Last night I took the social anxiety plunge and sat down for a beer with a few new faces.
One of the faces happens to work at a place that rhymes with Snoozak where I was once fired on my 21st birthday. I harbor no negative feelings now because I realize I was the obvious choice when corporate downsizing reared its ugly head.
I signed up for a data entry job I knew I’d hate and drank more Mountain Dew than a pre-pubescent Dungeon Master just to make it through the day (surfing the net on the company dime). Thanks to that job, I know that someone by the name of Manuela Kamosi wrote the house hit, “Pump up the Jam” which is not exactly the kind of pop culture reference you can just toss lightly into a conversation.
I remember the day they canned me like it was yesterday. I was in my mall goth phase, so I was wearing a pair of black, platform, Frankenstein’s Bride shoes when they called me into the office.
People hold their faces a certain way when they’re about to fire you. It’s the same look my grandpa gave me the day I was baptized, like he was doing me a favor.
They call it “firing” instead of “watering” for a reason. But in my case they should call it “being watered” because it always makes me cry. I don’t know how else to respond.
“We’re going to have to let you go.”
“Do you have to? I’m low on gas and I need a jacket.”
My Snoozak experience was the most memorable out of the fistful of times I’ve been fired because they actually gave me a birthday parting gift. Or shall I say, party gift.
Miami Sound Machine: The Greatest Hits
I wanted to greatest hit someone in the kisser, but it was all so enormously depressing and hilarious. There were no tissues, only napkins, so I scraped a layer of skin off of my face and whaled away while they patted me on the back and desperately awaited my departure.
When I cry, I cry ugly, so I don’t blame them.
I had carpooled that day with a friend who took me home along with a box of embarrassing cubicle decorum. The items inside mocked me the entire way. I recall the hammer and the Paul Pope sketch printed on recycled paper laughing the hardest.
We stopped at a convenience store and he bought me a 40oz of Miller Low Life.
I listened to “Words Get in the Way” on repeat, sob-screamed the lyrics aloud as if being ordered to at gun point.
Gloria Estefan had the last laugh.
I don’t know if you can really handle fame … but you NEED to be so damn famous, my darling girl.
I could only be famous if everyone promised to never look at me.
During my “you’re fired for being gay” meeting the guy had to cut it short because he got a call that his wife was in labor with their fifth child. Don’t worry, I later won the lawsuit and his kids are starving now.
Hungry for new parents, I bet.
And I’m not ashamed to say you just cracked me up at the expense of a few starving babies.