Games & Consequences

The effects of 9/11 were far reaching. Many businesses suffered a significant decline in revenue, the venerable McKinsey included. And along with a decline in revenue often comes -- the inevitable staff cuts.

One day in early November, I stepped into Tim's office as he was listening to new messages on speakerphone. I heard part of a message from a guy in the accounting department whom Tim had been working closely with on budget issues. While the message was playing Tim suddenly realized its subject matter and pounced to take his phone off speakerphone mode. But he wasn't fast enough. I had already heard the news: the headcount in our department was too high. It was an unfortunate head's up that a bad storm was starting to brew.

Two weeks passed with no signs, but by the third week I knew the process had begun. The first tip-off: a supervisor who had always been cheery and sociable turned very serious, and began spending a lot of time in her office with the door closed. Then Tim had several hush-hush, closed-door meetings with her in his office, which he never asked me to put on his calendar. Eenie, meenie, mynie, moe... will you or I have to go?

Broken up with Jason for the past several weeks, my mood was blue to begin with, but this new situation added to my distress. Desperate for a distraction, I did the unthinkable-yet-thinkable: I e-mailed Jason and asked if he wanted to go out. He didn't make me wait long for a reply. Within an hour he called, and yes, he wanted to see me again.

We met at Acme, one of my favorite bar/restaurant hangouts in the East Village. When we saw each other we played it cool -- no touching or even a kiss hello. After drinks and a bite to eat, we headed to a nearby dance club. For the first few songs we danced without touching. But then a song came on that suited itself to slow, close dancing. Dancing close, we started to kiss. One kiss was all it took to start acting like a couple again.

We left around eleven. Outside, in the shelter of a doorway, we stood talking for a while.

I asked if I could go back to his place? He said he didn't think it was a good idea -- he was now seeing someone else. Nothing yet had happened between them, but it might.

I said I didn't care about the other girl. I mean, sure I cared, but in the moment I cared more about getting cozy with him in his comfy bed. After having me insist I was okay with his dating situation, we headed back to his place. It was nice to stay over.

A few days later, just after another of Tim's hush-hush meetings had concluded, I walked into his office to hand him a message. He immediately shoved some papers from the meeting into a binder he kept of current work in progress. I knew there was information in those papers about who was going to be cut. I also knew there was no way I wasn't going to look at them. Laura, the boss's highly trusted assistant, was soon to turn into a lowly snoop. I had never betrayed Tim's trust before, but I suppose there's a first time for everything.

The next morning, when Tim was out of his office in a meeting, it was time to do my dirty work. I nonchalantly sauntered into his office. I was always in his office straightening up -- no one would suspect a thing. I removed the binder from the shelf where he kept it, placed it down and opened it up.

I quickly leafed through the pages until found his notes from the meeting. The first page was a list of those who were going to be cut. Scanning the list, I saw "Laura." My name is on the list! A shock surged through me but I kept going. I moved onto the next page of those who were not going to be cut. I scanned that list and wasn't on it. I closed the binder and put it back in its place.

I returned to my desk stunned and with a racing heart. I hadn't thought that I was going to be cut -- Tim loved me. I was the best assistant he'd ever had -- he told me so himself. But that was of no consequence. The budget had to be trimmed and I was expendable. And now I had to cope with this secret, shocking discovery.

I started playing The Pretending Game. I had to pretend that everything was status quo. I didn't know. I hadn't seen. La-dee-da, work as usual. Conversations with Tim as usual. Conversations with my co-workers -- even with those who's names I had seen on The List -- as usual.

Playing The Pretending Game was grueling. Grueling! It was my fault though. I had snooped to uncover this rat's den of information, and now it was my responsibility to deal with what I had found. Would I have been better off being one of the other five on The List who were in the dark? I didn't know, and couldn't take back my actions to find out.

The end of that workday took forever to arrive. It was a Friday, and I couldn't wait to escape to Woodstock for the weekend. En route to the Port Authority, I felt my composure beginning to unravel, as it does from time to time when life's stresses build up and up on me.

I boarded the bus and collapsed into a window seat on the brink of tears. It was dark on the bus when it pulled out of the station. I turned toward the window and pulled my coat over my head to have some privacy while indulging in my misery....

I love my job. I don't want to leave. I love Tim and the laughs we share, the dirty jokes we tell, the amazing fun we have working together. He saved me from a life of temping, gave me the security of a permanent job, cared about me -- took me under his wing. What other boss would ever give me the keys to his apartment on a tragic day? I've had it good for a year and a half -- I'll never find another job this great. It's all downhill from here. And in this economy? There's nothing.

Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Long, arduous days I slogged through while playing my miserable Pretending Game. Additional closed-door meetings added to my unease, and being given virtually no work to do made things nearly unbearable.

