Laid Off

Before you freak out, no I haven't been laid off. This is the story of when my roommates and I lost our jobs many years ago.





Laid Off

The alley behind Dimension4 Inc. was accessed by a one-way locking door, kept propped open by a short stub of two-by-four pine. I spent so much time back there, in that alley, that it’s really the first thing I think of when remembering that place. Not my desk, nor the kitchen, nor the receptionist, nor any of the other guts within the office’s stale body. That alley, with its landscape of cracked, uneven concrete – that’s where the mind goes first.

There were generally between four and ten of us back there at a time, sometimes more. There were the appointed hours, the givens, when I was assured company in the alley: First thing in the morning, before and after lunch, and before heading home. But then there were also the random, spontaneous meetings in between. I’d be propped up at my desk, maybe working, maybe not really, and someone could at any moment, tap me on the shoulder, do a little sign language – two fingers to the lips, followed by a nod – and I’d follow them out to the alley.

We kept each other smoking. It was resource reciprocity really. Like those Eskimos up near the Arctic Circle, the Netsilik tribe. Everyone eats no matter who hunted and killed the seals on that particular day. We didn’t deal in seal meat of course. Our commodity was cigarettes, and if anyone ran out, that person was provided for, because we knew they’d have us covered when we’d run dry ourselves. We were a tribe of smokers. And we loved to play hackey-sack.

We spent hours every day, standing in the alley, in a poorly drawn circle, smoking and kicking that small, dirty sandbag around, trying desperately to keep it from touching the ground.

“Ah shit. Hold on.” Alex got on his hands and knees to retrieve the hackey-sack he’d kicked underneath a car in the parking lot abutting the alley.

“Nice kick Alex,” I’d prodded. Alex was a small, wiry guy with pale skin and sparse facial hair that showed either laziness or sheer dedication on his part.

“Got it,” declared Alex. “Game on bitches.”

Dimension4 Inc. had provided me my first job after moving to Washington State. Located in downtown Bremerton, a modest city across Puget Sound from Seattle, the company specialized in the conversion of old hardcopy drawings into digital CAD files. The work was easy. One would essentially sit there at the computer, tracing over existing lines with new ones. Literally anyone with eyes and fingers could do the job. Brains not required. Seriously. My friends and I would often go drinking during lunch. Vodka mixed with whatever juice sounded good that day. There was even a group who would spend their lunch break smoking joints at some guy’s house. They’d come back to the office high as a kite, eyes glossy and bloodshot. It didn’t matter though. Nobody bothered anyone. We sat at our desks, sometimes intoxicated, blasting music through our headphones, doing our mindless work. And we loved it.

Though there was really no way to move up in the company, there was also no reason to leave as we saw it. We considered ourselves lucky. There were about twenty-five of us, all about the same age, some of us roommates, most of us friends and hanging out on our off time. The money wasn’t great, but it was better than I’d made before. Towards the end of my time there, I got to be the highest paid drafter on staff (which really wasn’t saying much), because I’d taken a lead role on a couple projects. I was playing manager to a group of about six people, all straight out of high school. This granted me the ability to delegate work to the newbies, thereby freeing up more of my own time for the important matter of downloading music online. There was nowhere else to go from here. Either I’d reached the top, or the ladder had fallen out from under me.

In December 2000, a couple weeks before Christmas, our manager, Jeff Rochford, asked Jason Green, Jason Munich and me to please meet him in the conference room. Jeff was a character straight out of Gary Larson’s “Far Side” comics: Small eyes hidden beneath a heavy, protruding brow, and a miniature head, disproportionate to a greater, pear-shaped torso.

Jeff had been pacing around the office all morning, making strange noises with his lips and carrying a look of guilt upon his face. We didn’t think too much of it at the time. Thought maybe he’d screwed something up again and was trying to work his way out of it. Jeff had a knack for making mistakes in the drawing files and trying to fix it himself (thereby aggravating the problem further), then asking for one of us to help him out.

The Jasons and I sat waiting in the dull, lifeless room with the big table. These guys were my best friends, and at the time we were sharing a two-bedroom townhouse in Silverdale, a sleeper town just north of Bremerton. Green resided on the couch most nights, unless I was away at my girlfriend’s house, in which case he’d occupy my room.

We sat there for a few minutes, the three of us, wondering what this was about. Maybe we were getting a raise? Each of us had, after all, taken lead roles on a project or two.

After a few quiet moments, Jeff finally entered the room, looked at each of us, and then put his eyes to the floor as he made his awkward way to a seat across from us.

“Hey guys. How we doin?” he asked.

“Uh, okay,” Munich answered. Green and I sat still, silently watching Jeff’s nervous movements: One hand sliding across the table before him, the other tapping the side of his chair, his buttocks shifting around like he was training them to use chopsticks.

Finally, he sat back, looked up at the three of us and said, “So, you’re all aware we’ve had to make some adjustments here.”

“Yeah,” I answered. I understood. Our teams would get smaller, our workloads larger.

“Things are slowing down,” he added. “Money’s tight.”

I glanced over at my roommates. They stared at the floor, like they could see what was coming. I couldn’t see anything.

“Guys, they’re letting you go. Laying you off.”

The words were fists. They punched me in the chest, broke ribs and made my heart skip.

“Seriously?” I asked, for no other reason but to break the silence. I hated the silence. I hated that I could hear the fluorescent lights humming above me. Most of all, I hated Jeff for telling us we’d just lost our jobs. I knew it wasn’t his decision, but I hated him just the same.

“Yeah, seriously,” Jeff answered. “It sucks. I want you to know, I fought it. Brandon really fought it.” Brandon was the senior office manager. He’d been the one to hire us, and the one to party with us from time to time.

