by Dan Kennedy
When we’re done, I step out of his office and the huge door begins closing behind me. It’s a large, heavy, solid door that feels like the gate to a Wall Street titan’s lair. It reeks of stale, dubious deals done years ago that have finally stopped paying unreal dividends, blind and half-empty star-making promises, and of this label’s biggest, most relevant rock-and-roll glory days, which are now almost thirty years behind it. His two assistants sit at smallish desks that match the color and grain of the door closing behind me, looking at computer screens and trying not to make eye contact. The door notches into its deep and locked grooves and makes a sound too permanent and solid to be called a click, and when it does, they finally look up at me. I am stunned, and I’m still holding my gray envelope with my name on it. And we all know what the gray envelope is. And I steady my voice and chest to say something to the assistants.
“Well, that was very awkward. But, there’s a lot of change going on. And starting tomorrow morning . . . you both work for me.”
They look at me wide-eyed in shock; and albeit a little too late, this job finally feels a little bit like rock and roll.
HOW TO PLAN A BLOODBATH
By the time I get back to my office to start packing it, I realize that everyone’s phones have been ringing like mine did. The floor is abuzz with chaos, assistants carrying huge rolls of bubble wrap, tape guns, stacks of boxes waiting to be assembled and filled. Ms. Chocolate Chip yells something, very emotionally, almost prime-time-network-drama in tone, to nobody in particular about how, “They’re going to do this to you, too! To everybody!” and slams her door. Closet doors that I’ve never seen opened are being unlocked, and swung open — and behind each door is everything that just over a thousand people will need to move their offices into their apartments in short order. Stacks of boxes, cases of shipping tape and tape guns, fifty-yard rolls of bubble wrap stacked end to end, rolls of shipping labels from the company paid to courier our belongings home, all locked away in the last few weeks or days, probably late at night long after everyone had gone home after six or seven, hidden and waiting for this moment when the trigger is pulled. Weird to think that it was all hiding right next to your office all this time.
Dick walks down the hall and gives me and three foot soldiers from the video production department a strange and impromptu tear-filled farewell. The three of us wonder almost aloud why we’re being treated to the epic good-bye, since he probably spoke a total of five or six terse words to any of us during our respective entire stints at the company. I stand there looking somber and respectful, wondering if this means that the rumored huge apartment the label had him set up in on the top of that tower near Columbus Circle has to be packed up, too. Suddenly he needs to assure us about his fate.
“I will be back. This is a big business, and I’ll be back,” he says through a forced smile and watery eyes.
Thanks for the warning.
“It’s a big business. . . . you haven’t heard the last of me. I will be back.”
Okay. We get it, sport. You’ll be back.
Months later, in the unshaven, aimless, unemployed days of summer I’m walking around uptown on Park Avenue, killing time, when I see him. A strangely level playing field on that sidewalk: just two unshaven men doing anything to get out of the house. If I had had the guts, I would’ve said hello. Instead we avert our eyes and walk on by, the two of us passing each other on an otherwise empty sidewalk in midday, not saying a thing. Exactly the way we used to pass each other in the halls at the office when we had jobs. It feels oddly comforting to know there’s one thing that hasn’t changed.
MY CORPORATE GOOD-BYE E-MAIL NEVER SENT
Sorry for the mass e-mail, everyone, but, well, after eighteen long, um, months, it’s time to move on. If you want to know what the HR woman looks like, drop by my office while I’m packing. You should know who to look for, because if you get called into a meeting and she’s the only other one sitting there besides you and a copresident, you’re screwed. Trust me.
I will miss you guys! Even the extremely wealthy four or five of you who ignored most of us in the elevators! ;-) Whoa, somebody hasn’t had their coffee yet!
Anyway, as we all know, these are challenging times. Not for the mail-order homemade salsa and sauces business (Bob from radio promotions, I think you were right to choose this time to take the leap of faith), but these are certainly challenging times for the record business. Which is why I’ve made the decision to be moving on (just fired) to bigger and better things. I’ve always said (usually after drinking a bit more than I’m accustomed to) that part of the fun and adventure in life is not knowing what’s around the corner. Well, I’m having a pretty fun and adventurous time, if you get my drift. Did you know that in China, they use the same symbol for both Crisis and Opportunity? It’s really only in our Western culture that we associate being laid off with “bad news” or a “strain on my relationship” or a “lapse in personal hygiene after eighteen months spent writing at home.” If you ask me, I agree with the Chinese folks, I see the so-called crisis as an opportunity as well, which is why I’m keeping it pretty upbeat in my goodbye e-mail.
To that end, like Bob from radio promotions, I’ve also decided to finally start a small home-based business. Please help me by filling out this brief survey! Click Reply, and then type in your answers below before sending! Just evaluate the following statements as either “True,” “Somewhat True,” or “You seem like you might be developmentally disabled, but best of luck with things!” in the blank space under each statement.
1. I would like to buy handmade decorations for my home on the Internet, but at the present time, there aren’t many options for me online.
2. While I enjoy Bob’s Tasty Homemade Salsa and Sauces, and I like to support former coworkers’ new ventures, I would be more likely to buy tasteful handmade decorations for my home online than I would a perishable food product.
