Musings on Grief, Loss and Corporate Restructures – Part II, the email…
The email actually went out 6pm Tuesday but by that time I was already on my way to Leichardt to see Genova. I got in on Wednesday morning and heard from my colleague that Pompey had been dethroned, my first reaction is to let out an entire string of “fuck fuck fuckity fuck fucks” and then I fired up my computer to inspect the damage.
I read the email…blah blah, restructure, blah blah, thanks for their work and we wish them the best luck for the future…
Sucker punch to the gut, anger, denial…I can’t believe this is happening…
And then the tears…red hot, full of anger well up…and this is the one time I’m really thankful that I’m actually in an office rather than in the open plan. I wipe them away angrily and check the rest of my emails. Ten minutes later my boss boss comes down to explain the situation to me and I can’t hear anything, it’s like the scene in the film where the music drowns out the other person’s lines and your eyes glaze over, except you my case my eyes were dripping tears as I was both mortified and embarrassed at crying in front of my boss boss. And when he left I took a 30min time out in the bathrrom where I decided to re-enact some bad office movie were the protagonist goes and cries in the cubicle.
—
“A mini-empire came down today, torn apart by barbarians and the leader crucified as the plebs wept (well at least this pleb wept)
I never expected to experience this level of torment at the start of my career but I guess this is life right? Leaders fall and leaders rise and if you become a leader you reap the sugar and spice of the far reaches of your empire but also suffer the consequences of the ambition, greed and treachery of those around you.
The plebs continue to go about their daily lives, selling fish and whatnot. The plebs who harden the fuck up tend to survive the onslaught of the changes in leadership. Those who don’t, fall by the wayside and take their ticket out of the daily lottery.
But hey, power is just a business; it’s nothing personal we tell ourselves. It’s got nothing to do with emotions, feelings, you, me or the other person. But we also forget that unlike machines we can’t build a perfect impenetrable partition between emotions and cognitive thought processes, that’s what makes us bloody human.
The worst thing is, each sequential sacking of an empire makes us harder, more ambivalent and cuts ounces of humanity from our souls…little by little…
So all we are left with is this empty shell of what was, because nothing is personal anymore…everything is just business.”*
