Getting the News

I so, so wanted to just keep walking.  Pretend that I had glanced to my left and seen nothing.  Just continued on to the elevators straight ahead of me like I do every day.  Act like I hadn't noticed them sitting there and didn't hear them calling my name.  Force them to make some sort of scene trying to extract me from the group of people waiting to catch the car up to their respective floors.  Politely smile and say, "No thanks, I'm good" when they ask if I will please come with them, they have something they need to talk to me about.

I didn't do any of that.  All I could offer was a semi-slight skip in my walk before I veered off course, towards them, towards HR and towards my fate.  My doom.  The end of my story.

My mind had basically shut off over the mere ten seconds it took to reach them.  I would almost always make sort of off-color, perhaps displaced joke in a situation like this.  A good amount of them miss the mark, but that has never discouraged me from firing again.  Like a 3-point gunner in basketball, you can't make a shot you don't take.

But this was different.  My humor synapse did not fire.  It had nothing to pull from.  I had shut down internally.  My legs were moving.  Everything else was gone.

When We Were Young

It was February of 2004 when I first entered those Allianz doors.  It was a different era.  I smoked cigarettes right there in the parking lot on breaks and before work.  Eventually they made us go across the street.  Then they banned it on the premises altogether except for a tiny area in the far back of the 5th floor parking ramp.  It takes more time to get there than it does to actually smoke.  Glad I quit 8 years ago.

I had quit a horrendous collection agency job in October and was referred to Allianz by a temp agency.  It had been a long winter.  October  of 2003, aka the Chicago Cubs meltdown in the playoffs, had sent me into an unprecedented spiral.  The combination of being unemployed and having my favorite team lose in devastating fashion did a number on me.  I slept until noon.  I  donated plasma twice a week.  I began collecting chex mix wrappers and chocolate milk plastic bottles in the back of my van. I don't think I have ever officially been "depressed" during my 35 years, but that stretch was easily the closest.

Allianz pulled me back.  They held warm and snug for 11 years.  And then they discarded me...

The Holy Shit moment

I took the left turn at the light like I'd done thousands of times before.  Waited patiently behind someone who forget their badge like any good employee would.  Went up the ramp, turned right and found my usual spot about halfway down the row. I grabbed my standard assortment of coffee cup, lunch container, diabetes pouch and phone.  It had all the makings of a totally normal day.

Except it totally wasn't.

I remember as I began the walk down the long corridor to the front desk that I would have to talk to my manager about the issue from yesterday.  Clear the air, hash out what was needed and make sure she understood this incident was from the past. Isolated. A fluke that wouldn't be happening again. I hoped I could catch her before she went down to breakfast.

Then I neared the front desk.  Badge scanning machines on my right.  I saw a familiar face right outside of Human Resources.  Then another one.  My boss.  And her boss.  They were seated.  Until they saw me.  Then they stood up

A thousand thoughts all at once.  All careening around my mind, desperately trying to claw to the top of the heap.  Only one of them did..

Holy shit.  It's over.