The fear of losing your job.

The unexpected lethal punch

Your boss or the HR dept calls you on your landline extension instead of the regular call to the mobile and asks you to come n see them immediately. A cold shiver runs across your spine...Would you care this time to carry a pen and a notepad ? You scramble a few reasons for which they would have called you ,even though none is really good enough. After taking that millions of tiny heavy steps, you finally reach the conference/meeting room. You are signalled to wait inside the room. You can see your pulses slowing down and the hands becoming cold with mild sweat. Then after spending some terrifying silent moments alone, some people show up with neat white envelopes with your name written on it. They break the bitter news wrapped up with the sweetest of the words , essentially conveying that your services are no longer required for the organisation. It is only a matter of few seconds before you are lost in a private storm of thoughts and are off to a different galaxy in your mind.. A million things flash up in your head as if you were surfing TV channels in a mute mode....Meanwhile the people in front of you are clarifying that this layoff is not at tall related to your performance and it is due to the economic slowdown..You see them moving their lips and hands moving frantically but somehow you are no longer able to hear what they were saying.... Before you realise what happened, you would have involuntary stepped out of the room holding most the dreaded page of your life. What is the first thing you do after coming out of the room ? Break the news to your anxious colleague OR shutdown your system n start emptying your desk OR call up your family and inform them OR find a lonely place n try to breathe some air before you do anything. It matters little what you do at that point of time...

The Concussion

The next 15 minutes pass by as if you were in a coffin ....you barely know what is happening around you.....Then slowly the realisations starts creeping in...The exact words would differ but this is how they would roughly roll out....Oh my god, I have been fired !!! Yes it is me...It is real and it is happening....Have I just been slapped and told that I am unimportant and disposable from the organisation point of view...I guess that means that I am not getting the full salary of this month, so forget the next month's pay cheque....How the hell do i pay those credit card bills ???.....How big is this layoff thing ? Is it just me or a couple of more in the firing line..Oh man, Now I am laid off employee....I cant believe that I am now one of the the laid off employee those news channels keep talking about.....It would be perfectly understandable if at this point of time, one would have delved into a lengthy profane 'wordlist' ranging from words with 4 alphabets to 10-12...The ubiquitous 'F' word with it's creative suffixes and prefixes should have appeared a million times during the above monologue.

The Convulsions
By now, You are no longer short of breath but have the suffocating feeling...Something is choking up in your entire body.... This uneasy stage is wherein you feel as if you had been pelted with hundred hammers- all at once !!!. Your bank payments, house rent , those repairs, EMIs etc etc...For a normal sane person, the thought of robbing a bank to meet the above payments should come at least for a moment. It would not be not totally inappropriate if the thought lasts a bit longer. For the first time since the disaster started you stand up and scan around....It quickly dawns upon you that things have changed forever - irrevocably. The cosy places of yesterday now seem like slaughterhouses....Even though you would like to pity upon the ignorant people who are having a laugh , you really can not. You just don't want the messenger of bad news..Moreover, you don't have the courage to walk into the crowd. To save face, you make a unnoticed exit and abscond into a lonely place.

How do I face them now ?
Everyone has at least one person in their life who has always bullied you and you hated them for it. More than anything else, what stresses your mind is the thought of how to react when these people come to know of your premature dismissal.

This person has always prophesied that you epitomise failure. In all the previous instances, you were able to somehow dodge these doomsayers. But this time, it is not easy as the magnitude of this is totally different. What if he utters his opinions in public...Provided that we are utmost honest ,then this is how our first reactions would be....(The description of the slow motion is inspired from the movie 300)-.... Stare the person in the eyes by standing firm in front of him for two minutes...Gently turn your torso around 90 degrees towards the back with your arm raised...form a stone hardened first by closing your fingers.....Make a deadly mix of your hatred,anger, frustration and pump this energy into your fist...The fist of your life.....Then with the speed of a samurai sword swoop down on the Guy's cheek with ground shattering force....This should immediately register a crack in his jaws and send the waves up his skull.....Even when he falls on the ground, the shock waves should stay abuzz in his ears..... Not the ideal solution but definitely a soul satisfying one !!!

Some ambiguity might arise on the intention behind this blog. I categorically wish to clarify that it is neither to preach any precautionary measures nor to forewarn people about the repercussions of economic slowdown. To upgrade my creative spirit , i have decided to take challenging topics head on henceforth. The complexity is further compounded by the fact that many a times these topics are considered a taboo to be discussed so openly. Undoubtedly, i have borrowed the basic framework of the article from friends and acquaintances and used it as a 'hypothetical' situation. I was lucky to have escaped unscathed after citing real people's names in my previous blog. This time however I shall respect people's right to anonymity and use a more generic tone.