We Are Often Our Own Worst Enemies

There is something about losing a job which leaves a brand upon a person. Or so I think anyway. So it has been with me. I think.

It's funny, too, how using a different word to describe a thing can totally change the meaning of what has happened in the minds of many. For instance, when I lost my very nice paying job seven and a half years ago I told people I was "fired". My sister Judayl would become almost livid with me for saying this. "You were not fired! Stop saying that. You were laid off. They eliminated your position. Didn't they give you a letter stating your termination had nothing to do with you?"

My termination. Officially, it means something has come to an end. But it has a sense of death about it.

Yes, it is true I got a letter stating the reason I lost my job had nothing to do with me. All of us who were "terminated" at that time got the same letter. Except RT, who argued and fought for a better letter and got it.

But in my mind I was told they didn't want me and that I should not come back. That's as good as fired in my book. Six of one. A half dozen of the other.

And to say my being chosen to be in the department half which was "let go" had nothing to do with me cannot be entirely truthful. There were several reasons, I'm sure, which had very much to do with me, which explain why I was chosen. Four of those reasons stick out in my mind.

A major factor, and one which the company went to great lengths to hide, was my age. Of the sixteen people let go that day, twelve of us were over forty. Three of the four younger employees let go that day were chosen simply to lower the average age. Being over forty I was given a sheet (without names) indicating the ages of all the people being let go and the average age of those people. The average age was 39.8. Only two people over forty were kept. And they were the only two people who knew how to do their jobs.

A second factor, but not nearly so formidable as the first, was my salary. I had been with the company fourteen years. While not the highest paid in my department I still was making a comfortable wage. More money was going to be saved by dumping me than by dumping someone at half my salary. And it wasn't like I couldn't be replaced. I had just written a piece of software which made it possible for anyone in the department to replace me. Wasn't that brilliant of me? [haha]

Formidable as the first factor was, I think the next two were what really sealed the deal against me.

The manager was newly appointed from the ranks. To be honest, he had been promoted too soon and wasn't really ready to take on the position. But the other manager saw an opportunity for his own promotion and took it, leaving his position open. The new manager's insecurities made him paranoid. And he quickly latched onto a Yes Man. The yes man was, of course, the most incompetent person in the department - if not, in fact, the entire company. In fact, he was being fired from the company by another department when my manager took him on. (The yes man had seen the writing on the wall and had maneuvered his way over.) Despite warnings from other managers, he brought the yes man on board. And the yes man immediately became a problem for the department. But nobody could touch him with any piece of evidence. He told the manager everything the manager wanted to hear. And the manager wouldn't listen to anything against him.

Which brings me to reason number three.

I can generally tolerate a lot. And if someone else is incompetent at their job I don't usually care. Until such time that they decide to have me blamed for their mistakes. I refuse credit when it isn't mine, and I simply will not take blame for the same reason. The yes man had been deflecting all of his mistakes at a couple of others (who, by the way, were also cut in the big employee reduction plan). I, and a couple of others, tried to help the innocent, but not being fully versed in that portion of the department were not much help at all. And then the yes man included me.

The argument was short. But loud. And when about a dozen requests to be left alone went unheeded I finally said what I was feeling. "You f*cking a*shole! Get the h*ll away from me!"

Needless to say, that did not go over well with the manager. I found myself in a private meeting - outside the building - in which the manager very nicely explained to me that yes man was really a great employee and I should become friends with him. He also told me something else - which is reason number four of why I was picked to be let go.

I replied that yes man was an effing backside and there was no way I was going to be friends with him. However, in the interest of department health, I would not argue with him again - if he would agree to the same.

As to the manager's other comment, I made no reply. But I really didn't have to.

In a nutshell, the manager's other comment was this: as he saw it, my job was to make him look good to his boss. If I could do that then I was fulfilling my job. If not, I was not. Yes man, by virtue of constantly speaking well of manager when CEO was around, was doing that. I never did anything like that. I needed to start.

To h*ll with that. That wasn't what I was being paid to do. Not in my mind anyway. While I never spoke ill of manager (while I worked there), I wasn't going to play politics. Especially if it meant lying. So I didn't do it.

So, when the big day came and half the department was let go, most of us shared an age over forty. Our salaries were widely ranged. But none of us got alone with yes man, and none of us went out of our way to make manager look good.

I know how to play the workplace game. But if a game isn't fun I just can't bring myself to play it. Not then. Certainly not now. It cost me then and it's costing me now. But as expensive as not playing the game is to me, playing it would cost me so much more. I would cease to be me, and I couldn't live with myself. I know. Because there was a time when I did play the game. And I hated myself so much - and the company which insisted I play - that I actually refused a raise two years in a row. And believe it or not, that did not go over well either.