Prologue.
When I started this blog, I explained that I had recently left my job of 1.75 months and needed to focus my energy on something besides the working class grind. I’m still working on getting to a more stable and promising plateau (Or would it be a terrace?), but writing has helped me along the way. It’s a passion of mine; it is, as they say “therapeutic.” Really, though, I just like telling stories.

I’ve kept this one behind tightly closed lips because I’m proud. And it’s not a good idea to air out dirty laundry. And you especially shouldn’t share things publicly when you don’t know where they’ll land. I think, though, it’s worth my sharing this story because I’ve benefited from supportive heart-to-hearts with other people, and in order to pay it forward, I might as well offer an anonymous someone an anecdote of my experience.

I’m not writing this for sympathy, and I will not approve such comments. Just wanted a chance to share my story and come clean a little bit.

The denouement.
I loved my job. It combined things I was always interested in and I was challenged with turning those interests into “measurable” tasks with “attainable goals.” My boss was big on using cliches that were more awkward idiom (“Low-hanging fruit,” “throwing at the wall,” etc.) than they were marketing speak, but he was a fair guy. I appreciated him as a supervisor. I didn’t see him as a mentor, but he was a voice I needed while I was figuring out how to apply a Communication, Ethnic Studies degree to Web “2.0″ Marketing. I was good at what I did. I kept my eyes open in multiple industries and brought my observations together in a “relevant” way. Besides, it was fun! Having gone into an internship that just ridiculously naturally turned into a permanent job, things couldn’t have been better for my first full-time job.

When my first year at the company came to a close, it was announced that a new chief officer would be joining. Along with him, another company would merge in with ours, and things would grow in a happy little partnership. For the purpose of this story, we’ll call the new guy Darth Vader Unmasked, because he looked like David Prowse in full makeup why not?

In all the months I spent at the company with Vader Unmasked’s direction, I believe I spoke to him just once, when he first came on. The change in personnel signified something other than just new bodies with new roles in leadership. It also introduced a new personality to the company. The “start-up” I had joined (A lot of these phrases are in quotes because they’re either ridiculously overused or otherwise questionable.), the one that had a keg in the kitchen and paid me to consume pop culture like I had no sense, was interesting me less. I felt less spirited about what we were doing because I didn’t agree with the decisions being made at the top. It didn’t keep the users in mind. It felt “corporate.” I was complaining about it more and more with my close friends, and with everyone else I just talked about how I loved my job – though with less enthusiasm than I used before.

Four to five months after Vader Unmasked’s regime change, I was feeling it a lot. I was asked to plan the company birthday party. It was the week of my GMAT. I ended up rescheduling the exam, but my body had already reacted to the stress by improperly blocking my salivary gland, giving me a much-unneeded tumor scare. My boss didn’t appreciate my last-minute notice for an afternoon off to visit my physician, and I was put on the defense. At least everybody liked the overdue party? (Those who weren’t busy coding for a site release as the rest of us ate cake, anyway.)

As the company prepared for new feature rollouts, marketing ideas starting coming down from on high, and we as the marketing team had to carry out the orders. They were lame. They didn’t fit the company or the user demographic. It was like they came straight out of some old guy’s business blog, some old guy who probably follows random people on Twitter as if that’ll drive clickthroughs to his homepage. In subsequent one-on-ones with my boss, we were butting heads more, me saying how X Strategy wasn’t going to work, him asking why not, me repeating myself over and over again, him saying we had to go through with it anyway. More and more, I felt bitter about carrying out some other department’s ideas. I didn’t even like the company anymore.

And it showed.

3 P.M. wake-up call.
(Damn, that was a hella clever, timely subheading, wasn’t it?)

One day, my boss pulled the marketing department in to let us know someone’s last day had just passed. None of us knew a thing about this change. That someone was cool, friendly, and loved our users even though I hated them. At that point, it was clear that the company was not afraid of letting go of people based on rapport.

This story only comes from my perspective, but I’d say the office was a bit paranoid and nervous after that.