“Alright,” Munich said flatly. We looked at him, expecting more, but that’s all he had to say.

“The good news is, well, if you want to call it that,” Jeff looked embarrassed for trying to rationalize the situation, “you’re being laid off, not fired. So, you’ll be eligible for unemployment benefits.”

It seemed a full minute passed, then, defeated, I asked, “So how does that work?”

Jeff explained the process to us. Said there were forms to fill out. He’d get them for us, show us what to do. Said it was easy. You just send in this form each week, stating that you contacted three potential employers. As long as the form is sent with the three contacts, you’d get a check every week. Simple as that. Said it wasn’t much, but enough to get by on until we found new jobs. He finished by assuring us that he’d give us a good reference. He’d already started our letters of recommendation. Been working on them all morning.

I made my way back to my desk, careful not to look at anyone. I was desperately trying to keep it together. Jeff had said we could either clean out our things now or come in on Saturday to do it. There was no way in hell I was going to do it now. Not in front of everyone. I walked to my desk, grabbed my jacket, my keys, and turned to leave. My friend Mike stopped me, a worried look in his eyes.

“Hey, Jack, where ya goin?”

I looked at him, making eye contact with the first person since walking out of the room where I’d just lost my job. “I don’t know,” I replied, my voice cracking. I felt ashamed that I was being made to leave, ashamed that I was fighting back tears, ashamed that I was taking this so personally. They didn’t understand. This wasn’t just a job. This was my life. These were my friends. This is where I went every day after waking up. This was the first place I’d ever been where I felt important. The first place I’d ever been where I felt that I was part of a group – a group of people who actually liked me, thought I was funny and fun to be around. The first place I’d ever been where I was actually respected.

“I don’t know,” I’d said to Mike, hardly slowing my step as I feebly answered his question – a question which, unbeknownst to him, was much larger than he had meant. The question itself was what did me in. Where are you going? I don’t know.

The fists hit me in the chest again and again as I rushed down the stairs, toward the back door of the building. I threw the door open, didn’t bother closing it, and stood in the alley for a moment. I lit up the last cigarette I’d smoke in that alley, and then walked off to my car, feeling the first tears of rejection show themselves past the lower rim of my sunglasses.

Hey, Jack, where are you going? I’m going to the liquor store, Mike. I’m going to the liquor store and then I’m going home to get drunk with my newly unemployed roommates. I’m going to smoke a pack of cigarettes, drink too much, and call my girlfriend. She’s going to come over and have sex with me in the garage because she’s so sorry. Feels so bad for me. I’ll take the sympathy, and then I’ll rejoin my roommates, drink more and get sick. That’s where I’m going Mike.

As it turned out, unemployment wasn’t all bad. Jeff was right about the checks. We’d send our little forms into the state, promising that we’d tried real hard to get a job that week, and they’d send us money. And between the three of us, we actually had plenty to pay the rent and still have a good time. Of course, some car payments were deferred, some utility bills paid a little late, but we always had beer, cigarettes, and enough money left over to subsist on peanut butter & honey sandwiches and Kraft macaroni & cheese. We slept late, played video games, and drank beer. We stayed unemployed for three months. A paid vacation, courtesy of Dimension4 Inc. and the great state of Washington.

Late one morning, Green and I were lounging on the couch, watching reruns of “Friends,” when Munich suddenly came around the corner and into the living room. He carried a smile on his face and a bright orange bowling ball in his hands. He was excited because we’d decided we were actually going to leave the townhouse that afternoon and hit the lanes.

“Nice ball, Jason,” Green had said, just as the strangest thing we’d ever seen was about to take place.

We watched as Munich took his bowler stance, raised the ball about eight inches before his face, brought it forward and down in a graceful arch, and then forward again as if to practice his follow-through. Except, he followed through. For real. His right arm brought the blazing orange ball to an angle perpendicular to his upright poise, and then, he released it. He released it!

His thumb had gotten stuck.

Life suddenly slowed to a crawl as we sat there, unmoving, unflinching, on the great, gray sectional couch, snaking its way around the edge of the living room. Green and I watched as the bowling ball hovered through the air – a cratered moon orbiting a carpeted planet. Only, this moon was headed straight for the sliding glass door at the other end of the room.

The sound of the glass shattering and showering to the ground was heart stopping. We watched as the bowling ball continued past the exploding vertical plane, took a bounce on the concrete patio outside, tumbled into the grass beyond.

We sat still, staring at the disaster for a few seconds, allowing time to adjust to its proper pace. Then we looked back at Munich: pale, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. Then we looked at each other, both of us surprised to see the other one smiling a crazy kind of smile. A smile neither of us had seen on the other’s face in a long time.

That was awesome.

That’s all we could think of: Holy shit. That was awesome.

That’s when I knew the stars were, in fact, not against me. Life meant something again. This was the turning point, when life and all its unfortunate humor had slapped us in the face. Woke us up. Got us moving again. Got us filing a fake police report over the phone, so the apartment complex would pay for the damages. Vandalism, we’d said. Kids. Damnedest thing.

It was easy. Cops don’t actually show up to check out a little broken window. I gave the woman on the phone the carefully constructed white lie. She gave me the case number which I was to pass on to the apartment manager.

I don’t know what it was exactly about that bowling ball, exploding through the glass door like that, but it seemed to have woke us up – reminded us we’d been laid off for a reason. We got off the couch. We got new jobs. I moved to Seattle and made many new friends, including the wonderful woman who would become my wife.

That bright orange bowling ball, soaring through the air with its shimmering tail of glass.

A comet careening toward the Earth.



jkh