To occupy my time, and ultimately do what needed to be done, I started to clean out my desk and organize my computer files. Also, I started bringing personal belongings home. I was preparing. And I cried, but never the slightest drop at work. I was trying to get my emotions about the loss of my job out of my system, so if -- or when -- the official axe was dropped I would act like the professional I'm actually not.

When I showed up at work the following Monday morning, the not-knowing was really getting to me. There was nothing to do and I felt like I couldn't take it anymore. I felt like marching into Tim's office and saying, "Just fucking tell me. TELL ME!" Of course I couldn't say that, but I did say, in an annoyed tone, "I have no work to do. What am I supposed to do?"

Exasperated himself, Tim replied, "I don't know."

Mid-afternoon that day, I was eating lunch at my desk. Tim had been out of his office somewhere for the last couple of hours. When he returned he stopped by my desk. Monotone, he said, "When you're finished with your lunch I want to talk to you about something."

I replied, "Now is fine." I put down my fork and pushed away my plate.

"Come into my office."

I followed Tim into his office. He sat down at the table where he always sat when we discussed work-related things, or when we just hung out and talked about what we did over the weekend. He said, "Close the door." I closed the door and sat in my usual chair. He said, "Today's the day."

He knew that I knew exactly what he meant.

Although I had prepared myself for over a week of the possibility of losing my job, when the axe struck, still -- it was tough to take. Probably all the prepping and preparing in the world wouldn't have made much difference that day, because losing something you really care about is gonna hurt no matter what.

The exact words that followed "Today's the day" escape me now, but they hardly matter. What mattered was that my great job, with my great boss, was no longer. The pleasant workplace niche I had been so thrilled to find, and so happy to exist in had been taken away from me in an instant, and there wasn't anything I could do but to try to accept my fate gracefully.

When Tim started to explain my severance package, I couldn't help but get all choked up. It was such a struggle to control my emotions. As he explained the specifics of my "separation" I just nodded my head up and down, mumbling "Uh, huh" and "Okay" when I was expected to say something in acknowledgement of an important statement. I didn't care how much severance I would be getting, because my job meant so much more to me than the usual bottom line: money. I had learned years ago that money is nice, but it's not happiness.

Three thousand, or is it four thousand they're giving me? Whatever. So my bank account will go up. Those dollars will soon disappear, and then what will I do? Where will my new workplace home be? Will I like it? Will I like my next boss? Because if I don't like my boss I'll be working just for the money, and then I'll never be happy.

When Tim's difficult talk ran its course, I stood up and took a few steps toward the window. There was a plant on the ledge that Tim and I had grown from a little sprout. It was our funny mirliton, actually. I lifted the pot and removed the blue ceramic plate it was resting on. In a quiet voice I said, "This is my plate."

I walked toward the door to leave, but Tim intercepted my path. He put his arms around me and gave me a big, big hug. He had hugged me before, but never like this. With care from his heart he said, "We're going to keep in touch, aren't we?"

Of course I wanted to stay in touch. Tim was so much more to me than just "my boss." He had become a good friend, or so I hoped. But in my state of despair I didn't want to proclaim my true feelings. Barely shifting my downward gaze, I nodded and replied a meager, "Uh, huh."

He said, "We'd better!"

I left Tim's office. As instructed, I headed to HR for more on the layoff procedure. Friday was my official last day. Although I was going to be paid for the week, I was told I could come and go as I pleased, spending the week to wrap up things at my own pace. I had heard that sometimes when companies lay off employees they give you a box and say, "You have half an hour to leave." Or sometimes they have security escort you directly out of the building and say they'll mail your stuff. Fortunately it wasn't like that at all here.

I finished my meeting with HR and returned to my desk. I began to remove the pictures surrounding my desk area. Lisa, a co-worker whose office was directly across from where I sat, walked past and asked, "What are you doing?"

Holding back tears, I whispered, "I was laid off."

"No, Laura! Oh, I'm so sorry...."

After further condolences, a melancholy Lisa walked into her office. A few minutes later Candice, Lisa's co-worker/friend who shared an office with her, walked past me with an awful look on her face. "Candice" was one of the names on The List, and I knew she had just been told the same fate as me. She headed into her office. Before she closed the door I heard Lisa cry out, "Oh my God! Not you too! Oh God oh God oh God...." [Whimpers and muffled sobs in the background as door closes]

Others, whose names I had seen on The List, walked past. I could tell from their expressions that they, too, had been told. Handwritten it was, but that List turned out to be the final decree.

Somehow my desk area became a point of convergence for many in our department. Some who had been laid off were crying, and others who hadn't been were crying for their co-worker friends who had. It was a very sad day for our department. We had been such a tightly knit group.