About a month after my friend and coworker’s last day, I just felt different. At my one-on-one with my boss, I remember explicitly saying “I have extra time this week, if you need anything taken care of, just ask.” I remember noticing my boss pulling out my other marketing team members for out-of-the-ordinary late in the week one-on-ones. It actually felt like something was crawling up my back. I remember shrugging off “Hmm, maybe I’m gonna be fired.”

The next day was a Friday. It was particularly sunny and nice. Lunch had passed, and to me the day was almost over. It was getting harder and harder for me to push through each day, so I started making up smaller tasks to take care of that didn’t fall anywhere on the Marketing Assignments from On High list. On this particular Friday, after a sunny lunch, I was researching some blogs to send out some mini-pitches. My boss tapped me on the back of my chair, “Got a minute?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. I brought my notebook along, made sure I had a pen.

We sat in a conference room. It was super sunny. The first sentence out was “This isn’t an easy conversation.” I was assured that it wasn’t a personal thing, that essentially I had a great relationship with everyone in the office. But what he cited was absolutely fair and accurate, that I seemed less engaged about what I was doing and overall seemed less proactive in my ideas.

It wasn’t like there weren’t signs that structural changes were on the horizon, and what else can you expect from Karma when you’re Craigslisting for jobs while on the job? I thanked him multiple times, told him it was a fun first job and I appreciated what I had learned. He handed me severance paperwork, but there was no handshake. Not sure if I was supposed to initiate the end of such a deal, I kept my hands to myself. Really? I thought, I don’t even deserve that? A handshake?

At the end of the meeting, my boss gave me the option to pack my desk then or arrange to do so at a later time. I offered to finish up whatever I had started that day. He replied with a sorry tone that it was not worth my time. In so many words, I was told to pack my things.

Wow, all that and it was barely 3 o’ clock in the afternoon.

Unexpected IMs went out to the people in the office I felt closest to, because I knew I wouldn’t be receiving the grace of a company-wide e-mail alerting everyone of my sudden departure. On the way to dropping my keys off with our office manager, I crossed paths with the company’s original CEO. He stopped awkwardly and just watched me walk ahead. Other friends in the kitchen were probably wondering why I was rushing around quietly, holding back sniffles. I was done. I left.

Epilogue.
Based on how turned off I was by the company, even well before the termination of my employment, I’m very happy to be gone. I think it was natural for me in my first job to want to make it last as long as possible and act as if I could make the position better and more promising than it was. In the four months since my last day at the office, four people have left as well, including my former supervisor. Some of them “left,” some of them were “let go,” but they all point to a sign of a slow (and grueling) phase of restructuring. I can’t complain about getting a severance package, either. The way I see it, it was a mutual breakup, and I got the puppy.

I spoke with my boss a couple of days after our final one-on-one. I asked him what I should work on and he shared with me my weaker points. I asked him how to overcome obstacles that I knew plagued our marketing department and he gave me his two cents. Then I asked him why I had to be let go in the middle of the afternoon. In broad daylight. In our office with no walls or private rooms. “I just wanted to know if I was being made an example of,” I said. I was told it was nothing of the sort, that our IT guy had to shut down my company accounts, and that he had to do so in time for his weekend vacation. It’s not fair to shoot the messenger, but I think it is perfectly fair to call Bullshit on something that shows a complete lack of respect to someone’s role and contributions.

The company was lucky to have me in the time that they did. They’re also lucky I’m not some ballistic psycho bitch and didn’t have a complete meltdown. They’re lucky I didn’t cry in hysterics or yell obscenities on the way out. I carried myself as classily as any 24-year old who just got laid off in the middle of the fucking day could: quickly and quietly.

I’m also lucky I found them. I’m lucky Domestica sent me the Craigslist posting, lucky they hired me full-time, and lucky I found a job that melted together all the things I love poring over.

It was fun while it lasted, but as I’ve told numerous friends and acquaintances since, in my euphemistic, long-story-short kind of way, “It was time to go.”

Mainly because they told me to.

Editor’s Note: I know I’m not supposed to write stuff like this, but… Too late.