Happy Friday

CorpWorld culture is loaded with contradictions.

Almost everyone you meet is nice. Project meetings are loaded with small talk and good anecdotes. Over time - you become familiar with the public face of the people on your team.

You don't know them, but you know their social patterns, sense of humor - what they choose to present to their co-workers.

Call it their avatar, and people create them out of necessity. I know your avatar; I can pretend to know you. It makes working together easier.

Personal lives exist only to the extent that they add color to people's avatar. You do not ask about personal lives, people choose which highlights they will share.

Really, it's just meeting people with a set stopping point. A protocol.

You don't even think about it until something makes you.

A few weeks ago - I got an email from a colleague that made me.

The message was really odd. This person said "Keep in touch" and listed an external email address. Below it was a giant picture of a smiley face.

The subject line said "Happy Friday" but the subtext was clearly I don't work here anymore.

Which brings up the obvious question: Did they jump, or were they pushed?

The message gives off all the signs of someone loudly affirming "I AM OKAY WITH THIS" which naturally suggests the opposite.

The human thing to do is to ask this person how they are doing - y'know... what the hell happened? Are you okay?

But you don't know this person - you are not friends, you know next to nothing about them. Asking for particulars is ghoulish, and really - what do the particulars matter at this point?

Being morbidly curious hardly justifies the intrusion.

You can't ask.

At some point, the grapevine may bring you some after action report - but it will just be another avatar.

You didn't ask the person - so you will never know.

---

This morning a co-worker told me to go into the office to see the boss. Their mannerism suggested I should not ask why.


Flat-footed, mind on an upcoming meeting, I go in with no idea.

The boss starts out by trying to calm me down.

It's nothing bad.

In other words, this is bad.

The boss clarifies.

This is not bad for you.

So we are talking about people being fired.

I'm looking for confirmation she's not talking about me. She's not.

She's telling me a third of our department is being laid off. Good people, veterans. A father of three whose wife has cancer - he moved here for this job. The recruiter who's always making lunch for the department.

My partner on a side project-

-and my partner on the meeting I'm about to go to.

My boss is upset. I do what I've done before - tell her I work for her until I don't. That my feelings are irrelevant - I still have a job.

I go back to my desk shell-shocked.

My partner and I will go to our meeting in ten minutes. They have been laid off, and I still work here.

I'm still sorting out if the subject can be avoided when they are at my desk, with all their meeting materials - as if nothing has happened.

We start walking and she casually asks, "How are you today?"

I'm assuming they know everything I know - so I break protocol.

I say "I won't ask you the same question."

She says "You're still here?"

I realize she'd been asking if I was gone, too. She doesn't know who's still here and who isn't.

I rattle off the names - and we pretend not to be horrified.
We walk to the meeting dancing around the subject.

I don't know her. I feel sick. She was about to buy a car.

We arrive at our meeting room - and our respective avatars go in.

Better that way.

Protocol.