3. I know Susan from video promo was also fired today. I would feel better coming to terms with this and other distressing job-related information if my work environment featured tasteful handmade decorations.
4. I have an extra room in my home that I would like to make available for an Internet-based business that sells handmade home and office decorations.
5. I would prefer the barter system as a means of payment for renting the extra room, as opposed to cash, especially since the items that would be bartered are tasteful, handmade, and of PROFESSIONAL quality.
Thanks for the one and a half years we have worked together, you guys. It was an exciting time, and there are exciting times ahead.
This is exciting!
— Dan in marketing
OFFICE SUPPLIES FOR THE UNEMPLOYED
1″ Post-it Flags
Available in eleven different colors, the Post-it flag is perfect for marking pages in important presentations, notes, and manuals.
You, the unemployed, of course, have no business whatsoever marking pages in a presentation these days. As a matter of fact, the word presentation only applies to you in the context of letting your personal presentation go straight downhill. By the way, waking up at one in the afternoon and pulling on whatever T-shirt you find laying closest to the bed that particular afternoon, then putting on a hat and calling yourself “dressed for the day” is breaking everyone’s heart. Trust us. They just don’t know how to tell you without hurting your feelings and making the situation worse than it already is.
Easily removed and repositioned, available in economic 100-pack.
Glo-Write Bullet-Tip Dry-Erase Markers
Specially made for dark/black dry-erase boards, available in eye-catching fluorescent white, green, pink, blue, green.
What’s that you say? You’ve never seen a black dry-erase board in a big fancy high-rise conference room where your assistant brings you bottled water and phone messages while you sit in an expensive German chair and try to look smart? Yeah, well, these bad boys are pretty much used to advertise lunch specia
ls and happy-hour cocktails at restaurants — the waiters write the specials on the black dry-erase board, then put it out on the sidewalk. Not so much at the nice places, obviously, but more like the tourist joints; those scrappy little beer-and-clams joints that are always hiring waiters and bartenders. Any of this sinking in, Einstein?
Available in 12- and 24-pack. Ink wipes away with damp cloth — just disappears without a trace. Like everything seems to, sooner or later.
Palm Tungsten™ T Stylus 3-Pack
The new 3-pack means you’ll never find yourself without a stylus again.
Ironic, since you’ve certainly found yourself without a Palm Pilot to use them with. Keep a spare stylus at the office. Ouch. Sorry, you know what we mean, though — just saying you can have them in several places. Keep one in your car or at your house in the country. Ouch. Now we’re just screwing with you — seriously, though, what the hell are you doing with your time since the layoffs?
Platinum-Success Leather Day Planner
Keep all of your important dates, meetings, and appointments in one convenient place. Ahhh, Ha Ha Ha, Ha Ha Ha Ha, Ha Ha Ha, Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, Oh . . . ah . . . haha. Now we’re just being plain cruel.
Genuine leather. Month, year, and three-year view. 8 1/2″ × 11″. For people with jobs.
THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING: TRYING MEDITATION INSTEAD OF TV WATCHING
First of all, don’t be nervous. And don’t stress out. I mean, Jesus, that’s the first thing, goddammit! Do. Not. Stress. Out! Okay, breathing break, breathing break. You’re already freaking out so let’s take a little breathing break.
Take a deep breath.
Do it!
Okay, now count up to ten.
Or is it backward to ten? I think that might be it. Up to ten doesn’t sound right. Because you can just race right through it, but backward you would . . . alright, you know what? Screw it. It’s already been like fifteen seconds so let’s get back to it, quitter.
Okay, so the first thing you want to do is go to your secret place or whatever. Okay . . . secret place. Fuck, apparently my secret place is right here in New York, a collage of the terrorist attacks, weird trash I’ve seen on the streets over the last ten years, images from that time I saw pigeons pecking at frozen vomit at seven in the morning in the West Village. Damn it! I can’t meditate right. But they were eating it. Frozen. Vomit. Jesus. Okay, I’ll just go with it. I think it’s supposed to be a meadow with a stream, but fine, whatever.
No, forget this. I suck at this. This is not a good secret place. It’s seriously supposed to be a meadow or field with horses or something. Okay, the couch; that’s my new secret place; I love sitting on the couch and checking my e-mail with my laptop and watching TV.
Bingo. Okay. It’s not exactly a stream in a meadow, but at least it’s not a terrorist attack or those pigeons. Couch, present-day, it is! Not super secret, this secret place, but visualizing being there is already making me feel better about things. Okay, so . . . picturing the couch . . . pictur . . . ing . . . it . . . okay, good.
We just let our thoughts drift by like they’re in a stream. Happy thoughts, maybe. Or even not-so-happy thoughts. I guess that’s the thing, if you’re meditating right you can let any kind of thought drift by in the stream and be fine with it. Because you are lovingly detached and not needing to change what you think. Any thought can drift past: “Job is gone . . . severance money will be gone soon enough at this rate.” Ah, and here comes another lily pad floating by with another thought on it: “What about health insurance?” Just thoughts. True thoughts, granted. Frightening thoughts, sure. But we just notice the thoughts on the lily pads. We don’t huck a big goddamn rock at the lily pads, or set them on fire and try to float them back upstream where the stupid thoughts came from, because apparently that’s not good meditation. We just simply notice the goddamn thoughts on their stupid-ass lily pads. Okay, forget it. Clearly, this isn’t working. Let’s watch TV.
