“Katie, there have been more cuts.” 

“Is one of them me?”

“Yes…”

And honestly I was far from devastated at that moment.  When your boss calls you into her office and asks that you shut the door you can bet it’s not because there’s a surprise party in there, but I was envisioning being made aware of some heinous and previously unknown mistake I had made that had irreversible repercussions on the agency, on the volunteer program, on innocent little puppies in Tazmania… but I was just losing my job. 

Which, to be fair, was not in the list of the top ten things I wanted to hear my boss say.  Examples from that list would be, “It’s sunny out, why don’t you go home early?” or, “I’m going to see about getting you a raise,” or “Your tireless efforts really further our mission to help kids and families and because of your invaluable contribution you’ll be receiving a dozen homemade cookies from the CEO every Monday this month.”  I certainly did not want to lose my job.  On any given day at work you could find me making art projects with kids, writing limericks in my office, or carting new toys and books down to the residential cottages.  I was probably most valued for the limericks, actually, and while I enjoyed limericks as much as anyone at times I wondered if I was using my $100,000 English education to its full potential, but I digress.

There are some who would not enjoy a job that involves constantly talking to fun and interesting people and trying to make traumatized kids’ lives a little brighter, but I don’t happen to be one of them.  I had left a job I loathed for one I adored eight months before, and the prospect of leaving that job, my first real job, didn’t exactly cue my mental hallelujah chorus.

Still, as my boss continued on, extrapolating about how much they didn’t want to lose me, how valuable I was to the team and to the volunteer program, and how a bunch of other people were being cut too (some who’d been there a large chunk of their adult lives), I was preparing my graceful response.  As soon as she paused I was going to tell her that I understood, that it had been a great honor to work there, and that I had learned so much from her.  It was a really great, very mature response.  She paused,

“Well this sucks.” 

Yep.  Smooth.  My first thought after those words escaped my lips were:  it’s so unprofessional to use sucks in front of your boss.  My second thought was:  fat lot it matters now. 

I was given three weeks of notice, which was equally a blessing and a curse.  I worked in the development office managing a volunteer and in-kind gifts program… plus a ton of other stuff that for some reason was my responsibility (employees of the world can relate).  My to-do list was two pages long, and a bullet point that says, “increase volunteer diversity” can’t just be checked off by posting a sign on the street that says, “non-Whites wanted.”  (I will say the thought had tempted me a time or two).  And because I had a salaried position, and because I valued the projects on my list to the point where taking ownership bordered on becoming a hissing possessive maniac, so began a string of long nights at work.  Husband knew he could either eat dinner on his own or wait for me to make something… at eight or nine at night.  I came home to him with empty bags of chips on the coffee table in front of him.  I hated that part of it, partly because he can eat like that and not gain any weight anywhere ever, but I wanted to leave that position knowing that I’d done everything I could to not drop flat the volunteers, projects, and people I’d worked so hard to support.

Unless you’re a crappy worker and everyone at your job despises you, I highly recommend getting laid off sometime.  Sure, I had the insecurity of unemployment looming before me, but for those last three weeks I could do no wrong.  Something new to spearhead?  Well, no point in giving that to me.  Someone screwed up?  Don’t blame Katie… she’s already been terminated for heaven’s sake, cut her a break!  Give her a mini-scone instead. 

I also really got to see the impact I had on certain programs and people.  People that I didn’t think my leaving would affect at all were outraged:  “Who’s going to do all the stuff that you do?”  I received hugs, unsolicited reference letters, thank-yous, and even a little breakfast put on by program staff to thank me and another victim of the budget cuts.  To be quite honest, while I know I did the best job I could while I was there, I think that people saw me through rose-colored glasses after it came out that I was being cut.  Even the CEO told me how wonderful I was, which was really touching.  I felt bad for the guy because he was the one who got the stink eye for making all the cuts.  I, more maturely, preferred to give the stink eye to “the man.”  Anyway, for those last three weeks, I had a pass.  Little birdies flew behind me singing, and cherubs spread flowers before my feet.  It was a very encouraging, tiring, insane time. 

And then on my last day, July 8^th, at 9:45pm, I came to a point when I had done all I was going to be able to do.  It was time to go; I no longer worked there.  Everyone else was long gone and it was dark, and after leaving post-it notes on every item on my desk that needed to be taken care of, that I didn’t know what to do with, or that I didn’t have the heart to throw away (i.e. the 500 new business cards I had finally received a few weeks earlier), I put my keys in my desk, grabbed my things, took one last look, and locked the door behind me.  For the first time since I’d heard the news, my heart hurt.  I left the radio off in my car and was quiet as I headed through Seattle—at a speed smooth enough for melancholy since traffic isn’t backed up at ten o’clock.  Saying so many goodbyes, wrapping up so many projects, and eating so many mini-scones had really taken a toll on me.  Saying goodbye to the kids was the worst, one girl said, “people always leave,” to me.  And while in her life that was probably even more true than usual, I hadn’t wanted it to be true of me. 

It was about that point, passing under Seneca, that I realized I’d forgotten my blazer in the office.  Stickle bats!  So I would be back after all—because I needed that stupid blazer.  I needed it because I was now going to embark on a new, unknown, more perilous adventure that calls for even more sucking up than working in development—job hunting.