I hope that on November 3rd, I'll not be able to read any meaning into the fact that Election Day and the Day of The Dead both fall on the same day this year.

There are just too many employment-related happenings recently. Yesterday we all got an e-mail that our facilities guy (who restocks the paper towels, does the heavy lifting, etc.) was let go. Or, more accurately, "his employment ended" yesterday. And we're getting the locks changed.

Now, people are buzzing, thinking that he committed some offense, and that he's perhaps planning on coming back and doing some misdeed. I don't think he committed a terrible act to be sacked. In my perusals of job listings several weeks ago, I noticed a posting for a job very similar to his by an organization that sounded quite similar to mine on craigslist. But they didn't post the org's name. The posting just provided a fax number. Which has the first three numbers that our phone numbers do.

So they've been planning this for a long time, and then *bam* one day, they hit him with it. I feel terrible when anyone loses their job, even if they deserve it. Because I know how it feels (sort of) and because I know that most people who work in this city actually depend on each and every paycheck to get by. I know this guy was a bit of a slacker, and there may be things that I do not know about, but I still can't help but think that this was a bit cruel. I just hope that they gave him a warning, a chance to improve.

I don't think I could ever fire someone. I'm just too freakin' compassionate. I've often thought that if I were attacked, the best way to escape could possibly be to poke the person in their eyeballs, but that I would probably not be able to do it because I would know that it would inflict a terrible amount of pain. And I can't imagine inflicting pain on anyone. Even if they were trying to kill me.

(last week I saw 2 movies* which featured eyeball-gaugings, and just watching them both cause me great distress.)

*Kill Bill: 2, which I liked way better than I had anticipated; and 28 Days Later, which I loved.

It's official. I did not get the job. I received a very nice letter on Friday informing me of this, with a promise to share my resume with a recommendation with the HR department. This doesn't actually mean anything, but it is a nice gesture.

I came so very close to this it kills me. I layed awake a week ago dreaming of the new pants I was going to be able to buy with the increase in salary, of my new cubicle, of my new commute...

I was really led on. More and more this is feeling like romantic rejection: the infatuation, the fantasizing, the anxiety, the eventual resignation to not being wanted. The curiousity about who won their hearts.

So now I've resigned myself to staying here for a while longer. A terrible part of this for me is that I'm not able to share any of the past two weeks' drama with my co-workers, and that they have no idea of the turmoil I've experienced. They are completely unaware. I don't feel good about this, the way I would if I were trying to jump ship from a terrible job: "You guys have no idea what I've been up to! Haha!" But I do wish my boss somehow knew how close he was to losing such a valuable team player...

mazel tov.

Last night served very well as a distraction. I went to a family friend's house in Woodside for a Rosh Hashanah dinner and enjoyed most every bit of it (Could have done without: gefiltefish, potato kigel, and insipid questions about my love life.)

The night was made complete, and worth it, by Annie and Nettie. Annie and Nettie are sisters. Annie is 82 and Nettie is 80. They have never had a fight.

I knew they were special when I overheard them discussing Texas Hold'Em as I walked in.

I wonder if it is because I have not had a living grandparent in 12 years that I am so utterly taken by old folks. It's not that I'm reducing them to their status as elderly, but I truly appreciate the calm, wisdom, and experience that they can share (some of them, anyhow. Not the one on my block who called E. a "fool" for not knowing exactly what "Curb Your Dog" means.)

They were both really lovely, but Annie, Annie was the more independent, gregarious, expressive one. The one who really captured my heart. Once we really got going in our conversation, she pulled out a ziploc bag holding several photographs. Two were from past Halloweens: in one, she was an incredible geisha - for which she won first prize; in the other she was Diana Ross - that was a bit harder to pull off, her being a small white 80-year old lady and all. The third was her in traditional Chinese garb, during her visit to China.

