Finding 35

2. 18 Stop signs and 20 speed bumps

My favorite dress shirt is sky blue with a herringbone weave with French cuffs.  I iron it.  I decide to wear my dad’s gold cuff links and a black patterned tie with black dress pants.  People in the office don’t wear ties often.  The only time you see someone wearing a tie is if they have a meeting with a client or a job interview.  This meeting feels different, and it is an interview of sorts.  I decide to wear a tie for two reasons:  first I am not going to go to a meeting like this under dressed; and second, well I guess there really is only one reason.  I just wanted to look sharp and well put together, even if it was just on the outside.  On the inside, I fell part of me is dying.  I take a picture of myself that morning as I am leaving my apartment.  I have never done anything like this before, but this moment feels different.  I want to capture this moment in time so I can look back later and see what I was feeling.

I get into my car, and begin the twenty-three minute drive to the office on this hazy sort of grey day, where everything seems to go by with a drifting pause.  It is like watching an old movie that is playing back a little slower than how you remember it.  Everything lingers just a little longer than it should, each moment has a drifting pause, the rustling of the trees, jumping dogs seem to hang in the air a little too long, the car seems to sway.  The people in the park look fuzzy like a dream, their features all blend together.  By 10:30 in the morning I still haven’t heard from anyone in the office as to who was let go.  There are five people in my work group, and we know two of us will be terminated.  We have been sitting on this knowledge for about three months.  In the pit of my stomach I knew I was in for a change.  I am not used to this sort of feeling.  It is a completely foreign feeling for me, like eating a raw eel live, my stomach squirms uncontrollably.

All I can think of was how did I end up here?  What decisions did I make that led me to this place?  A place where I am able to drive my car on autopilot, slowing without consciousness as I approach each of the 20 speed bumps, on my way to the office.  I find myself unconsciously stopping and starting at all 18 stop signs along the way. 

Here I am, thirty-five years old, going to a meeting where I have absolutely no control over the decision before me.  It is not like going to traffic court where you get to make a case about a speeding ticket.  “No your honor, I don’t think I was going eighty kilometers an hour in that sixty zone, when was the radar gun last calibrated?  What is the error tolerance on it?  It must have some sort of plus or minus range.”  The judge weighs the evidence and you at least have the peace of mind that you got to say something, regardless of the outcome.

But this meeting will be different, I go in and sit down, and they will say one of three things.

1)    You will continue on in your existing role.

2)    You will be taking on new responsibilities and your function will change.

3)    A consultant will be meeting with you after this meeting to make sure you don’t do something drastic.

I’ve been through this at least four times, or was this the fifth restructuring?  I can’t remember.  Each time before I just knew I was being kept on board, twice I was promoted in the process, another time they just had me reporting to someone else, and during the last one, I wasn’t affected at all.  From my cubicle I just listened to the names of people who were sent packing. 

The office is so quiet on this sort of day, and everyone feels uneasy.  There is survivor guilt for those who keep their jobs, and a few wish it were them that were being let go.  So many want out, but are too afraid to go do something about it.  During one re-org I told them to either promote me or fire me.  I was promoted.  I don’t understand why people have set themselves up in these situations, how this can be their whole life­­–working in one company for 5, 12, 28 or even 32 years!  There has to be a life outside of this place right?  People must have some sort of dream they want to pursue?  Or have their dreams faded under the fluorescent lighting?  Or bleached out by the sun that narrowly makes it through the cubicle walls and narrow beige hallways?  If the plants can survive on almost no sun, then surely people can too right?  How did all these people end up here?  Is this what all my co-workers dreamed about?  Spending their days in a lack luster company, doing lackluster things, everyone eagerly looking forward to the end of their day?  Why is everyone wishing their time away?  Is that any way to live?  Is that even living or simply existing?

In the comfort of my company car, I can see a few dogs jumping around in the park as I drive by, I can hear them barking and see the sun breaking through the heavy sky.  Slowly the god-like light burns a hole through the dampening clouds.  So what did I do to put myself here, in this car, wearing this blue shirt and black tie, with a simple black leather case beside me, shoes polished, and with my stomach twisting in knots? 

How did I end up here?