"I was shocked," begins Barbara, who was "let go" from her night secretary job at an investment firm. "When I got the call to report to HR, I thought I was finally getting busted for seven years of using the office as publicity headquarters for my cabaret shows. I imagined that gal in the power suit would flash me an enormous bill for a million Xeroxes, postage, and then chastise me for practicing scales in the ladies room. The acoustics in there are fah-bulous."

But to her surprise, Barbara was told, due to third quarter losses, the entire night secretary team, was being "eliminated." And in the kindest of corporate ways they asked her to leave immediately. How cold. How uncaring. Barbara wanted to, needed to stay over. She charmed them into letting her have one quickie visit back to her work station. There she saved her precious contact lists to disks, deleted all incriminating evidence, and rode home on a company cab voucher with boxes of files in her lap
and a generous severance package in her purse. How neat. How simple. How wham-bam thank you ma’am.

How unlike my more complex, drawn-out experience. I’d been teased that IT might happen for many months. My option was up for renewal for my writing job on a sitcom and my boss was not returning my agent’s phone calls. I tried to keep my mind pure, hoping (in the tradition of my Catholic upbringing) that if I kept bad thoughts away, IT wouldn’t happen. But when I saw the note on my desk to see "Mr. Boss" before I left that Friday, all I could do was hope our intercourse would be over quickly. As I squared myself to cross the threshold of his office, Queen Victoria’s sage advice to young brides came to mind, "close your eyes and think of England."

"It’s not you, you’re great," he murmured sadly, not looking me in the eye. Then he fumbled through what I’m certain he imagined to be a compassionate withdrawal, complete with "you’ll find a better match out there," and "I hope we can still be friends." He finished me off by granting me a full month’s work before I’d get kicked out on the street. No doubt he rolled over and slept soundly that night, satisfied he’d done right by me. 

I, on the other hand, lay awake and restless, dreading that I’d have to face him and my colleagues on Monday for my final thirty days. I tried to get through that gruesome month by hiding in my office as much as possible, but naturally was forced to hit the hallways and undergo the excruciating "Dead Man Walking" experience. Fellow workers would either lunge at me with condolences, which just made me feel pathetic, or avoid me completely--even ducking into the restroom when they saw me headed their way. "I’m terminal, but not contagious!", I wanted to shout. When my last day finally came, I took myself to the nearest bar and downed a drink to commemorate the experience: one slow uncomfortable screw. 

No matter how it happened to us, at ten-thirty on this Sunday night, we’re both in the same unemployment boat. It’s not like the old days where we’d be at the trendiest restaurant in town, throwing down our AMEX Golds, rushing out with our valet parking stubs to hurried goodnights on the sidewalk, knowing our alarms would be ringing early Monday morning. It’s a strange new world for us. Our goodnights are far off. The candles burn low. Dinner stretches till after midnight. We’re out of work. What we have now is each other. And plenty of time.