Layoff Envy

It’s kind of like being so cold you wish you were in hell.

You know you’re sick in the head. You know you’re doing an old fashioned “point and poke” at the people who told you to be careful what you wish for. But, the envy is there and there’s no real way to drown it.

Yesterday morning the Company Brass convened a meeting to announce the semi-demise of our company website.

It was a valiant effort: Four full-time editors and two sales reps. That was 18 months ago. As of this week (through layoffs and attrition) the company is down to one staff member. One guy got his pink-slip yesterday morning.

At first I stood there in the meeting, shaking my head, pursing my lips and quietly thanking my lucky bars that I would still be getting a small paycheck this week. There but for the grace…

Then I had to go back to work, back to ripping my nose off with a large grindstone, back to producing a daily miracle that has already been forgotten.

I remember a time almost three years ago. I turned in my resignation at my last job without knowing if I would find another. My then-fiancee had snagged a job in South Carolina and I decided I’d rather follow her than work in a job I really didn’t like. I quit, drugged the dog (she doesn’t ride well), and put rubber to road.

It’s scary knowing you have no job, but there is a sense of freedom to it that is unmatched. It is much like (and I may have made this comparison before) finally telling the emotionally-blackmailing witch you’ve been dating for three months to grab a broom and take to the unfriendly sky. Suddenly, the World of Possiblities no longer looks like a WWF Cage-Match venue.

So, I’m feeling guilty for envying the guy who got cut. He now has a job search ahead of him, much like a few of my other friends who are still wearing out shoe-leather. I have to imagine it isn’t a good feeling.

Apart from shoving something called Pineapple Whip into sugar cones, dipping corn dogs in opaque grease, and hawking new video releases to bored housewives, I’ve not worked in any industry except the one I’m in now. So, I have no real frame of reference about other job markets. I have one friend who is a prosecutor. Another is an accountant. Another an insurance agent. Appaisers, PR Hacks, Tech Security Gurus. I don’t know if anybody is happy in their job. I wonder if there are people out there who have found freedom in their work…or is personal–not patriotic–freedom a job-free possibility that few people ever expeience.

Of course, we should always insert the “We should be happy to living in this country and not sleeping on skid row” caveat. The “Life Ain’t So Bad” caveat always applies when I write here.

But, for a young white boy from a suburb without a city with nothing much to complain about but a sense of professional worthlessness, there is some envy for the life of the people who have a World of Possiblities in front of them.

It’s a guilty envy, but an envy nonetheless.