This year, my sister, Fiona, received the Merry Christmas, “your job has been eliminated” speech as her box of wonder from her employer in mid-December after 17 years of faithful service. Awesome, is it not? The joy of living in America. Absolutely, give us your tired, your hungry, your poor and/or a dedicated workforce, so we can shred their livelihood after they’ve devoted their blood, sweat and blood to helping a f’ing corporation grow ITS business and/or make it a better place.
And, then, another family member, Mitchell, also got the congrats, it’s a shiny new pink slip for Christmas along with 78 other devastated individuals! And such was allegedly due to a downturn in profits. However, the black and white of it indicates according to the Wall Street Journal – profits were up 32.9% at XYZ, Inc., where Mitch had been working.
And this kick to the curb occurred not 6 weeks after Mitch received a mega promotion, and one of his now disenfranchised co-workers had also gotten a leg up the corporate ladder as well not 2-3 months ago that included a nice increase in salary. Thanks for that, f’ing bastards!
Ya gotta wonder what their mindset is when these execs/upper management, whomever decide to chuck their employees when profits aren’t down. Did they suddenly realize that a 28%/30%/35% profit margin isn’t enough to bid on that third world country they’d been lusting over on Ebay? For fuck’s sake, they can’t have that. What would the neighbors say?
But after Enron and the Bernie Madoff debacle, and the like, we shouldn’t be surprised by corporate deception and greed, right? However, that doesn’t mean we have to LIKE it and doesn’t revoke our right to BITCH until writer’s cramp or a croaky voice prevents us from bitching anymore…
But I digress, as Fiona revealed the details of her occupational severance on Christmas Eve, she started crying/then sobbing (understandably so) and apologizing for ruining my Christmas!
Holy Fuck Balls, no one says the holidays have to be all candy canes and mystery Santas bearing Porsches! And if nobody cries on Christmas, it just ain’t a success, doncha know?
Otherwise, Hollyweird wouldn’t churn out so many dramas about turkeys that never get cooked because bizarre typhoons appearing from nowhere on dry land on Thanksgiving, or someone forgetting to thaw the damned turkey and/or Kim-Kim showing up in the not-to-die-for dress made of bamboo and Guatemalan mud that Jane wanted to wear but couldn’t fit her fat ass into… sigh.
I tried to convey to Fiona that she has every right to blubber her damned eyes out because I know how devastating it is to get downsized because such happened to me twice in 2005, and the first layoff was from a position teaching English at junior college where I’d been for almost 5 years, a position I really loved.
And the immense frustration of watching someone you love having their life decimated for reasons that make no sense – certainly explains why so many folks go ballistic and begin spraying bullets in the general vicinity of those who had wronged them. However, Fiona is not that kind of person AT ALL.
Regardless, losing your job after 17 years of dedicated service and lots of overtime, and occasionally getting to work at 5:00 in the damned morning?! That fucking blows-PERIOD!
And the thing is, little did I know at the time that I was also about to be sans employment. Yep, I too lost my job as a fraud specialist at Jeans, Inc. a couple weeks after Fiona’s employment cessation. And get this, I found out from an announcement on the company webpage.
Yes, the end result is the same whether my 12-year-old manager delivered the news or t’was broadcast via the company web. Okay, so he’s not really 12. I believe he shaves and everything, No offense to Mr. Haynes, my former supervisor. He’s a super nice guy…but I gotta get the laughs where I can, n’est-ce pas? And such was the first time I’d been canned that my manager had not been the one to convey the news, so that was odd.
With me, however, it’s not as earth-shattering to be cast adrift in the ugly waters of unemployment as it was for Fiona because I had only been at Jeans, Inc., for around 6 months, so I wasn’t as invested. And I completely understand why I and 100+ people were let go. Business was down so much that on my last day, they sent me home before I even got logged into my computer. And there were times when we had 8 or 9 orders to work with probably 75 people working. So, unless the phone was ringing, there was nothing to do. But when such isn’t the case, ya gotta wonder…
Plus, fortunately, my wonderful hubby makes enough coin that we shall not be worrying about keeping the lights on, but our cashflow will be a might pinched. Additionally, I tucked away some cash that will help fill the void should the scraps of government alms not suffice (i.e. unemployment compensation) until I find something else.
That said, Fiona, Mitchell and I are intelligent, capable, talented individuals, and we will OVERCOME.
That said, why am I so confident about Fiona and I rising from the ashes of cubicle hell? Well, let’s review our track record. Between the two of us, we have –
1) Obtained college degrees, which were financed largely with our OWN cash – though student loans, et. al. did help enormously.
2) Said FU to Cancer and won.
3) Tangled with the biggest bully who ever lived and.. WON big time (i.e. check out http://tenaciousbitch.com/2011/07/20/blog-24-evicting-the-squatter-part-i/ – about evicting my drug addict brother from my Grandmother’s house )
4) Survived 4 or 8 or 9 divorces (we lost count – okay, so maybe I’m really just talking about me, but you get the NOTION).
5) Survived being cheated on (by those who may or may not have been spouses).
6) Moved to New York City alone with no job in hand, less than $300 in the bank and a 2-year-old in tow and only one human to call a friend in that wild-assed, incredible and somewhat overwhelming metropolis.
7) Defied the laws of fashion because we just don’t give us shit.
8) Married a rock star or two and/or frequently went home with a guy in the band if frequently means once or twice ..:).
9) Held the title of DIRECTOR or VP…
10) Made more than $75K/year – which isn’t astronomical on a world scale, but ’tis nothing to sneeze at, and in West Virginia where we hail from, that sum makes us royalty/rare birds in the earnings department – especially because we’re women!
11) And ONE OF US met with and pitched a screenplay to members of Warner Brothers/CBS/Disney/Bad Robot Prod Co (who produced the TV show Lost and the Transformers franchise) and countless other execs from Tinseltown. And such was done without a trace of nervousness, which was no EASY TASK!
12) And we did not hesitate walk on cracks, skip school, chew gum in church, rip tags from mattresses, occasionally talk back to parents/teachers/cops and in my case threw up on (yeah – check out
http://tenaciousbitch.com/2011/10/04/blog-35-the-birthday-assaultaka-the-date-from-hell-part-2/
…not to mention we don’t hesitate to ask Santa for the big SHINY TOYS.
And we occasionally imbibed alcohol during school hours, got arrested and lived to tell about it, jay-walked at WILL, sweet-talked the guy from the electric company into not shutting off our electric with a Coke and a smile (and it didn’t hurt that I/we happened to be wearing a bikini at the time…:) cuz that was back in college), and wore gaudy fedoras sporting big maroon feathers one Christmas despite the pleading of others not to do so.
In other words, we’re kind of FEARLESS…
However, if we’d known we were going to accomplish so much, Fiona and I might’ve chosen different togs for the photo below…
And if that photo doesn’t convince you that, nobody is putting BABY and her sis in a corner…I don’t know what will.
So, go ahead universe, BRING IT the fuck on…cuz we’re on the mound waiting to bat – no matter how big or bad the bullshit you might chuck our way! And this blip of joblessness is no exception in the scheme of our lives.
And I shall sign off by saying, well, guess I buried the lead. I just got confirmation that I have a new a job starting 1/19/15 – provided I pass the background check (hmmm…keep you posted on that).
So, stay tuned, boys and girls cuz in the infamous words of Bachman, Turner, Overdrive – You ain’t seen nothin’ yet…:)
Love and chocolate chip cookies,
Tenacious B and her band of truth-spouting hippies
~TB/ks
