My Ex-Boss John Is A Dick

"NOW, SON...THIS'LL HURT ME A LOT MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU"

He called me into the department's break room and sat across the table from me, plunking down his cheap, imitation-leather folder.  Any time he brought notes with him it gave me pause.  John rarely showed up on my shift, third shift, unless there was a problem.  The rest of the time it was "out of sight, out of mind"...for both of us.  And that's the way I generally preferred it.

    Life was a pretty darn enjoyable thing when I never got an e-mail or heard his voice on the phone.  Just the dark, outside world, a room full of mostly family folk working the only schedule they could, oldies on the radio, and me in charge.  The room was typically alive with the sound of clicking keyboards, quiet humming, and whistling.  The seven people on my crew never sang, "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go," but probably only because they never thought to.  My co-workers were a pretty happy bunch for graveyard-shifters.

    I was the only supervisor in the whole department, although there were two other shifts in this busy 24/7 company.  Everyone answered directly to John, except for the ones on my crew who had to go through me first.  Does that make sense at all?  Having the buffer on the shift you never see anyway?  He did have a go-to gal on first shift, but she didn't really count since she was 21 and wrote e-mail at a 6th grade level, frequently leaving out crucial words such as "the."  She spelled "Announcements" on the bulletin board without the third "N".  But the overall presentation looked damn good, I'll give her that.  It was like elementary school for adults; yellow paper background and red crepe cut-out letters.  I heard her next project was going to be fashioning a time card rack out of dried noodles, Elmer's glue, and construction paper.

    This night I had been led to believe we would be discussing the full-time hiring of one of my customer service reps from a temp agency; a guy I respected on a personal level and had fought for several times.

    "There comes a time," John began seriously, "when you have to do something you'd rather not.  This is one of those times."

    Shit, I thought, so you're not gonna hire Ronnie.  And after all the lobbying I did.  What a--

    "Effective immediately, you are discharged from the company."

    He was looking at me.  ME.  And I stared back, unblinking.  What was THIS shit?  This HAPPY horseshit, as Stephen King would write in a lazy moment.  I'M being FIRED?

    Briefly, "wife and kids" see-sawed in front of my eyes like a personalized Windows screensaver message.  Then incredulity returned full-force and hit me in the balls.

    "What are you TALKING about?" I asked.

    "You think it's easy on THIS side of the table?" he asked.

    And there it was.  If I hadn't known it before (I had), it was confirmed in that second.  This guy was a DICK.  What kind of a man tries to spin pity back on himself when he's firing a guy with a whole nuclear family and a mortgaged house?

    And he did it AGAIN ten minutes later while escorting me out of the building.  "This isn't easy on me, either, you know."

    What was I supposed to say to that?  Oh, here, John, let me hold you while you sob.  Your whole night is completely shot!  Don't cry so hard!  Where's that damned teething ring?  Here, I've chilled it in the fridge.  It'll soothe your gums.  Hush.  Let me sing "The Wheels on the Bus" for you.

    I said nothing to him.  I walked out the door and didn't look back.