How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Being Laid Off

There's something to be said for knowing when the jig is up.

Back in January, I got canned from my cushy corporate job at the big fat financial company, and now I’m what the state of Texas calls: “Eligible for COBRA benefits through July 31, 2027.”

Everyone says how hard it is to be unemployed, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. Being unemployed is the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It suits me, I think. My complete lack of ambition helps.

Sometimes people ask me what I do for a living.

“Shut the fuck up,” I say. “Nobody likes a Nosy Nelly.”

As part of my severance package from the big fat financial company, I agreed to refrain from saying mean or disparaging things about them that were not 100% verifiably true.

“Wow,” I said. “You’re kind of shooting my wheels off here. Saying mean and disparaging things that aren’t 100% verifiably true is kind of my whole schtick.”

“We know,” they said. “That’s going to be a problem for us.”

“It’s what I’m known for,” I said. “It’s my brand.”

[][][]

So they paid me a boat load of cash just to keep my big mouth shut, but the truth is that they didn’t need to do that. I didn’t have anything mean to say about them. And I don’t have anything mean to say about them still. I liked working for the big fat financial company. And I liked getting fired by them. In both cases, they were very apologetic.

“Sorry about this,” they kept saying the whole time I worked for them.

“Sorry about this,” they kept saying the whole time they were firing me.

Sorry, I’m sure you know, goes a really long way.

So now I’m a middle-aged man with a severance package and a non-disparagement agreement and a skill set that has largely been taken over by robots. They work for free and never complain. I’ve heard they do a wonderful job.

“Write me one hundred headlines trying to convince people to refinance their mortgage at today’s insanely high interest rates,” you can say to the robot. And ten seconds later the robot will spit out a hundred headlines that do exactly that.

Ask me to do the same thing, and it would take me all day. And they would not be very good. And I would not be happy about it.

“Here’s your fucken headlines,” I’d say. “Happy?”

[][][]

There’s something to be said, I think, for knowing when the jig is up.

It was good while it lasted, though, my jig. I feel very lucky to have had it. I feel especially lucky when I consider just how little I possess in terms of god-given talents or abilities.

In high school, I worked at an obscure fast-food restaurant called Culver’s. They specialized in a serving a thick, ice-cream-like dessert called custard. If you didn’t know it was custard, you’d just think it was just regular old ice cream. I sure did.

“I want you to tell me honestly,” my manager said to one of my co-workers one day. “Is Mike retarded or something?”

These days, he would have said something kinder, like mentally challenged or alternatively gifted, but these were the mid-2000s and it was a different time.

And he wasn’t trying to be mean either. He was genuinely curious. He couldn’t figure out why I was so bad at a job that was literally meant for children. He couldn’t figure out why I kept calling the custard “ice cream” no matter how many times he corrected me.

“You can be honest with me,” the manager told my co-worker. “I just need to know what I’m dealing with here.”

[][][]

So the fact that I grew up to have a real job where companies paid me real money and gave me annual bonuses and matching 401(k)s and dental care and stock whatevers and free tee-shirts feels like an honest-to-god-no-joke miracle to me. It would have been greedy to think it would go on forever.

“We’re going to have to let you go,” the big fat financial company said.

And I said, “What took you so long?”

We’d been living with my in-laws for almost two years when I found out I was getting fired.

I mean let go.

I mean laid off.

Even though they knew I didn’t work very hard, I figured my in-laws would notice when I suddenly wasn’t working at all. So one day, I decided it was time to tell my mother-in-law. We were in my car on our way to Cava.

“Hey,” I said. “It’s not a big deal or anything, but just so you know, my job is going away pretty soon. In the next month or two. I’m getting let go, actually. Or laid off. Or canned. Or whatever. It’s one of those massive corporate mergers you’ve probably been hearing so much about on the news.”

“Oh yeah?” she said.

“Yeah,” I continued. “I’d say some mean and disparaging things about it, but legally I’m not allowed to. I signed a non-disparagement agreement. I didn’t read it very closely, but it looked pretty official.”

[][][]

My mother-in-law wasn’t the first person I’d told that I was getting fired, but I still felt kind of nervous about it.

It’s so pathetic, getting fired. It’s so embarrassing.

I’d told a few people already, and their responses were pretty much what you’d expect. How bad they felt for me. How unfair it was. What a scary time it was to not have a job. What an absolutely scary and horrifying time it was to not have a job. How difficult and nearly impossible it was probably going to be to ever find such a cushy and wonderful job every again.

Etc, etc.

But my mother-in-law didn’t say any of that. Instead, she did the most surprising thing. It’s something I’ve stored away to do for others when they find themselves in a similarly pathetic or embarrassing situation.

Here’s what she did: She just thought about it for a second.

Then she said: “How do you feel about that?”

It was so simple and generous and unexpected that I needed a second to process it.

“Oh...” I said. “Well... Actually... To tell you the truth... I feel pretty okay about it, I think. A little scared, maybe. And a little sad. And a little embarrassed. But mostly okay.”

And she just nodded again, more firmly this time, and looked out the windshield at the road ahead of us.

“Maybe it’s just time for something new for you is all,” she said. “That’s what I think. I think it’s just time for something new.”