Over a month late.
December 2nd. I unpacked my laptop, booted it up and went to get some hot water. While windows was logging in I prepared my diffuser with a tablespoon of loose tea leaves and began steeping my tea. I was just about to take my first sip of tea when my "boss", Steve, stopped by my cube. "Do you have a moment to talk, Jon?" (in retrospect this was a really, really retarded question... what if I had said, "No, Steve, I'm very busy right now"?)
Frankly, I was relieved. Steve had been my "boss" for about 2 weeks by this point and hadn't yet taken an interest in me or the work I was responsible for. With layoffs likely in the near future it was nice to think that I'd get a chance to familiarize Steve with my work.
We had our miniature meeting in the small conference room, the site of many a tuesday morning meeting for the last team I had been an official member of. It was here that Steve started things off with a bang: "Jon, we're having a workforce reduction today and your position has been eliminated."
I don't remember much of our conversation but it was very brief. I do recall him saying that he "didn't like being the bearer of bad news." When he said that I really, really wanted to slap him. What an asshole thing to say. "Gee, Steve, that must be a terrible burden. I'll tell you what: I'll trade places with you. I'll bear the bad news and you'll receive it. Otherwise, kindly FUCK OFF."
Next up was a meeting with the head of HR who wanted to talk about a bunch of things I needed to know, like how long my health insurance would last and what to do once it was gone. What was going to happen to my 401k. I don't think she said anything particularly offensive, although I recall being a little irritated by "it was a very difficult decision."
After the slew of doomsday meetings I got to go back to my desk. Unlike previous layoffs where they whisked desktops and laptops away while you were being given the bad news, my laptop was still there. I very briefly considered deleting certain files from it-- in particular there was the past week's worth of work which I hadn't yet submitted to source control, or the licensing middleware whose source hadn't been checked into source control for over a year.
Ultimately I came to the conclusion that deleting these things, were they then looked for would show clearly that I had deleted them after being laid off. That would be bad. The real likelyhood is that no one was left at Empirix would have any clue of what to look for on my laptop and that leaving them intact but failing to mention them to anyone would be functionally identical to deleting them without the added hazard of being illegal.
I do smile at the thought that there are a few major ongoing bugs which I solved while employed by Empirix but Empirix has subsequently lost through its own negligence.
My tea was cold and over-steeped by the time I had returned to my desk, so as short as the meetings were, they weren't short enough. I drank it. Out of spite.
Then I began packing things up and loading them in my car. Empirix didn't provide boxes, which would have been nice, so I began carrying stuff out in small handfuls. Realizing how much this was going to suck I asked the receptionist if there were any boxes around that I could borrow. Empirix didn't have any, but she happened to have a spare box in her cube.
Howard the brick. A shrine's worth of framed pictures of my wife and kids. Papers. Swag (including Mercury swag). So much stuff. Most of it is still in my car over a month later and I'm not sure where to put it. Even once I've got a new job much of that stuff won't be appropriate in some other office. Explaining the big print of the construction workers, for instance, won't be interesting or appropriate somewhere else. Perhaps I'll get it framed.
I think I will, however, bring Howard to my next job.