Innocence Lost

When I was a kid, I thought that what we wanted to be when we grow up was what you’ll always be. For example, in 6th grade, the teacher was asking us that very question. You heard the usual. Doctor, Lawyer, Fireman, Cop. Not sure if anybody said Politician. But what I am sure of is that nobody ever said Software Engineer or Database Administrator. Or, God forbid, Facilities Manager. You think anybody in your class said they wanted to be a “Business Architect”, or whatever the hell that means?

Chances are that unless you were pistol whipped by your parents to take Medicine or Law in college, you haven’t the faintest clue what job you’ll end up with. That temporary job filing papers turned into a regular job that suddenly you can’t get out of. True story about my work place: One of the help desk people tasked to fix our computers has no degree in IT, computer or machines in general. I asked him once if he has taken any of the certification tests. And I kid you not, he said “What’s that?”

I’m also sure that when we were all little tikes and tikettes, we thought that we’d be doing the same thing until we got old. “Lay-off” to us meant to keep away from our lunch. “You’re fired” wasn’t even in our vocabulary. Resignation sounds like a sickness. To us, if you did something bad or slacked off, you’re either taken to a corner or slapped on the hand with a ruler. Personally, I thought It would be like Cobra Commander calling his troops names after they screwed up, all while running away after defeat. They'd still be there in the next episode.

Ah innocence.

Here’s the thing. For most of us, we are stuck in these dead end jobs, putting up with morons we call our managers. Yet we still have to live with the reality that eventually they’re going to let us go, even if we don’t want to. We spend half of our week at our jobs all to earn a buck, putting up all kinds of crap; all to put food in our table. And yet at the end of the day, we’re just a number that the higher ups can drop once the stock keeps going down. Tell me that thought had crossed your mind back in school.

It’s very humbling to know that no matter how hard you work, how many hours you put in, or how many family members you alienate by working 12 hours a day, you can still fall victim to a bunch of people in a room that decides you’re just not worth keeping anymore. Back in 2002, in the waning days of the dot.com crash, this company lost so much money that they axed people without giving them any warning. This one guy that got it was around when the company was just a startup. Obviously, the guy dedicated himself to the company. He was so angry about getting laid-off that he went building to building looking for the president. Security called the cops and they let everyone leave early, just in case. The next day his picture was all over the doors in every building, telling employees not to let him in.

I understand that it’s a business. I’m not here to argue that point. It just saddens me sometimes that the hand that feeds me can also crush me. Since I’ve started to work, I’ve been fired once and survived three lay-offs. All while working at something I never thought I’d do. I guess I'll make a terrible manager.

We all work and work and work and just hope for the best. When we finally max out our usefulness, we're set aside for the new one to come in. Then we go out and try to find a job, hoping to get lucky. And the mad cycle keeps going round and round.

This wasn't what my fucking teacher told me would happen.