Today I get to the office after a long night at the Lab. I am super tired and envious of all the San Francisco people I pass on my way to the office. I am late to work and cranky. Walk around San Francisco during any weekday and there are people everywhere, the park, cafes, it’s like they don’t work or all lie and say they telecommute. Right before I get to work I pop by a coffee shop on a blog down from the office. There are people of all sorts, typing on their laptops, sipping their lattes and laughing their heads off while having their conversations presumably about soy products or crap that annoys me. A part of me is envious, wishing I could be like them sitting there on my laptop, sipping a coffee and working on my blog, writing jokes just for fun. Instead I have to be an adult, go to my career-job writing boring ads for things I don’t care about.
I roll into the office at a quarter past 10 in sunglasses hoping no one notices my bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep. All 20 of my officemates are silently working on their projects at their computers typing away. One is clearly pretending to work while watching a movie or something funny on his screen because he keeps laughing so loud the noise is just grading on my tired ears. I get to my desk, unpack and check my email. Usually I have at least 7 emails from my boss and his bosses asking me to do random updates to my accounts. Today there are no emails. I actually have nothing to do. Besides the jackass laughing in the corner, the silence in the office is piercing. I spend the next 2 hours updating my blog with various stupid jokes in my head completely ignoring what is going on around me.
At noon my boss messages me on my computer’s messenger (even though he is just sitting 25 feet away at his desk). It’s strange how passive-aggressive offices are these days with computers being the way you talk to your co-workers even if they are in the same room. He asks me to meet him in the CEO’s office. I assume they are going to give me a promotion or something along those lines because I’m an idiot. I get laid off. This is the second time in my life I have been laid off and I am 24 years old. The only thing I say to them is “again?” Both Director of my department and the CEO look confused and try to coddle and console me telling me that the lay off has nothing to do with me personally just the economy. I have no emotion on my face at all at this moment. I think it scares them. I don’t look happy or sad. I look like I’m in a comma. After they hand me my check, I feel numbed. I go pack up my desk and walk out. As I get into the elevator heading out of the building I suddenly have tears streaming down my face. They are the “I’m going to Disneyland” tears. I am happy. I am unexplainably ecstatic to be done with the office. I am so happy that I am upset that I am not shattered by this lay off and make an appointment to see Dr. John. Since he is booked up for the next 2 days, I go home and write. I don’t know how or why but some stories just flow from me. I write three about my years at the bar on the blog and proceed to pass out for several hours until my bar shift that night.
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