Annie belongs to a group called the Red Hat Society. It's worldwide, I'm told. Here are some photos of a chapter somewhere. They are a group of ladies over 55 who wear red hats and have a great time. Annie is preparing for a Red Hat Society sleepover in the next few weeks, for which she has purchased a red teddy and festooned it with purple faux fur straps and trim. She's very excited about it.

The ladies seemed to really like me, too. They both hugged me fiercely when I left, and both expressed sweet sentiments that I was lovely, that they think I know what I want, and that I'll get it.

If only they were right.

My aural environment is currently defined by the absence of a phone ringing. All I can hear is my phone not ringing. I have had this exerience before -- generally caused by a boy for whom I had an unreciprocated love/dangerous obsession. But this time it's from a potential employer. And it's just as irrational: my brain has communicated to the rest of me that I did not get this job. My powers of reason have concluded this with little doubt. But this "rest of me" is not listening. Instead, my whole being is on high alert for a phone call, or even an e-mail. This is not a productive reaction to this stressful situation in question. I would take a drug, right now, if it offered to shift my focus from a lost job opportunity to anything else. The plate of food on my desk, the projects I must complete at work, Bush's economic record. Maybe I'd even go Eternal Sunshine and have this whole experience erased from my memory.

Of course I'm being dramatic, but it's the little setbacks that get me down. The bigger, life-altering events I can deal with. This, this is just cruelty.

DESPAIR!

How terrible is it to bring a girl in for two interviews, then ask for her references, and then not offer her the position or even call her references for the job?

Incredibly so, I say.

I have not heard definitive word on said position, but I am 98% sure that it will not be filled by me. And I am slightly crushed. I can't go back out there into the cruel world of interviewing. I can't! I am not cut out for it. I have learned that I am a classic introvert. So is Al Gore, a writer in the New Yorker says. Basic litmus test: When you go into a room full of people, do you come out energized, or do you come out drained? I, invariably, am drained. Interaction with strangers, even acquainances takes every ounce of my energy and attention, which is why I interview poorly, and have trouble making new friends! Help me.

my future... ?

So my current situation.

I am very close, it seems, to a job offer. I have had two interviews, and one subsequent request for references. We shall see.

This has not all gone smoothly, however. I have had some big downs in the pursuit of this particular position.

My biggest down: I sent thank you e-mails to the two women who interviewed me last Tuesday. They were different in language and content, but of course similar in that cloying "I want this job and I'm super pumped" kind of way. I did feel good about my notes.

So, then I see an e-mail in my inbox from one of the women (the one I'd be replacing, who just received a promotion.) Lovely. She has something to tell me.

What did it say? It said: "She sent me one, too. Do you think she used a thesaurus?"

!

Now, I thought the job I was applying for required attention to detail. Apparently not. This woman had meant to forward my message to her boss with a bitchy comment, but had instead replied to me with this bitchy comment. Do we think she realize what she had done?

In any case, I was convinced that was it for me, if in a backhanded, unintentional way. If she felt comfortable enough to say something so downright mean about me, I figured the overall feeling about me was low. But then I got a call for an interview a few hours later. So you never know.

She may just have it in for me. For my second interview, she gave me the wrong room number, and I had to scurry around like a madwoman and enlist the help of the kindly IT guy (she had sent me to a computer lab) to find her. Maybe it was a test. Maybe she hates me already. I'd rather not work with a nemesis. I hope she's just scatterbrained.

For the record, I didn't use a thesaurus. I'm actually able to summon the words cooperative, convivial, challenging, and dynamic from my brain at will. And I meant them. Now I'm not so sure this prospective work environment of which I spoke really is all that convivial. hmph.

champers.

So what did I take that was not mine?

Well, we did events for companies. Booked travel, helped them with their presentations, private jets, etc. For the Asian companies, we were a bit more socially-focused, and helped entertain them. They would bring entourages to these events, who didn't need to be there in any real way -- they just wanted to see the sights.

