Ad People are so Pleasant...

I was sent this trailer featuring a documentary called Lemonade (as in, when given lemons--make lemonade).  I totally relate to the gut wrenching stories of how they felt when they were laid off and how they were blindsided by it...

But, as an attorney and a self-admitted pessimist, I could hardly relate to how they turned their situations around.




I'm going to see this movie and become something random and unrelated to the law.  Like a ballerina. Just you wait!

Drip Drip, Drip Drip, Drip Drip.

So, I work for (the next few weeks anyways) a big firm.  Let's call it Gangster & Dunn.  At GD, we felt stable as Staff Attorneys.  What is a Staff Attorney, you may ask?  It's a dead end position where you do document review or anything else that would be expected from a first or second year associate.  Up until The Crash, we were paid well.  We had decent hours.  Sometimes, we would work late and weekends, but generally, we were happy campers.  But then, people started dropping.  First it was the slackass girl who didn't think she needed to come to the office, or work at all... so we weren't really upset.   All of the SAs thought that she deserved to be fired.  Then... a few weeks later, it was people with questionable hours, or people who had issues with associates.  There was always a reason.  Actually, GD was so good to us that some people were given warnings.  We thought, if you don't get a warning, then there's nothing to fear.  That means you're fine.

But then the firings got a little weird.  How can GD let Lily go when she's a key person on a major case?  How can GD let Bob go when he billed 230 hours every month for the last few months.  Even after Bob was fired, he worked so damn hard for his final month.  Maybe they'll change their minds?  

Then a few weeks or even a month would pass and we would put it out of heads.  We thought they were finished.  I even had a few people in Finance.. my own deepthroat... who told me that GD was so great that we had higher profits than ever.  Surely they would finish with seemingly unnecessary layoffs.

But no, they fired a guy who was there for 5 years and another that was there for 10.  When would the madness stop.

About then is when I got the call. I was out.  And that's fine. I'm single and I will survive.  But they surely wouldn't go on to fire people with children and families.

But then they did.  GD fired people with children.  Where is the mercy?

Anyways, one by one, the SAs are being shot down.  It's just torture.  It's not right. It's not fair.  If they know they are going to disband the program... give us each 6 months to find a job and a nice severance package.  But to have no loyalty to us when we wear the GD emblem proudly on umbrellas and tote bags is just so damn wrong.

I really wish I was born 75 years ago.  There are a couple reasons why.  First of all, maybe I could have avoided that women's lib nonsense which gave women 2 full-time jobs as if one weren't enough.  And maybe I could have landed a job with United Steel, where I would be part of a Union which would fight for my rights. I would start working for them as a secretary at 17 and retire at 50 with a juicy pension.  All without the encumbrance of a student loan for a worthless degree, aka the JD or the Just Dick degree.  It just hurts so much to do your job, to the best of your ability and without question.  And to be let go like a cat that pissed on the couch one to many times.  Free to wander from contract job to contract job like a vagrant.  Isn't life exciting?  Not really. It's just terrifying.

Just put me out of my misery!

Once again, doing everything right bites me in the ass.  

Unlike all of the victims of the subprime crisis... and I do call them victims, I always knew better. I always knew that I need a 30 year fixed mortgage and I also knew that I should be able to afford my home easily.  So rather than buying a $400K studio in the most desirable part of town, I opted for a $150K place in a neighborhood on the edge.  "On the edge" meaning that it's two blocks from the ghetto, but it has potential to improve.  So, happily, I have a beautiful one bedroom which is fully renovated in a less than desirable part of town. I could have done better... but I wanted to do the right thing.  

So... fast forward to today.  I'm fasting.  I decided to make a sacrifice for God so maybe he'll throw me a bone.  I am so afraid of imminent homelessness due to job loss that I found religion.  I don't need God smacking me in the face, so I'm trying to do something for Him. Today was the first day I trekked out to the temp agencies to register in case (in the likelihood) that I don't find a job.  Between that I went to work.  The two offices were on far ends of the City and my office was in the middle. I was pooped, I was drained, I was defeated.  Life as a contract attorney just seems so daunting. So, needless to say, I was a little down and tired and hungry.  I get to my train stop and I get on the bus.  The WRONG bus which, in my starved haze, doesn't become apparent to me until I am in the ghetto.  Ghetto is defined as an area of my town that has two many homeless men with bottles in bags and too many burned out buildings. I finally turn to my neighbor on the bus and I say, "Where the hell am I?"  She tells me that I'm obviously lost.  I don't know what to do, I'm hungry.  To get off the bus and go to the other side of the road and go back to the train station--only to get back on the correct bus is just disturbing to me.  But I decide to get off. I'm wearing an uncomfortable suit and heels from my "interviews" earlier in the day.  As I'm getting up, the bus comes to an abrupt halt. I fall into this young man who proceeds to laugh his ass off of at me.  I make my way of to the front of the bus to ask for a transfer (after all, I'm unemployed) and she tells me she doesn't have one.  At this point, at least in my mind, the WHOLE bus is laughing at me.  Not just laughing, but cackling like clowns at me.  I don't know what to do.  My face turns red and I'm just upset.  I literally run of the bus.  I make my way across the street to the bench for the bus.  I start really feeling badly for myself.  My eyes darting between the homeless men on the stoop, the burned out building, the closed stores and the young girls doing some "booty" dance which is nothing my daughters (if they ever come to fruition will be permitted to do).  I'm imagining being robbed and shot in the face.  I'm scared.  Then, this quasi-homeless looking man approaches me with a small plastic baggie which I can only imagine is crack.  And I ask, "What is that???" and he says, "It's a gold bracelet, do you want to buy it?" and I just burst into tears.... I told him I lost my job and I can't buy anything and I'm lost.  He lays of the sale of merchandise and directs me where to go.  On my way to the proper bus stop that will get me in the vicinity of my condo, several really nice and nosey people ask me what's wrong... and all I can say is that I was laid off.  Anyways.. long story short, 45 minutes later, I gave up on the bus and walked home, all the while being subjected to men in cars yelling things at me, "Hello" and "Do you know English?" and "Do you need a ride?"

Why does this relate to doing everything right, you may ask?  Because I bought a place that is affordable that is so close to the ghetto.  Get it?  Shoot me!