshop’s entire hour and a half reminding myself not to flirt with the young Indian guy who said his most prevalent emotion these days is embarrassment over not being as far along in his career as his friends are, because two unemployed people with the opportunity to eat at Indian lunch buffets every day is bad news.

Overall, the meeting was a huge disappointment, because it was mostly a guy reading a worksheet to the group and telling us that we can’t use the photocopier in the “resource room” to copy entire cookbooks. Even when one of the instructors got to me and asked if I had any questions, her best advice about putting my blogging and social media skillz on my resume was, “Yeah, you could do that.”

But the worst part was knowing that none of my other recently-unemployed friends have been called in for this meeting, which means the City of New York is concerned that I might be at risk for suckling at the sweet, sweet teat of unemployment for the entire 26 weeks I’m allotted if they don’t watch me carefully. And oh, boy, are they right. I’ve been unemployed for just a little over a month, and already it feels so normal to me that it’s not even exciting anymore. The idea that I used to go to bed at midnight to wake up at 7 a.m. instead of watching The Great Gatsby at midnight and then listening to an hour of Kings of Leon while I lazily perform my bedtime routine and then playing Candy Crush for another hour until I pass out and wake up again at 11? THIS IS LIFE. It was always meant to be this way.

Sometimes I find myself in a quiet moment thinking about how I should be really, really scared right now. I don’t have a job, and unemployment here is enough for rent and groceries and absolutely nothing else. I don’t have a boyfriend, and all of my backups are now either married or mad at me for six years of ignoring them. But most of the time, to be honest, I find myself feeling really happy. As I left the meeting today and ducked into a grocery store to grab some guacamole for a party this weekend, I thought about how lucky I am to be out in the city during the day and to have friends who are looking out for me and to ultimately know that things are going to work out for me, because they always do. I know I’m gross.

That Time When My Job of Seven Years Broke Up With Me

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I lost my job on Thursday, so between the breakup and the unemployment, I’m now one dead dog short of a country song. Much like the breakup, the layoff was both so obviously coming and so completely unbelievable that I’m still having a hard time deciding how I feel about it.

I got this job more than seven years ago through a temp agency. I was originally skeptical about the fact that it was at a software company and turned it down, but then the agent told me I could wear flip-flops to work, and I was sold. I showed up the first day in a skirt and blazer and then wore a t-shirt and jeans every day after. And yes, non-stop flip-flops. It was an office of forty men and, like, two women, and the entirety of my job as an office manager was to stock office supplies, take checks to the bank, and cut cake for the birthdays we seemed to somehow be celebrating multiple times per week every week. My manager was a German guy who vacillated between calling me into his office to watch videos of puppies skateboarding and telling me I wasn’t worth the money he had paid the temp agency for me.

Luckily, his job became “redundant” a couple of years in when we were purchased by a larger company, and then all of the executives in my office became redundant, and then I got a series of new managers in places like Connecticut and Chicago and Massachusetts who each visited to check up on me exactly once. I became close friends with all of the guys in the office, and we started taking summer vacations together. I began a second blog and then a third and then a fourth. I had meandering phone conversations with my best friend and day-long IM sessions with everyone else. A TV was installed behind my desk, and I listened to eight hours of “House Hunters International” and “Property Brothers” or whatever else I wanted every day. I met Kamran for long lunches at steakhouses and brasseries. I moved into a dreamy apartment with one of my co-workers. Another co-worker taught me Photoshop, and I started a photography business. I supported hundreds of meetings and training classes. I met every single person who came into the office. I gained an intimate knowledge of inkpens and recycled paper and shopped office supply sites religiously for deals on soda to stock our office fridge. I loved that job, both for the actual work and for the fact that it paid me for doing my hobbies most of the work day.

Unfortunately, the company was based in Canada, and it was trying to move everyone to the head office, so people who left my office weren’t replaced, and the entire customer support department was eventually laid off. This year, we got down to a total of ten people coming into work on a good day. And then the highest-ranking guy moved to the new office in California, and people started asking me what was going to happen to the NYC office. We were all the way downtown in the Financial District and had an amazing view of the Staten Island Ferry and the Verrazano Bridge, and I’m sure the rent wasn’t cheap, but the company had moved in right after 9/11 and got a discount for being willing to give the area a chance, and people who had been there longer than I had thought our lease was at least through 2016. So I was dreading the idea of having to pack the whole place up in three years, but I never thought anything worse than that would happen. But then my manager announced early last week that she was coming into town, and I got a little worried but thought maybe she was just visiting all of the east coast offices. But then I figured out that she was driving straight down to me from her home in Massachusetts. And then she arrived and started asking way too many questions about how I run things around the office. And then she started locking herself in the conference room and making whispered phone calls. I was dying to just straight-up ask her if she was there to fire me, but I appreciated that she’d driven down to tell me in person and didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

And then she laid me off with an HR person over the phone who told me over and over that it had nothing to do with my performance and everything to do with them not needing an office manager for an office of ten people. I didn’t cry and I didn’t cry, and my manager touched my knee in compassion anyway. And then I started crying and didn’t stop. Imagining not seeing my friends every day. Imagining having to find a new job that couldn’t compare to that one. Imagining being just another person who dreads going to work. Having my phone taken away from me. Having to pack up seven years of shoes accumulated underneath my desk. Thinking about having to move back to Ohio because I can’t afford to live here anymore.

Having to stay home from work on Friday felt like punishment. But then I went for happy hour with my co-workers as usual and didn’t feel like crying anymore. And then we had a busy weekend, and it was time for Jack to go to bed, and I didn’t have to. And then I started feeling like I was on vacation. And then I started feeling like maybe I just won’t get another job. And then I remembered that oh yeah, my severance will eventually run out. And then I started freaking out again.

So part of me thinks that this is the end for me, my luck finally ran out, and now I’ll spend the rest of my life miserable. But part of me feels like this is only the beginning of the rest of my life, and maybe I’ll get a new job that ticks even more of my fulfillment boxes. Because as we know, everything works out for the best for me in the end. If I’m lost, it’s only for a little while.

I Need an Invisibility Cloak

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Why are you looking at me every time you pass by my desk?

We’re not friends!

I’m not going to look back!

You’re going to feel bad about yourself!

That Little Voice in Your Ear

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For a short while, the recording that played when you called my company was of my voice. When our new phone system was installed, the woman who records the greetings company-wide was on vacation, so the IT department asked me to record the greeting.

Wait. Actually, they asked me to recommend someone with a good speaking voice to do it. And I was like, “Well, people have TOLD ME that I should be a voice actor. I wouldn’t want to, you know, toot my own horn or anything, but . . .” And they were like, “Oh, all right.” Embarrassing.

Naturally, during this time, I had extensive fantasies involving all of my exes finding out about this and then calling my workplace continuously, waiting anxiously for the part where I seductively said quality assurance. I later went on to do the voiceovers for two of our marketing videos, which I now assume they’ve favourited on YouTube and listen to quietly in the bathroom on their iPhones after dinner, the soothing words enterprise content management system the only thing keeping them from raising their hands to their nagging new girlfriends and wives some nights.

These are the kinds of thoughts that get me through repeated friend request rejections by them on Facebook.

What’s Going on in There?

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The door to the women’s restroom in one of my company’s offices. Intriguing.