Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

When I was laid-off seven days before Thanksgiving 2008, I barely had enough time to gather my belongings.

My exit was an orchestrated affair that humiliated and labeled me emotionally as a criminal.

I had served the organization for 3-1/2 years and even spoke at one of its conferences, earning the highest of evaluation marks from the audience.

On my D-Day, the HR person escorted me to the elevator door with whatever I could carry, and the top dog’s secretary was waiting at the curb to hail me a cab.

Not even a goodbye after I had acknowledged her in my book. I thought that was crummy and showed an office friendship as shallow as veneer.

I don’t know why the do-gooder organization I worked for chose the low road. There was nothing in my employment history that suggested I’d do something provactive, such as destroy, or steal, company property.

Why would I jeopardize future employment opportunities? I had immense monetary needs. My ex had been laidoff three weeks prior to my layoff, and I had school tuition and tutoring bills for a child I had recovered from a developmental disability.

In a relationship that ends badly, I could see a jacked response that results in malicious behavior, however. Bad breakups cause emotions to run higher than a layoff (except for a Chinese steelworker boss who was beaten to death last month by his employees over a layoff)

That’s because relationships are intimate, and that creates more emotional attachment than with a job, or at least I hope so.

My impending divorce caused my ex to commit spiteful acts. He torched my $800 wedding dress; had a big bonfire in the backyard, and he pasted in rhinestones the word “Princess” followed by “is falling” in magnetic poetry on the refrigerator door.

He taunted me in other ways: He tore off the cover of the book, Speak and Grow Rich, and pasted over the word Speak with F—k. Yes, I had met someone else, and my soon-to-be-ex at the time considered him wealthy. He was somewhat wealthy compared to many people, but he was also a cheapskate.

And, here I was worried that he’d take a pair of scissors and slice up my underwear, which he later told me he had considered doing.

While getting back at a company is never a good idea, getting back at your ex girl- or boyfriend is often enough of an emotional release to move on, because you sure won’t be moving back, unless, of course, you’re on the brink like me.