So, How Does it Feel?

The emails jammed my already crowded inbox with regularity, all with the same theme: So and So had been laid off at my two former workplaces, who, in a marriage of clueless and heartless corporate gangs, merged a few years ago. A news article confirmed it was so.

One of the former colleagues kicked to the curb was an arrogant senior editor who shifted his work onto me every chance he got. He only wanted to do one thing, and one thing only.

So when there was an assignment he didn’t want to do, he pushed it on me. I didn’t say anything because he had seniority over me and it was obvious his male superiors were going to protect him. Hey, I don’t want to see any one get laid off, but in his case, his laziness and indifference finally caught up with him.

Other emails hinted the raging drunk who harassed me for 16 years was also on his way out, along with his happy hour buddy, a frequently inebriated, nasty, cheating lout with disgusting personal habits. But before that jerk got the boot, he weaseled himself to another job, where he will surely be shocked to learn he cannot get away with the same bad behavior tolerated for so long at his former job. A rude awakening awaits. His farewell party splashed across Facebook, and if it’s on Facebook, it must be true, right?

Hazier was the fate of my former horrible boss. When I inquired of my sources where they heard this information, they said it was PR people. In other words, unreliable office gossip. I had heard rumors of this guy’s (and the company’s) demise before and nothing came of it. I had no reason to believe this time would be any different.

He had somehow survived, despite his drunkenness, poor management, and abusive behavior. He actually once told the HR lady that screaming at underlings made them perform better! How this man worked at the same place for 30 plus years without a harassment lawsuit filed against him boggles the mind.

He was an office bully who, in true alcoholic fashion, blamed everyone else for his shortcomings and failures. He raged whenever he felt like it, just to assert his power. Every mistake, no matter how slight, pitched him into a fit. His long survival stands as an exemplar of white male privilege. No matter how badly he acted or the company performed, the All White Males Club protected his pimply pale ass. He knew how to play the corporate game. Or as a former colleague said, he kissed up and punched down.

One of my former co-worker made an interesting comment. She said she had heard a woman executive at the parent company was giving this guy and his bar buddy a hard time. Considering how misogynist these jerks are, I’m sure they hated being belittled by a —Horrors! How dare she! — woman. Again, with nothing more to go on than gossip, I didn’t believe someone who survived more plagues than a cockroach was truly gone.

Then, THE email finally came. My former colleague noted that the website masthead no longer listed his name. (Again, I checked. It didn’t.) So he really was gone…or was he? A little while later, I logged onto website, and there is was — definitive proof. A goodbye column written in his name. I say written in his name because when I was there, whenever he had to moderate a panel or do a presentation, he always made one of the editors, like me, write it for him. So I’m positive another editor wrote that vomit-inducing column. No one, except maybe the pill-popping alcoholic whore he installed over me as the editor in chief, is sorry to see him go, I’m sure. Finally, corporate cutbacks reached upper management. Boo hoo.

For many years, I shied away from anything near my former workplace, fearful I’d bump into his toxic orbit. I knew if I did, he’d come after me. That’s not paranoia, it’s how that guy operates. He’s all about revenge. (I’m sure he hated me for outing the plagiarism of a former editor.) Now, he is gone, and I’m thankful, although I still want nothing to do with my former workplace. And it certainly doesn’t change my increasingly dire financial situation.

But if I ever did see him again, I’d like to ask him a few questions, like….

How did it feel to have your fate decided in a boardroom without you being there? How did it feel to not have any chance to save yourself or learn the real reason behind your layoff?

How does it feel to not have someplace to go everyday where you can spew your self-hate at other defenseless people? How does it feel to not have any power at all?

How did it feel to clean out your desk, go home, and face the fact you have no steady paycheck coming in after just 26 weeks of unemployment? How did it feel to wonder and worry how you’re going to pay the mortgage and health insurance without that steady paycheck?

How does it feel to apply for job after job and get rejection after rejection?

How did it feel when you realized you could no longer terminate other people to save your job?

How did it feel to have worked for three decades at the same company and then be told you were worthless to them?

For so long, you were so smug, confident in your belief you would never get laid off. Now, you’re just another out-of-work loser, just like all the other people whose jobs you terminated while you continued to pull down a hefty paycheck for doing nothing. You know now you were nothing special.

So I have to ask you, how does it feel?