You never forget your first time ... fired

By Anthony Buccino

The first time you find yourself out of work, you feel you're in a world of trouble, and you feel you're in it all alone. But lately, it's not an empty boat you're riding in. Millions of workers got canned last year, from the guy behind the broom to the guy in the corner office ...

Whether it's with a woman or a man, someone you've known for a long, long time or someone you've just met, you'll never forget your first time you get fired. Your first time will be memorable in spite of the many times you'll find yourself trying to forget it. The aftermath of your first time laid-off will stay with, influencing all the decisions you make from that moment forward.

The first time you find yourself out of work, it hits you with surprise, no matter what warning signals you may have seen and put aside as not pertaining to you. After all these years in this same place, you find now it's over.

Sometimes you blame yourself, what you could have, should have, would have done differently. You could be salesman of the year five years running and then standing next to me in the unemployment line tomorrow. These days getting canned could have nothing to do with you, as you become another blip in a long scroll of federal government data that will be issued this week and corrected next month.

But the shock of being fired sets in and freezes something inside. And no matter what the buzz, you still feel pointing fingers as if it's your fault this time.

You never forget the first time you are laid off, let go, out of work, out-sourced, pink-slipped, terminated, sacked, unemployed, or whatever they are calling it today. You may not recall the interview when you started working at this place, but you'll never forget the exit interview, that is, when all the dust settles, the aftershock fades and you can remember again.

You try to remember that first day you started, and the first time you walked in, the friends met on tenterhooks until you each got to know one another better. And you recall the triumphs and flops you've been through together.

After all, when you've sat next to someone for years, you know what they're thinking by the way their chair squeaks. You know every sound he makes, and the funny whistling noise when he breathes, and the noises that foretell a sneeze.

You get so used to that colleague who worked side by side for so long that you don't notice the noise unless it's gone. You sat in the same mind field, you intuit good news and bad and know more about each other than your spouses about either of you. You commiserate at tough times shared. This is another one to get through, but maybe without one another.

You've gotten used to his quirks, and, if you had any, he to yours, too. You have a shorthand of saying things without giving voice. And no matter what comes next, you know this camaraderie will be lost forever no matter how hard you try to hold on to it.

 But all that pops like last night's birthday balloons. Reality breaks the spell and you wonder what tomorrow will be like. The questions without answers buzz like bees inside your brain. How can this happen to me? What did I do wrong? How can I fix the unfixable? Where do I begin? What about my family? How will we ever get through this?

Oh, I'd rather wear a tuna suit in an alley full of cats, I'd rather tell her anything at all, than tell my wife I've been canned.

The first time you find yourself out of work, you feel you're in a world of trouble, and you feel you're in it all alone. But lately, it's not an empty boat you're riding in.

Millions of workers got canned last year, from the guy behind the broom to the guy in the corner office, and in these hard times this year may be worse.

Millions of people are riding in the same sinking boat as you who has been canned for the first time or the fifteenth time, and everybody's looking for a life line to fall into their lap to keep them afloat. The paper pushers, key clickers, readers, writers and movers and shakers all fumble into reality of past due bills and terrors unseen.

Some have given up, believing the world has no place for them.

The government moans and creaks, saying it will do something, but we millions to them are each and every one a federal statistic, a blinking light on a computer screen that is manipulated to downplay the bad and accentuate the positive.

 I know you. You are not a laminated card or a mere name on an unemployment roll. You are me, many times over, with no statistic to show our angst. We remember our first time and our last time. You are not alone.

First published on NJ/Voices, NJ.com on August 8, 2011.

© Anthony Buccino

May be out of print or hard to find. Read Also:

CANNED Booted, bumped, down-sized, fired, forced out, hated, hired, jobless, laid off, let go, out of work, out-sourced, pink-slipped, terminated, sacked, unemployed

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