by Das Brain
As the title suggest, life has a sick sense of humour and irony. I was let go or terminated from my job this morning. The morning after I had just blogged about why I wanted to run my own profitable business and not have to worry about being laid off, or let go from my job.
It seems surreal like I don’t believe this is happening, I should have seen this coming but I didn’t. It hit me like a ton of bricks this morning, when my now former pencil neck manger (he looks like Mr. Bean) pulled me into one of the small offices downstairs. 
I walked in and there was the human resource lady with an envelope in front of her. Mr. Bean…I mean my pencil neck manager said robotically with no emotions “We no longer require your services” and walks out the door and the human resource lady took over.
Both my former manager and the human resource lady did not really give me a clear reason why I was being let go. They couldn’t pin point any specific reason. She basically, just said “You are terminated as of today, you get 2 weeks pay and a severance. Look over and sign the letter and mail it back to me.” That was it.
The real reason, I suspect had to do with office politics. Let me explain, it’s pretty simple and it goes like this. If you don’t like your manager, or don’t get along with him, you are targeted for termination. It’s that simple.
My former boss was new. Just one and a half months in this new management role coming from another sales department. Very young in late 20’s or early 30’s and had a lot to prove. He is smoking right now, strutting around trying to prove he’s the man and asserting his authority with no respect or regards for employee sympathy. I wasn’t the only one let go from my job this morning…there were others all under this young pencil prick manager. Just by my description you can probably see what he is doing. He is getting rid of all the old employees (yours truly included) and to replace them with new employees that he already brought on or is going to hire. I’ve seen this before in my 11 years experience in the corporate world and he will get what he deserves in the future. What goes around comes around, that is all I have to say.
This guy is one of the most hated inviduals on the sales floor, nobody like him and he knows it. Everyone calls him a duffus robot manager behind his back and thinks he has the personality of a cold stainless steel fridge. Doesn’t it always seem like the pricks get promoted to management. That’s the corporate life, where you learn that if you talk down to people , be mean to them and don’t respect them you will be rewarded with a promotion. You can choose to play the politics game or not, but if you do or don’t it doesn’t matter. Sometimes though you can’t escape it, because the ripple effects will still get you, which means you could lose your job and hence the unpredictabilities of working for a corporation.
Yesterday, I said I wouldn’t want to be an employee for Lucent or Motorola where massive lay offs are happening and today I am in the exact same boat as they are. Terminated and jobless. Life can be cruel and deal you a bad hand when you least expected, this is one of those times for me, but I can’t help but think that it will lead to something better (my business).
This too shall pass, lows are always followed by highs and I am not going down for the count. I’ll take the punches, but I’m not going down.
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