My first blog... Please be gentle

These days, there probably isn't anyone who hasn't either been, or knows someone who has been personally affected by the most recently added component of The Great American Dream, namely, being laid off... And whether it was temporary or permanent (or something that ultimately shoved you into going in another completely different direction as happened to me), it still hurts when it happens, to think that someone whom you were counting on to make sure your paycheck had your name spelled right and your security pass let you in the building every day no longer wants you to grovel for them.With me, it happened several years back the week before Christmas... I was hoping that maybe they would make it as painless as possible by having Andy Williams come around to my desk to break the news as only Andy could in his friendly easygoing manner -- in song:

“Happy Holiday... Here's your severance pay...
Please start cleaning out your office, and be out of here by two....”

But actually, since Halloween is a little over ten days away, once I started to think about it, while losing your job right before Christmas might be rough to deal with, what might be even more bizarre would be getting called into your Human Resources office on October 31, just as the HR department was getting ready for its Halloween party......

I headed down the hallway in response to the call that just came into my desk from one of the HR people, and entered the HR office to find the conference room being turned into a chamber of horrors. Orange and green floodlights set in fixtures on the floor now provided the only illumination in the room. Admins and staff, all dressed in Halloween costumes were busy setting the conference table with pumpkins, dishes full of candy corn, trays of donuts and bowls of cider, and the ceiling was being strung with orange and black streamers along with bats, ghouls and goblins.

As I took in the sight, I heard someone call my name from the other side of the open office area, and looked over to see the head of HR – only now he wasn't the head of HR, now he was Hannibal Lechter, complete with the mask and bound to a handcart by a series of leather straps and metal buckles... Funny, but I suddenly remembered that I'd had dreams of him looking exactly like that.

“Hello, Tom,” he spoke in a low deliberate, breathy, slightly sinister voice through the grille in the mask. “Last minute changes.“

I fumbled for a minute, then to kind of break the awkwardness of the moment, commented “I can see. Something big happening today I assume.” I gestured toward the conference room.

“Well, sort of,” he replied. “Miss Jones, would you please bring in Mr. Quigley's file?”

“Cominnnnng!” I heard in a trilly, high-pitched warble from around the corner. In an instant, in breezed his admin, no longer the sweet kindly old woman with the blue hair that I'd always run into in the break room when I stopped to get a beverage to wash down my anti-depressants with. Now she was Glinda, the good Witch of the North. She directed a bright, sparkly smile towards me as she placed my file on his desk and then, perhaps as if to try and make the file open itself, waved the wand over it several times. I started to sweat.

”Have a seat,” Hannibal breathed.

With my body shaking, I lowered myself into the chair nearest his desk and waited for what was next...

“Tom,” he began, “you know we've always had the utmost respect for all our employees, and have tried to treat everyone as fairly as possible.” I glanced over at the conference room where they were starting to hang skeletons and severed heads from the ceiling.

“But...” I replied, anticipating something negative was about to be divulged.

“You seem to be way ahead of me, Tom.” God, there was that deliberate voice again. “Which is why I've always enjoyed matching wits with you. Your powers of cogitative reasoning have probably already led you to conclude what I'm about to tell you.''

I started to hyperventilate. “You – you mean I'm being let go?!!!” I stammered back.

Hannibal tried to nod his head but the restraints kept him from doing so.... He glanced over at Glinda. “Uh, Miss Jones, could you please...”

“Oh! Sorr--e-e-e-e!” she warbled as she loosened the strap around his forehead.

“Yes, Tom. I'm afraid we have no other choice.”

I was stunned. Speechless. I started to think, what could I have possibly done to merit this? Could it have been the fact that every time one of my bosses visited my cubicle they caught me playing Sudoku on my computer?... The extra pens, staplers and reams of paper I'd pilfered from the copier room in the hopes that one day I'd realize my lofty dreams of running my own business supplies store out of the trunk of my car?... Or how about the dartboard with a picture of the company president I had hanging up over my desk? All minor offenses to be sure, requiring no more than a slap on the wrist... I just couldn't fathom it.

I began to rise out of my chair. “But – but... This isn't real! This can't be happening!”

