Be Careful What You Wish For

A little history...

I have been in the advertising industry for almost 13 years, since I graduated from college. Not the fun, creative kind of advertising you see in movies, though. No, I've been on the business end of things, the buying and selling of airtime. Lots of schmoozing, lots of paperwork, lots of overtime, and very, very little use if the right-side of my brain. Come to think of it, very little use of ANY part of my brain. I kind of fell into this business after college, and without knowing what else I should be doing with my life, never bothered to try a different path. I always wanted to get out, but never knew where to go, or where to start.

Well, it looks like I just got the push I needed. Yesterday, I, along with 5 other of my colleagues, became the latest casualties of the Great Recession. I cannot lie, I saw the writing on the wall for quite sometime. The ad industry that has been particularly hard hit by the economy. Almost every tv station group, rep firm, and ad agency I know has had layoffs in the past 2 years. Not to mention, I was hired 3 years ago as a senior level account executive, yet my client list billed no more than anyone else's. Bottom line - I was really expensive, without a lot of payoff. I was the Milton Bradley of ad sales (sorry...I'm a Cubs fan, and that boneheaded acquisition still kinda burns me up.) But the kicker, the one thing that really put the final nail in my coffin was the fact that I told them I was going to be moving to MA. I told them because I was hoping to get a transfer to the Boston office. When they informed me that not only were there no openings in Boston, but that that office was likely closing, I knew then that things were going south for the company. And I knew that if layoffs came to Chicago, my name would be first on the list.

So yesterday morning, it happened. The six of us got called into a meeting with the Chicago Big Boss, who oh-so-sympathetically read from a script without ever looking up. Not once did he look us in the eye. He was accompanied by some unknown HR rep from NY who sat there silently, just watching, I'm guessing in case one of us flipped out and went ballistic or something. We all just sat there listening as we were told that our positions were eliminated, today was our last day, and our computers were being shut down as we spoke. We were each given our individual severance packages, and told to go clean out our offices immediately. While we were doing that the "survivors" were all called into a meeting to discuss what had just happened. I gotta tell ya, they took it a lot harder than we did. Half the people came out of the meeting bawling. Maybe they're really good actors, maybe they're emotionally unstable...hell, maybe they're jealous it was us and not them that got freed from that soul-sucking job. But whatever their reasoning, it was nice to get hugs from everyone as they said goodbye and wished us luck.

The other freshly-canned and I decided to walk over to Rock Bottom to commiserate. I had half of a beer, then a cranberry and tonic (had I not had anything to drink they would have known immediately something was up...I've been talking about babies incessantly for the past 3 years). The survivors soon joined us and bought us our drinks and lunch. And then Stacey came and picked me up and that was that. Goodbye, job. Goodbye coworkers. Goodbye corporate life that I never belonged in anyway.

Last night, Stacey and I crunched some numbers, and honestly, it looks like they might have done us a huge favor. I was leaving anyway, voluntarily. That would have meant no severance pay, no unemployment. We would be heading to MA with our savings, and that's it. This way, I am paid through June, and I qualify for unemployment for the next year. I'm not saying getting laid off was a good thing, but things could definitely be a lot worse. And, since we are leaving in less than 3 months, I can't exactly go out and get a new job. So I guess I'm on a 3 month vacation. And with the weather finally becoming nice again, things could be a lot, lot worse.