I was staring down a frozen computer screen at my third computer of the morning, engaged in deflective patter with a customer as I waved an arm at the Watcher to come help me.
"We've already ticketed this computer to be fixed," the Watcher told me. "Maybe it's you that needs a ticket."
Liz told me later that this was an attempt at wry humor.
Another customer berated me for shipping costs, and refused to supply me with her phone number.
"I don't give my phone number," she scolded. "I'm a lawyer, and I know what happens."
"Okay, ma'am," I said.
I was cheerily urging someone to purchase an epilator to go with his nose and ear hair trimmer, when my supervisor appeared and deftly pushed the "make busy" button.
"Let's go talk," she said.
We wound through the building until we found two chairs in an area surrounded by merchandise: sock monkeys, chattering chimps, xylophones, boxed chocolates and soaps nesting in gift boxes.
"So," she began.
I sat erect in my folding chair surrounded by puppy pajamas and bathrobes on hangers trying to assume a position of dignity in my squishy Uggs and jeans, but I felt as she explained numbers and the unfortunate circumstance of over-hiring based on last year's projections, like a chastised school girl.
The words "laid off" were used.
"I don't want you to go home thinking this has anything to do with your performance," she said.
"It doesn't?"
"Oh, no, you were... " She smiled and swept the manilla folder in her hand in an encouraging upward arc. "On the upswing."
"Did you have a chance to use your 50% off?" she asked.
"Not yet," I said.
"Oh, that's too bad, because we don't really have a way of tracking..."
I was to be stripped of my 50%. I considered racing up the mountain, going straight to the company's flagship store, and using it before the system noticed I was terminated.
"But, you will be invited to return next year," she added. She showed me a paper with a little box that had been marked with a hasty blue inked check. It read "re-hire."
I reflected upon my brief, not quite brilliant career. It felt as though I had mostly been in the center of a disturbance: computers freezing, taking three weeks to master the digital punch, hired on at the very end of seasonal hiring and therefore missing the final training. I had faxed paper punches to the wrong department. At night I had begun to awaken to imaginary beeps in my mind. My dreams were haunted by frantic conversations to do with oilcloth tablecloths and fruit cake. There had been, perhaps, overly frequent calls to CS and Product. I still "hunt and peck." I had dropped a call or two.
No sooner had I punched back in from lunch than the Watcher appeared.
"What time did you punch out?" she demanded.
"At 2pm," I said.
"You took an hour for lunch?"
"I did," I admitted. "I had a very bad morning, and then I was let go."
"What a terrible last day," someone said mournfully.
"Have a cookie button," someone else offered.
"Would you like to stay for the rest of the day," the Watcher inquired, "Or would you like to go home now?"
"I think now," I said.
I handed in my white, credit card sized fob and my name tag and shook hands with my supervisor.
"I'll miss your smile," she said.
"Don't worry about being fired, " Dick said trying to be helpful.
"I was laid off," I explained.
"Well, call it what you will," he said, "But, it's just great. In fact, I'll check back with you in exactly a year from now and you'll be shocked to see how things will have opened up."
"Hm," I said.
"Basically, they looked around the room when it came time to cut and saw you," was my daughter's comment.
I've already started the search for future gainful employment at findtherightjob.com. There are some intriguing possibilities: Foreign Trainer for Disney in China, Gas Plant Operator, Clinical Dog Specialist, Central Intelligence Officer.
