Now that I've made my layoff official, it feels good no longer being a closeted employee. Having people think that some commercial entity, with a health plan and an outsourced payroll system and free shitty coffee in the cafeteria, is giving me money in exchange for a specific service.
Writing yesterday's post was an odd experience, because my eyes often couldn't make sense of what my fingers were typing. At times, they would look down at my keyboard and scowl incredulously while my hands merrily danced about and announced that I didn't care about being mercenarily screwed.
I honestly don't have an answer why three jobs in a row have said Thanks But No Thanks. I might be destined to roam the land as a vocational free-radical, looking to find temporary purchase in a universe of unstable protons.
Or maybe since the divorce I've become a lot more receptive to the Time To Go vibe--that intangible force of groupthink that Seinfeld ably described as the moment when a table of people at a restaurant suddenly realizes at once that the evening is over, and it's time to spill out into the street and flag a cab.
One thing I'll really miss is bringing my kids here. The boys like that there's chocolate milk in the break room and lots of dry-erase boards to fill with images of robots farting. They kick balls around the roof deck, play hide-and-seek in the lockers, and feed piles of documents into the fridge-sized shredder. It's like partying with the love-child of Six Flags and Office Depot.
They were here on Monday, and as I prepared to leave I told them this would probably be their last time here. Robert asked why, and I told him I wouldn't be working here anymore, and I wasn't sure where I'd be next. Robert said, "I'm not worried, Dad. You're a genius! You'll figure something out."
And then he drew this humongous fart cloud next to R2D2.
