Corporately Jaded

Well, today’s the day.  The day I no longer have to listen to the BS of bosses who have worked me like a dog while they played golf in the name of business.  Today is the day I can say what’s on my mind and leave a job that has taken my youth and given me a life of meager wages, long hours, and debilitating migraines.  The same job that caused my marriage to fail and my hair to fall.


I pack up all my belongings in a copy paper box; some photos of friends who know me, none of whom work here, a picture of my faithful dog “Dobie,” who died too soon, and my mouse pad with a sailboat on it.  I pick up what’s left of my business cards and pull out one from the box; “Harry Langley – Contract Manager.”  I take a pen out of the desk drawer and cross out “Contract Manager, “and write,” RIP,” and tack it on the bulletin board.  I pick up my small desk easel that has a stack of inspirational cards on it, the top one reads “NEVER take action when you’re ANGRY.”  I pick up my personally purchased Swingline Optima Power Ease stapler.  My boss wouldn’t approve this special purchase, even though my carpel tunnel was caused from the repetitive stapling of documents for over forty-some years.  Hell, he wouldn’t even allow me to take a banker’s box for my stuff.  He insisted I wait until a box of the copy paper was used.    I looked at my liver spotted hand holding the stapler, wondering when those spots happened?  I shoved the stapler in the box, and licked the palm of my spotted hand and slicked down my three stranded comb over.  My hair had left me within ten years of working in this hell hole.  It’s obvious it knew better than me, not to stay.  My palms were sweating, I wiped them off on what was my office chair; the one with no arms.  I was told once by Bill, in Accounts Payable that, only people high up on the corporate ladder got chairs with arms.  I stabbed it repeatedly with my letter opener, daring arms to appear.  I picked up the box and carried my personal effects like it was my last meal before heading to an oven at Auschwitz; all the while thinking…this has to be done, I will go through with it.


I lean my back into the break room door that pushes inward, as I’m trying to wipe my sweaty forehead with my forearm, while balancing my box of treasured possessions on one knee.  I give one good push fueled by my bitter angst and a heart that was pumping ninety miles an hour.  I’m greeted by the din of off-tune voices singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”  I smile like I mean it; although I’m the only one who knows it isn’t so.  My head starts to scream in its all too familiar pain.  I thank them and say, “You guys shouldn’t have.”  My new X-boss Jerry, with his acidic humor retorts, “Ah don’t worry Harry, we’ll be deducting the costs from your last paycheck.”  His crew of brown nosers laughs in respectful insincerity at his lame attempt of humor.  Jerry pulls a chair out for me to sit; it’s in front of the cake, the cake that I hate.  If anyone here really knew me, they’d know I HATE cake!  It’s white frosting with blue lettering that spells out “Congratulations.”  It’s generic, no mention of my name on its face, just something picked up by another grunt who was given the task.  I bend down and push my box of belongings underneath the table and then sit; preparing mentally for the finale.


Everyone is talking and for some reason I feel as though I’m not there.  I hear them and yet I’m away in the distance.  I looked around in realization.  There was hardly anyone that I really knew anymore and they certainly didn’t want to know me.  After all, I was three times their age.  I was one of the lucky ones, or so I was told; one who was kept on.  Most of the others my age were let go; left to fend for themselves, without a pension, at an age where the likelihood of employment was nil.  They called it downsizing but I saw what they did, they brought in the youngsters.  The youngsters who were healthy, who were less of a medical risk.  The youngsters who would work for almost half of what the others that were let go, had made.  The youngsters who thought they would work smarter not harder because they hadn’t been chewed up and spit out by corporate America yet.  Yes, I knew what it was…it was Corporate Genocide.

 
I intended to do some corporate cleansing of my own; show ‘em what I was made of.  I’d rehearsed it over and over.  What did I have to lose?  I’d leave with at least a momentary smile on my face.  Payback, yep, payback.


I looked around at the unfamiliar faces and the few that I actually knew names of.  I watched as overweight Tracy crammed a big piece of cake in her mouth and proceeded to lick off her pudgy fingers, one by one.  I was repulsed by her plica’d skin that was begging for leniency underneath her dress.  I was thinking she’d be dead before she reached fifty if she kept eating like a frenzied shark, and then I thought, no; she’ll die sooner than that.  My thoughts were interrupted by Jerry’s question, “So Harry, what do you have to say about your beloved company that’s kept you fed for all these years?”  Everyone went politely quiet.  The only noise was that of the labored and nasal breathing of Tracy who was picking up another piece of cake and smacking her lips in what I’m most certain was the language of gluttony.  I felt nauseously ill.


I stood up and looked around at all the young eager faces; faces of kids just out of college, living the “American Dream.”  The faces of kids who haven’t been beaten up by life yet, who still think that working hard will reap reward.  I sigh, and in a voice that was not my own (dementedly evil) I blurt out, “I read a really shitty book a while ago, and the only take away from it, was one paragraph, and it goes like this.  I’m going to tell you something important, so you better listen up.”  I looked around at all the young faces and wagged an admonishing finger at all of them.  “If you’re not careful, you can reach a point where you’ve made choices without thinking.  Without planning.  You can end up not living the life you’d meant to.  Maybe one you deserve, but not one you intended.”  I wagged my finger again and screamed, “MAKE SURE YOU THINK, MAKE SURE YOU PLAN.”  I pounded my fists smack dab into the half served cake and then pulled them out and flicked the remains in Jerry’s direction.  Tracy dropped the remainder of her cake and stared bug-eyed at me in fear, like I was the anti Christ, here to steal her food.  The others were speechless and the silence was more deafening than the din of their singing voices.  Jerry tried to speak, but thought better of it, when he saw me bend down.  I suspect his thoughts were that of being gunned down.  Good.


There were panicked gasps as I reached down below the table; followed by sighs of relief when I pulled out the card that was on my desk easel, “NEVER take action when you’re ANGRY.”  I reached for my Swingline Optima Power Ease stapler and walked over to Jerry, my new X-boss, whose hands were now up in front of his face in protection mode.  I simply stapled the card to his tie. 


The laughs of the brown nosers could be heard all the way down the hallway, as could Jerry’s voice yelling, “you’ll pay for this Harry!”  I said to myself, “I already have Jerry, I already have.”  I pushed open the exit door using my box of personal effects for leverage, without even looking back.


I popped open the hatch to my old, but trustworthy Ford Pinto and plopped the box of my belongings down.  My eyes squinted from the all too familiar, excruciating migraine and I felt a sudden sharp pain in my chest that forced me to take a deep breath; unsuccessfully.  I lunged forward grabbing a hold of my box of precious possessions.  I stared as if not there, and the last thing I saw was the easel card that had been underneath the card that ol’ Jerry was now wearing…it read, “GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT.  No one ever said on his death bed, “Gee, if I’d only spent more time at the office.”