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WORK & MONEY GETTING CANNED & LOVING IT PART 3: EMANCIPATION DAY Published April 29, 1996 Previous columns by Harry Goldstein

The next few weeks were highly unpleasant -- for Donna. She knew what was going on and felt very uncomfortable about the whole situation. Plus, she had grown to despise the Trinity in record time and almost cried at the end of her first week. She was in an even more desperate situation than me: she had given up a higher paying job to take this one, with the expectation that the stress level would be lower. And she had a heavy mortgage to service. As my final weeks at IMPROVE dragged on, she expressed her guilt at taking my job more than once. I assured her that I bore her no malice whatsoever -- that, indeed, I was just sliding by until the Trinity couldn't take it anymore. When the day of reckoning came, I was prepared. Like a prisoner awaiting release, I had been anticipating this moment for my entire 8 month incarceration. Now freedom was a pink slip away and I wasn't going to say anything to jeopardize it. Director Mary called me into her office and sat me down. She looked genuinely disturbed. She started out by telling me what a nice guy I was. How she really liked me personally and how she could help me find a teaching job in the New York City Pubic School system, where she thought my kind of creativity, talent and personality would be very valuable. Then she told me that she had to let me go, that things had gotten too far out of hand, that Charles and Communications Mary had expressed their concern that I was endangering the productivity of the entire office. I had to move on. IMPROVE would approve my unemployment claim. At that point it was clear to me that she did not intend to offer me any severance pay. It would be several weeks before unemployment benefits would kick in. I made a quick calculation and realized that I had rent to pay and needed some sort of cushion to get me through. I begged to stay on two more weeks. I did everything I could to dig through Director Mary's doe eyes and worm my way into her shriveled heart. With my eyes rolling up to the ceiling and a deep sigh escaping my heaving chest, I shook my head slowly, waiting for her reaction. She relented: two more weeks. And that was it. I could show Donna the finer points of my system, such as it was, and perhaps strategize with her on how to improve it. I could turn over all the projects I was working on independently, like the research I was doing on health insurance policies for the office. It was all I could do to stop myself from pumping my fist in the air as I walked back to my desk. One glance at Donna and the tears started flowing -- from her eyes. Tears of anguish. Her fate was sealed. One week before my official final day, Charles asked me into his office. Mary Squared were out of town at a conference and only Donna and I were there to keep him company. He started talking to me, slowly, his face flushed red, and he ended up screaming, stomping his feet and slamming his meaty palm on his desk. He was accusing me of slacking off: hanging out in the basement storage room, napping at my desk, putting the wrong date on the postage meter, chatting with the interns about the finer points of handball.... I coyly traced a circle on the floor with my heel, trying not to burst into laughter. He suggested that I give up my keys and leave. He would see to it that I was paid for my final week. I thanked him profusely and stuck out my hand for him to shake. He took it, weakly; I savored the slimy rub of sweat on his palm and released my grip slowly, making a great show of wiping my hand on my pants. I strolled out of his office victorious. I had outlasted them. I had won this contest of wills twice -- by hanging on for unemployment and squeezing them for a couple of extra weeks pay. As I reached under my desk for my shoulder bag, Donna came up behind me and handed me her phone number. "Call me if you want to talk," she said, giving me a quick hug. I did a few weeks later, just to see how she was doing and if my replacement noticed any of the innocuous surprises I had left on my computer, especially the "Charles is sooo TASTY" message that was to appear on the office calendar every day for a year. Turns out those surprises were a source of laughter for two different replacements, one who quit after three weeks, another who quit after a month. Donna herself was on the way out and moved onto another job within three months of taking over mine. I used my time on unemployment wisely, establishing myself as a freelance writer -- which I used to fill that 8 month gap on my resume, the crater left by my time at IMPROVE -- and I took time to explore all of my career options before taking an editing position -- one I still hold. The days of taking a job out of sheer desperation are, I hope, behind me -- especially now that I've improved my employability quotient by holding down a job for a couple of years. It's not always easy, this job of mine, but it's not a living hell -- and after having endured one for several months, I know how fortunate I am. Harry Goldstein is a writer and editor living in Manhattan. His work has appeared in Utne Reader, American Book Review, Promethean, AltX, word.com, and other periodicals. © 1996 Harry Goldstein, All Rights Reserved