I began working for a largely successful furniture store chain, lets call them Bashfully Furniture Homestore, in 2007, hired as the sole company painter for 5 regional store locations.  All of these were approx. 30 miles drive from each other and from my home in St. Bluiss.  OK?

Anyway, after a year passed I started noticing little things.  You know, like them telling people, 'make sure you don't work over your hours." (When you never seemed too..)  Or telling people to not take long lunches, not play around as much, or even talk about non-work related things.  People start to get irritable, and people start to stab other co-workers in the back.  The boss comes by less, or, if he does come by, he walks faster, and has a serious look on his face, instead of his usual chatty, happy quality of being more like "one of the guys."

Then people start getting canned.  Yes, the people who deserved it, but a few of the ones you liked too.  You get a new supervisor, one who really doesn't have the time nor interest to get to know you, or joke around.  You feel pressure all around, as everyone doesn't want to deserve being canned.  They put the squeeze on you.  Performance evaluations become more common, and more scary.  Litmiss tests disguised as Rewards and Bonus Programs become policy, and everyone knows they have to kick it up a notch.

Oh.  Yeah, I almost forgot.  Then more than 1 person at a time gets canned.  People have to whisper the details.  You have to watch your back.  Policies are updated, and the memos are dated and given: "Updated Company Policy Manual."  (especially in RE: Performance Expectations, Absence Policy, Time Off, Etc.)  On the salesfloor, where it is usually slow and calm, newly bumped up supervisors write scribblings on their clipboards.  And then, they watch you work.  Three people gone from each of the 5 regional stores in one swoosh: The Friday afternoon massacre at Bashfully Furniture.

You begin to worry enough that you talk to your significant other about real issues like losing your job, or rather, "Wow, I hate to see them go.  Work will suck now."

Unbeknownst to you, they are already planning who will fall in the next wave.  Somehow, you seem to feel safe, yet you still ask the boss like, "So..Uh, How's business?"  and "Hey, am I doing OK?"--as if you need too.  It won't happen to people who work hard, stay clean, don't waste company manhours on a secretary's computer.  If you're me, you paint faster, buy supplies less costly to the company, and you clean up your tools every day after you clock out, not before.  But why?  You are safe.

Then your BFF at work is not there one day.  You wonder why, but not because you miss him.  You no longer can pass an hour focused on your task at hand.  Every time you look up, there are less customers in the store. 

Then the day comes when they take the free coffee away.  God almighty, not that.  They might as well said there won't be enough lifeboats.  You decide to maybe ask the boss if anyone else is next on the chopping block.  Not just anyone though.  And maybe you should ask his son instead, lest you give him ideas.  His son is your age.  He is allright!

"Oh, no.  We've got plenty of work for you, Joe.  Don't sweat." 

One Monday, you come in and he is no longer in charge of that determination.  And, the person you felt most ill around becomes your immediate superior.  "What expenses are these, Joe?"  and "Where were you?" and "How long did that take you?" become familiar obstructions to your otherwise stressful yet ok existence.  Daily, you calculate just what you have to do to not get canned.  Forget asking for a raise, for a bonus, or any complaint you have.  Just keep your job.

So you become a kissass, phony-baloney, mamby-pamby schoolgirl when it comes to your least-friendly superiors.  You once loved coming to work.  It was an escape, and a place to laugh, and make friends one can only enjoy at work.  Now, you dread coming.  You almost wish they would just end it.  But the bills at home, the kids at home, the wifey at home--make you stay there on the firing line.

After a very short weekend, you decide to call in sick, just to sleep.  You haven't used any days in awhile, since before this all started.  So you make a low-voiced sick call to the receptionist before anyone who might be mad at you or want to talk you out of it arrives.

You can't enjoy this day off, because tomorrow somebody will be talked to about it.

And then it finally happens, after months of terror and acetametaphin and midnight trips to the bathroom and kitchen and bed.  You see that the day off didn't really matter, because they had already arranged for someone else to do your work, permanently.  You are called to the office, where they say they would have done this yesterday but you were sick at home.  You get your last check, then there's a moment where it sinks in--this is it.  You're laid off.  Those stats on CNN about the unemployed--that's you.

You nicely ask if you can finish the week out, the day out.  No.  The check is for the week.  No need.  Just leave.

As you stare at your car keys, your house keys, as you make the walk of shame over the endless parking lot, you are not sure what to do or what to tell your wife and kids.  Why did this happen?  Yesterday, you just reassured her, "They said they need me....  We don't have to worry, they said....  We'll be OK...."  But now you will have to explain this discrepancy.  There is a slight pause as you turn the key in the ignition, as you barely can look up to see Bashfully Furniture Homestore any more.