They Do it Any Way

I once worked for a company that was financially struggling. Because I knew that they were, I asked them to please give me some warning if they weren't going to need me any more. It seemed to me a reasonable request.

After a long Labor Day weekend, I had just bought my monthly commuter ticket, and went to the office, like I always did. The ticket, by the way, not cheap, but worth it travelling into NYC as much as I did.

Well. I get into the office only to be told, "Effective immediately, we don't need you any more." Given I was technically freelance, there was no severance, no Unemployment. No nada.

And I just paid for the damn monthly ticket I no longer needed. Although they did tell me I was welcome to use the office, if I needed to/wanted to. 

I gave it a few days, and then decided to go in. The date? September 11. 2001. I never made it. I don't think I even made it into the city again that month.

I was sharing this because I recently heard of a number of people who came back from hiatus only to find themseles unemployed. Why do companies - which are made up of freaking people - do these kinds of things? No one would want this done to them, and yet they seem to think nothing of doing it any way.

This wasn't the only time something like this happened to me. Interesting how I always heard that I should treat "companies" right, but they could treat me any which way they wanted to.

There were a few things I missed here and there about having a JOB, but that lack of mutual respect certainly wasn't one of them.