Decades ago, my first corporate job out of college paid for a new apartment with speckless walls and medium pile. I knew I would retire from that company many years from then. I spent late nights and early mornings away from my young family. I did it with pleasure, not a pleasure because I was leaving them, but because I was building something. I was a part of something.
Every time I entered the office, I must have worn the face Caitlin had as she crossed the threshold of each room. Massive plate glass windows faced the west, a massive landscape on the horizon. I spent many evenings watching the sun set behind the mountains beyond the desert. During monsoon season, massive walls of sand barreled toward and slammed into the glass. On the other side, I sat in safe wonderment. The sandstorms blocked the sun, and without the sunlight, the glass showed the reflection of an empty room behind me, lit by fluorescent bulbs.
Often my wife would call. I was young and stupid and did not appreciate her interrupting my important work.
“I’m working,” I would say. “What’s up?”
“When are you going to come home?”
“When I am finished working.”
I knew I was right. She should not be interrupting my important work. She should wait for me.
We were an e-learning company. We built courses for various other companies and parsed textbooks or manuals, and sold them. They hired me along with what seems now like over a hundred artists. We built all of the course-ware for the company’s project offerings.
I got along well with my coworkers and with my bosses. I always had a smile on my face, but I had another face. It was the face I showed when I was angry and depressed. I got angry all the time. This is the face my wife saw. I was young and stupid and did not appreciate her.
It is funny how memories color our experiences. When things do not end well, the negatives sour the whole experience. Of course, we had good times. Happy times.
As a family, we spent time enjoying the local flavor. We went to wild west shows, and Sunday drives and trips to the lake and hikes in the desert mountains. We ate with friends and had company parties. My wife gave birth to Kylia, our second daughter, two years after Caitlin. The two were so different from one another, and I loved every difference. I wish to change so much that happened between my wife and me, but I would never change my girls.
In that same year, rumors started circulating of layoffs at my job. When the work slowed, it felt like an opportunity to take a breath or come up for air. I was young and dumb and trusted that I would retire from this company many years from now. The rumors raged, so I took a meeting with my supervisor.
“Do I have anything to worry about?” I asked.
“No you’re doing great,” said my supervisor.
“But I am hearing about layoffs. People are worried. I know you probably can’t tell me, but I just took out a loan on a new car and I am set to sign a two-year lease on my apartment. Just give me a wink or flip your pen if I should hold off on the lease.”
“Jeremy, everything is fine.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I signed the lease and finalized the purchase of my car.
A few months later, the company’s owner called a company-wide meeting to talk about the great strides the company had taken. We all walked past the massive plate glass windows. We must have looked like salmon swimming upstream, hundreds of us headed toward the lobby, the only place large enough to fit everyone.
Something felt wrong. Then I saw it happen. Supervisors from each department plucked employees out of the stream like hungry bears and diverted them into rooms along the hall. My supervisor plucked me.
In those rooms, human resources waited for us, folders in hand. Our supervisors tried to give some grand speech about the company’s direction and how they needed to hire salespeople to peddle all of the great courses we had built. The company could not afford to pay the artists and the salespeople.
“We are offering a severance,” said my supervisor.
“Excuse me,” interrupted Saul, one of the plucked employees and a friend. “Do we have to listen to your bullshit in order to get the severance or can we leave?”
“Oh … uh no. You can leave. You will still get paid. Just sign here.”
My supervisor would not look at me or speak to me as he handed me my walking papers. Soon the joy of the new apartment with speckless walls and medium piled turned sour. In this small room full of disgruntled ex-employees, I could no longer see the view of the western landscape. There was no longer a reflection of an empty room.
I drank a lot of alcohol that night. It was the beginning of a terrible spiral for my family and me. I am now divorced and remarried. I have six children. I am still falling, but I hope for medium pile at the bottom and a view to the west.
