Recalling the Disastrous Day...

It was a normal day. There was a departmental lunch meeting scheduled and I had a bit of preparing to do for a meeting the next day as well as some calls to make and other little details to iron out. I brought my lunch in because I completely forgot about the lunch meeting... so I put that in the fridge out back for another day....

We all go to lunch and it is up in some schwanky new restaurant downtown. The meal was o.k. and really wasn't anything special. It did, however take a looong time. There wasn't a ton of office talk, but it was all good none-the-less. At the end of the lunch, we were all instructed to meet back at the big table for some other things that needed to happen.

When we all met, there were some "corporate" propaganda materials handed out and then we played some music identification game. Kind of like a bonding exercise. It was fun and informing, but nothing special.

I retreated back to my office when it was done and began to get some calls in and prep for the meeting the next day. It was already about 3 o'clock. Most everyone had disappeared getting stuff done that the lunch meeting and additional time (wasted) that afternoon. Around 4PM, I was asked by my boss to come look at something. On the way back, I made the comment to the effect of you're not going to kick me when I'm down, are you? I was a little overloaded with what I had to do and didn't need any more. When I entered the room, his boss was waiting in there for me... and I had a really bad feeling.

They canned me right there, then brought me to HR for a debriefing. Funny thing was that both of the bosses stayed in the room the entire time as the HR lady shoved legal documents and requested signatures. I was completely stunned.

I then walked back to the studio and slowly stunned each person I ran into. Very depressing, really.

I later broke the news to my wife... I have just been let go from the company I've given my loyalty to for 13.5 years. It really changes some of my core values... for the worst. I always give the benefit of the doubt until proven wrong. And I was....