KIDS, DON’T FOLLOW
Jesus, Dr. Phil is a downer!
Alright, but I can’t let this guy suck the life force out of me, there’s a whole world out there to be seen and there are lives being lived. But he just kills me, this Dr. Phil. Today he’s got these awesome fifteen-year-old kids on his show — these young people with hearts and heads still so brand-new and open to what’s ahead of them — and he’s doing his whole tough-love thing about how they need to have backup plans for their dreams, or how they have to perform academically or they can forget about playing music or sports and working at their dreams ever coming true, or some damn thing. And it’s all hyped up for TV, of course, and these sweet kids are under lights with Doctor First Name getting them all worked up for good TV and it’s just heartbreaking to watch.
I’m sitting here on the couch and I keep thinking about that play by Steve Martin called Picasso at the Lapin Agile. If Dr. Phil had ever shown up in Paris at the Lapin Agile in 1904 to have a drink with Einstein and Picasso, our twentieth century would’ve been screwed right then and there. Can you imagine?
PICASSO: “So you’re saying you dream the impossible and put it into effect?”
EINSTEIN: “Exactly.”
DR. PHIL: “I’ll tell you what . . . you both better wake up and smell the coffee! Okay? Because I’ll tell you something right now: all the hoopla pipe-dream load of horse-malarkey too-dle-doodle will not fly in the real world, okay? Listen to me for a minute instead of talking about ‘Oh, the twentieth century has been handed to us so casually and it’s staggering to believe that we have sketched it out with pencils on napkins . . .’ Sharpen that pencil, real good . . . okay? Pick it up. And start working on your SAT scores.”
I see the tears welling up in this one teenager’s eyes on screen. I’m sure some producer in the studio is really excited about this fact, and probably hoping for the cry that he thinks means good TV. At least we’re lucky Dr. Phil didn’t have a show when Wozniak, Jobs, Gates, and Allen were distracted from their homework and academic performance by dreams. Plus, the Dr. has a gut, and he wrote a diet book! Hello? If anything he should be honest and tell these kids, “Hey, I’ve got a forty-something-inch waist and a best-selling diet book, so obviously anything’s possible. Just stay focused and out of trouble. You’ll be fine, it’s just a weird time any way you cut it, being sixteen.” Anyway, I’ve switched off the TV, and I’m packing a suitcase because Maria and I are taking off tomorrow night. Goddamn, he’s got another one of these kids onstage and looking like he wants to give up. Way to go, Doc. Did Oprah give this guy his job? That seems ironic to me. Listen up teenagers of the world: stay away from Dr. Phil and keep your dream alive.
Alright, speaking of which, one week unemployed and I’m already sick of sitting around. I’m still alive, so I’m switching off the TV and packing a suitcase. There’s a whole world outside, and I’ve bought a decent stack of tickets to see some of it. First stop London, then up to Sweden, then out west to Los Angeles, up to San Francisco, back to New York to repack, and out west again and up into the Rocky Mountains. Then once winter starts, the last hurrah that’s ticketed is the British Virgin Islands. Lest you think I’m another gazillionaire entertainment-industry fat cat or trust-fund brat, let me lay this interesting piece of accounting on you: How much do you spend partying with your friends after work at the local drinks-and-appetizers hole? Fifty bucks? A hundred? And how many nights a week? One? Three? Here’s a trick: don’t drink for eight years, put aside the drink tab money. Makes for a hell of a plane ticket and hotel fund. Anyway, the TV is off, the suitcase is packed, and life’s clock is ticking away to time’s cruel and indifferent little beat.
Hit it!
EXACTLY ONE YEAR AFTER THE LAYOFFS: HELLHOUNDS IN GOD’S COUNTRY
I’m trying to breathe very thin air while a team of twelve dogs is lurching, growling, barking, and pulling my jet-lagged body down a narrow, icy path at about nine thousand feet above sea level in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. While it feels like the type of lark th
at will certainly lead to personal injury or death, I am convinced I can somehow sell an article about dog sledding to a magazine somewhere down the line and pay my rent for a couple of months, so I am trying my best not to vomit or black out — as this will make for a better magazine article.
Behind the tether of haunches and fangs, Maria and I are crammed into a sled, and farther back, a man balances precariously on the sled’s back rails, screaming commands in a language I can’t understand, just inches behind and above my head. Words that might be Eskimo, for all I know. And at his loudest and most determined, it’s as if he’s afflicted with some kind of rash of tics, and he sounds something like a deaf man screaming a frustrated feeling at the top of his lungs. The commands show up in tight turns — strangely beautiful and loud, confident and discordant, these staccato stabs. The idea, I suppose, is that the dogs will hear that our man means business, and that’ll keep them from heading straight for the ledge to my immediate right and plunging us to our deaths.