“Look at it this way," Glinda trilled as sweetly as possible. “This will be so much easier to accept if you were to just start clicking your heels together three times and keep repeating 'There's no place like home.... There's no place like home....There's no place like home...'”

“Oh, wait! I see what's going on here -- what the two of you are trying to do!” I retorted, sitting back down. “I can see it perfectly! Give the man the bad news and then try and make it not hurt so badly! It's the old good cop, bad cop thing!”

“Actually,” Glinda replied, “It's more like the old 'Are you a good witch or a bad witch?' thing.”

Hannibal continued. “In any event, we've been given the orders from top level management that costs have to be cut and uh, 'sacrifices' have to be made – in a manner of speaking of course.” That voice was really starting to grate on me.

“So that's all there is to it then, is that it?” I replied. “No ifs, ands, or buts. Just 'Here's your coat, what's your hurry?' Tell me, how many other poor Bozos around here are you letting go today?"

At that moment, a side office door opened and some guy dressed like a clown walked through it, slowly shaking his head and looking down at the floor with the most sullen expression I've ever seen.

“Only one,” Hannibal breathed as I watched Bozo head towards the outer door. “Mr. Jarvis, head of sales. Too bad. He was our number one guy when it came to presenting our dog and pony show to clients. But we caught him trying to juggle too many things in the process.”

“Like what?” I asked.

"Mainly his expense reports," he breathed. "But I think that's it."



“Oh, and don't forget, Toto too!” Glinda chimed in.

“Oh, right. Akiyama Toto over in the IT department. Need to remember to pull his file.” He gestured with his one free finger towards a filing cabinet by the wall. Glinda dutifully headed in that direction and I heard a filing cabinet drawer open as she sing-songed “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Hannibal breathed again. “Now, then Tom...” God, that voice was really creeping me out. “If you don't have any questions, there's some paperwork we have to sign.”

Glinda set some papers down on the desk and offered me a pen – actually she offered me her magic wand which turned out to have a pen on one end of it. “Courtesy of our printer cartridge supplier,” she smiled, “Twinkle Office Supplies.”

“Not out of the trunk of a car, I hope,” I muttered. She smiled and demurely pointed to the place I needed to sign on the document. I took the magic wand and looked at her. “Any chance that if I wave this thing over it, it'll disappear?' I asked.

I scrawled my signature on the severance papers, then pushed them across the desk for Hannibal to sign. He tried to free a hand, but those leather straps – well you know. “Uh, Miss Jones...?”

“Oops! Sorr-e-e-e-!” She loosened one strap just enough for him to reach out to the desk. “Nice lady, but just a little bit flighty sometimes,” he told me as he picked up the magic wand and signed his name.

“No kidding,” I observed.

“Well, I guess this means that this is the end of our 'relationship', Tom.” he said, then lowering his voice to as quiet and deliberate a level as he could and still be audible. “Sorry to have it end under such ad...verse cir...cum...stances... At the very least, perhaps I could offer you some cider and donuts?”

“Uh, no thanks,” I replied. “Not really in the mood for cider and donuts right now.”

“Well then, maybe, how about a glass of very dry chianti?”I shook my head.

“Fava beans?” he added with a small chuckle. I pulled myself up out of the chair. God, that voice...

“Uh, nah...”

“Liver?”

“Liver?!” I yelped. “Whose?!!... Boy, you really enjoy taking this to the max, don't you!” I began to head for the door.

“Sorry,” he said, finally in his normal voice. “I just got a little carried away. By the way, if it means anything to you, this wasn't my first choice for a costume. They ran out of the Bernie Madoffs.”

“Uh, yeah, that makes me feel a whole lot better,” I replied.

I turned and stormed out the door. As I tramped down the hallway, Glinda, who practically floated along beside me, tried to make me see the bright side of the whole ordeal. “Think of it this way, Tom,” she offered cheerily. “You could have gotten up this morning and had a house fall on you.”

“Gee, thanks for the uplifting thought,” I replied. “Have a nice day.”

“You too!”

And as I headed out of the building, and across the parking lot and unlocked the door of my car , I could still see that witch, waving her wand and calling out in that high warbly trill, “Good-bye!... Good-bye!... Good-bye!...”