When the group dispersed I packed up my things as quickly as possible. I wanted to get out of there. Although I had been paring down my belongings for the past week, I still had too much to carry home in one trip so I would have to come back. Already I knew that I didn't want to. I slipped out that day without having seen Tim again.

I got home around 4:00. I was a wreck, but I didn't want to be alone. I wanted to be with Jason. To be my savior at this emotional time was a lot to ask (only recently had we started seeing each other again and he was interested in another girl), but that didn't stop me from calling him the minute I got home and asking if I could please come over?

He said no -- it wasn't a good idea. "Okay, fine," I replied, "I shouldn't have asked. I'll go someplace else."

But soon he changed his mind. He convinced me it was okay to come over -- he did want to see me. When I rang his doorbell an hour later, he was starting to prepare a chocolate drizzle glaze for a cake he had baked for me.

We had a nice low-key evening. The clock ticked past midnight. Soon it would be sleep time. Mmm, so comfortable to be in his arms, to be in his bed. But there was such turmoil in my mind. Tomorrow was a workday, but I had no job to go to. What was I going to do next?

As I lay in Jason's bed that night, I thought of something I never think: I don't want to be me. I didn't want to fall asleep, because I didn't want to wake up in the morning into my life. What a terrible thing to think. Yet I was indeed thinking it, and believing it, as inevitably I succumbed to sleep.

Pre-set inner alarm clock, damn you for going off! Don't you know that I don't want you, need you, anymore? I woke up at six a.m. and try as I might, I couldn't fall back to sleep. Jason wasn't working either, so he wasn't getting up anytime soon. I had a few hours to myself in his apartment. A few hours to wallow in my misery.

Around 9:00, while in the midst of cleaning up a mess of overflowed coffee grounds from using a napkin instead of a filter (I couldn't find his filters), I heard Jason call out, "Laura?" I headed into his bedroom, more than willing to slip under the covers for a cuddle.

After a leisurely morning, we walked to nearby Chinatown in search of an aquarium and some fish. Jason wanted to get a fish tank so his cats would have some entertainment when they were home alone. He mentioned wanting to also get a custom-designed acrylic shelf with a hole in it so they could go "fishing," but that idea never came to pass.

Strolling around on that sunny, crisp November afternoon, I felt like my life had suddenly become an unreality. I thought about all of the people who were inside, working. On a "regular" afternoon I would have been, too.

Although I had told my co-workers I would be in the next day to retrieve the remainder of my belongings, I had since decided that I didn't want to see anyone again. I figured no one would be there after hours.

I went into the office around 8:00 p.m. that evening. As expected, not one person was around. I checked my voice mail. There were two messages from Tim. He said he was sorry to have missed me the day before, and in both messages he asked if I was okay. I didn't reply to either. A childish sort of spite within me wanted him to worry about me. I knew he must have been having a hard time with things as well, but it couldn't have been as difficult as the time I was having because at least he still had his job.

An hour was all it took to finish wrapping things up. On my way out I stopped and took a look behind me. I viewed my now-barren workspace. Done with everything, and out of here for good.

I had planned on visiting my mom and Pam the following afternoon. In the morning, before leaving my apartment to catch the bus, I checked my work voice mail and found yet another message from Tim. He was now perturbed by my silence. In his message he firmly stated that I must call to go over my computer passwords and files, or else I would be in breach of the terms of my separation agreement.

Fine. You want me to call? I'll call.

I dialed Tim's number. He immediately picked up the line (caller ID -- he knew it was me). He exclaimed, "Hi! How are you?"

In a tone completely void of any emotion, I replied, "Fine, thanks." Leaving no room whatsoever for friendly chitchat, I proceeded to reel off information on all things pertaining to the turnover of my position.

When I finished with the transfer of information, after a pause Tim replied, "Oh... uh, okay. Thanks for that." Then he said, "Why don't you give me a call when you're ready to have a real conversation?"

This time it was I who hesitated. My guard was faltering. It was all I could do to choke out, "Okay, bye," before I hung up the phone and burst into tears.

Once again it was good to get out of the City and spend time in the beautiful, peaceful country. By the end of the week my mood had improved, and I felt ready to have that "real conversation" with Tim.

He was very happy to hear from the "old" Laura. When he asked where I was and I told him I was in Woodstock, he said, "We're visiting the property tomorrow. Do you want to come with us?" I knew all about the property he had recently purchased in a town about 20 miles away, but I had never been there.

Beaming inside, I replied, "I would love to go."

The hardest part of losing my job was that I did not know if I would also lose Tim. This plan to meet meant we were indeed going to transition to friends outside of the office. After a super-fun visit to Tim and Warren's property, and a ride back to NYC with them afterward, I felt ready to face whatever challenges lay ahead.