Getting fired is a little death. I mean it is not the big D (with the dark grim reaper) followed by a celebration of a life lived, with stories about the dearly departed. It is nothing like that, since that death is the one from which you don't return; it is important to keep it in perspective. It is, however, a definitive ending and, like death, no matter how much it is anticipated, you can never quite be ready.
My friend was fired recently. He had the office next to mine, we shared jokes about office politics, the craziness of the direction of the world and business and we occasionally had lunch together. I knew the rhythm of his day, almost as much as my own family's and through the thin office walls, I could hear not his specific conversations (the walls were not that thin), but the timbre of his voice as he went about the business of the day. It comforted me in an odd kind of way just to have another human being in the workplace to whom I could talk. In the loneliness of the corporate desert, full of people who went about their business oblivious to others, he was a friend.
Then he died. Oh, not the big D, but just as real in the workplace.
His boss (and mine for that matter) asked him to be prepared for his annual review. My friend worked on his review late into the night before; I left the office long before him, and as I was driving down the street out of the parking lot, I saw his head focused on the computer screen in the light of his office window and I thought: He is really working hard on this review.
His numbers just hadn't been there this year, he knew that and knew that it was possible that they might not be acceptable, so he was worried. In the corporate world, especially at a senior level, it is all about reaching the numbers.
In hindsight, as with real death, there were signs that it was coming: The boss had stopped talking to him and the peer group was less supportive but, still, he hoped to beat the odds and he had a plan to return his team to profitability. The decision unfortunately was already made; even as he worked on the future of his team, forces were at work to shut the team down. I have often thought since that he could have used that last evening in the office organizing his desk, writing elaborate goodbyes to the people he cared about, rather than writing a review that would never be discussed. It seems it is important, however, to add shock to the injury of being fired: That is just how it is done.
In the morning, he arrived, waved to me on his way to the review; I gave him a thumbs-up. Then there was a flurry of activity, the boss went into his office followed by the grim reaper of the office otherwise known as “the HR guy.” I already had a bad feeling when the boss dropped by my office to say that he had just let my friend go. He had all the corporate reasons and he is a fair man but I really didn't hear him after the first sentence. Like death, I had half expected it for some time, but I wasn't really prepared and the shock washed over me. As with that final ending, the realization that “it could have been me” stood out in my mind, the hand of corporate death had brushed by me in the next office.
When I went in to see my friend, all his corporate identity trappings were piled on his desk: his cell phone, his BlackBerry, his corporate credit card, his building-access card. In one minute you go from being a welcomed member in the building to being someone who must be prevented from stealing. You are dead, after all, as an employee, your name wiped from the company directory. I found it horrifying and intensely sad.
He left soon after that, in shock himself, to tell his family and his friends about his day at work. His office was cleaned out and sometimes it is used by others, but mostly not, the stench of professional death hangs over it. We don't speak of my friend within our peer group, staying away (as many people do) from the subject of a lost family member. It's almost as though the not-talking makes the loss go away, the avoidance of something that could happen to anyone.
He is doing well after his death, spending time with his family and looking for the right job that will meet his new outlook on the future. I mean, death of any kind really changes how you look at the rest of your life.
It's changed for me, too.
M. MacDonald lives in Mississauga, Ont.
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