I get laid off

Where have I been?

Short answer: I was busy becoming a statistic.

Long answer:

I got laid off.

Prior to my captors releasing me back into the wild, I worked in the marketing department for a musical instrument manufacturer. They hired me as an intern and then as a full-time marketing coordinator back in the halcyon days before the recession, when mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps were awesome, when Lehman Brothers meant quality financial services, when people still bought shit like musical instruments.

Between June 2007 and today, a number of remarkable things occurred. The housing bubble burst, the credit markets locked up, the Bush administration oversaw a disastrously run bailout program, Will Smith became president and the Democratic supermajority in the Senate conclusively proved that even a huge advantage can be rendered completely powerless by Olympia Snowe.

What did not occur was a complete and timely economic recovery. I needn't delve too deeply into this topic. I don't place this at Obama's feet; it's not like anyone else had a better idea. A shitty thing happened and it will take time to fix. The stimulus stopped the bleeding, but the damage was done.

So I watched co-workers vanish, heard increasingly dire rumors about the state of affairs and speculated as to if or when I might go to the chopping block. I started as the marketing department intern and, a few weeks ago, became the last remaining marketing employee. I wish I had the time and foresight to accomplish something significant in the department alone so I could present it as an achievement with few resources, but I didn't. And yesterday, they let me go.

I assumed that eventually I would lose my job, but I hadn't expected it so soon. The unceremonious dumping sort of stunned me and my initial reaction was, well, unfavorable, but I've had some time to calm down and now I'm more or less fine. Shaken and worried, but fine.

For all my self-important ramblings about the state of the economy and how XYZ elected official doesn't understand how things are out there, I'm forced to admit now that maybe I didn't really know either. Intellectually I knew that the economy was terrible and that people were suffering because of it, but I learned a hard and important lesson yesterday. You might be very smart with a college degree, you might do good work, you might be hilarious and popular with your co-workers. That does not exclude you from the possibility that you, too, can become just another grim face in the unemployment line.