So… I got fired on Thursday, partly from budgetary reasons (I guess non-profits have some finicky budgets during recessionary periods – go figure), and partly from “unfulfilled expectations” (whatever that means). I suppose my adversarial relationship with the sexist HR director didn’t help things… (it really took a while for it to hit home that men can be victims of sexual discrimination, too.)
But I was initially left with that empty feeling one has when they break up with someone. I’ve never been fired from a job before. This is pretty new to me. I’ve left other jobs out of sheer frustration, or because a ‘better’ job was beckoning, and it felt similar to this, but not quite. I guess I feel just kind of betrayed, really. I thought we had a good thing going. It was an environmental not-for-profit for crying out loud – that’s supposed to be about the ‘best job’ [sic] a rewilder can have, right…? Pfft. Guess not. Honestly, I should have quit sooner – I wasn’t even doing the job they’d hired me for – instead I was pretty much chained to a desk punching abstract numbers that were supposed to represent “the actual benefits that trees and natural areas provide to the public”. And of course, all those “actual benefits” were in dollar amounts. What a joke.
Then there was all this horn-blowing over “green jobs”. Barf. Sometimes I wonder how such a flimsy veneer of lies can gather such a fanatic following…? I guess it’s just part-and-parcel for civilized people burying their heads in the sand so they don’t have to look at the awful mutant monstrosity they feed every day. “Well, you know, we’re supporting technologies that put fewer carcinogenic chemicals into the air we breathe!” and they just look at me funny when I say: “Well, that’s great and all, but you’re STILL putting carcinogenic chemicals in the air… why not just… oh… I dunno… stop that?” Blank stares. Sometimes even open hostility (although it’s almost always thinly veiled behind that omnipresent passive-aggressive manic psychosis): “I don’t really like that attitude, you know… it’s not very positive.” I absolutely HATE passive-aggressiveness – it makes me want to get seriously aggressive at people. Just kind of gets under my skin and itches and itches, you know? Gahhhh…
But the root and inspiration of this post is the ensuing identity crisis that I’m still kind of dealing with. I went into my office and cried after I got the news (I still don’t know why, although I think a profound lack of sleep had left me with few other automatic responses left). Then I cleaned up my shit, hauled it out to my car, drove home, etc. The wife nearly feinted (she’s got a job she really likes that pays way better than any of my jobs in the past… well… ever did, so it’s not like we’ll be living on the streets or anything – and she actually likes the job, so that helps…) But yeah… I’ve been suppressing all those feelings that you’re “supposed” to get when you loose your job (e.g. that you’re a total loser that can’t cut it, and you might as well just [shadow=red,left]DIE [/shadow]and make room for those that can!) I think you guys know what I’m talking about (at least I hope you do…) So here I am, going between fits of “well, now I can do some stuff I want to do for a little while (e.g. hit the rewilding skills)” and “Oh my god, I’m just a useless lump of plasm and calcium after all and I should go bury myself”. There’s also the weird feeling of “ending up another statistic”, which, if I think about it, has been happening to me all my life, but now it’s become more, I dunno, obvious. And awkward. I’m in kind of a lonely place right now, and I’ve got an eerie feeling that it’s not getting any better any time soon. (I am sincerely grateful for my wife, though – she’s my raison d’etre right now!)
So there’s my story… I just wanted to rant for a bit, really (and thanks for that), but if any of you have some thoughts or tidbits of wisdom that you’ve picked up over such things, I’d welcome them.