2017 and the moments that were
When I got laid off at 27, I thought I was too young to be laid off. I should’ve known better — no one is. I knew what was going to happen the night before, because the calendar invite sent to me, at 9 pm, was from HR and the venue on the invite was set outside of the office. There was only one reason why I had to meet with HR outside of the office. I slept that night thinking, “I won’t have a job after tomorrow,” and dressed my hair up in lovely braids the next morning. If it was going to be the worst day of that week, I believed I should meet it splendidly.
When I was 19, I published this status message on my very new Facebook wall: “If you can’t blind them with your bullshit, dazzle them with your brilliance.” I can’t remember what possessed me when I wrote that, but I guess I was in the similar frame of mind eight years later. Ish. I didn’t dress up as fabulously as I should have. I was laid off along with 1/3 of the office. Some of them who also lost their job just moved to Singapore a few months before. They were probably going to break their lease. It was a good thing I was only renting a room. Their circumstances seemed more unfair, but no amount of silver linings made me feel any less uprooted than that moment when my big boss handed me that getting-laid-off-letter.