So we had this one client for whom we bought cases of alcohol. Top shelf champagne, red wine, white wine, scotch, and dessert wine (yuck). They drank a whole lot of what we bought them, but not all. So the remainder was stored in our New York office, where I was stationed, and everyone else who had flown in from London for the job left. At the time, I was the only one in our New York office.

My colleagues contacted me a bit later and asked me to ship it to them in London, to drink, for having done such a fine job. When I looked into the shipping costs, they declined, and decided to keep the alcohol in the NY office until the clients came back.

The clients came back twice, and, golly, I really tried to make them use it. I mentioned it to the project manager several times; I offered to ship it to the hotel. I really wanted to clear it out so I wouldn't be tempted. But they just never used it.

So you understand, when I was laid off, I was the only one in New York who knew about the stash. And most of the people who knew about it in London were axed that day, too. If I had left it there, it would have been forgotten. Spoiled. An archeological treasure.

So one night, while I was traipsing around lower Manhattan with my lovely then-roommate, I asked her to come to the office with me to help me clean out my things. I spent most of my time in the basement, loading up our backpacks and shopping bags with top shelf champagne and red wine. It was glorious.

I did feel guilt. But you must realize these were excess bottles bought for and by a client, which the client refused multiple times. I did not take from my former employer. These bottles would have gone to waste. I did not maliciously thieve them with spite: I took what would have went unnoticed. Forgotten. Spoiled.

I needed the intoxication to forget my woes. It was part of my severence.

That is my confession.

sacked.

So in my mind I've been rehearsing, in various forms, a resignation speech. I have made it to a second round of interviews for a position I'd really like, and I'm beginning to feel hopeful. There was an incredibly negative distraction days ago, but I'll detail that later.

For now, I'm reminiscing about a past employment-ending conversation I had. But that one was directed at me. About two years ago, I was laid off.

It was a strange situation. I worked for a British company that had divisions in the US. The division I worked for shared office space with another division, so there were at least 40 employees in my office, but in my subsidiary, there were just two of us. One day, I strode in, put two newly purchased containers of yogurt in the fridge for future use, and sat at my desk. My boss was at his desk, next to mine, with a morose look. Before I could turn on my computer, he asked me to come down to the conference room for a chat.

I don't remember now what I thought at that moment, but I did know it was bad. He had just started a few months prior, and I didn't particularly care for him. He paled in comparison to my previous boss, who had hired me. I did have my share of revolutionary moments, like taking two hour lunches in protest, but I had settled down by then. I did my job well and I was not in fear of losing my job. He needed me to acclimate him to our company. I knew the network. I knew the personalities.

Anyhow, he was very upfront and honest about what was about to happen to me. It was not in any way his decision, which I know to be true, and in the London office, things were much worse: about 20 people were going to lose their jobs tomorrow (He sacked me a day earlier than everyone else since the day the axe was supposed to fall was the day before Thanksgiving. He didn't want me to start out the holiday on such a negative note. The buffer day, he thought, would help. It didn't.) Essentially the head boss man said to each office: Cut your staff by half. When you work in a two person office and you are the junior person, you're toast.

I knew it wasn't his fault, but I couldn't help but hate him. He had started, like I said, months earlier, and I had read his original letter of interest. He came off as a pompous blowhard. And that's being light on him. I also knew that he had negotiated a huge salary, which I couldn't help but think, if had been just a tad smaller, would have spared my humble salary. But he was good to me through the break-up process, so I do not despise him.

He did suggest I leave the building immediately, and come back at a time when no one would be around, perhaps at night, to collect my things. I collected them and a good deal more a week later.

I now have my requisite I was a victim of the stock market bust conversation at parties, and for that I am thankful. My eventual path was not to be in that field, but I do regret my run didn't last a bit longer. That job afforded me my first trip to Europe, trip on a private jet, ride in a helicopter, first-class seat on an airplane, and *swank* hotel room. I could have experienced just a bit more of those things and then turned my back on them altogether.

Ah, well. I do have my memories, and boxes full of toiletries from fancy hotels.