I was let go from my employer in the last business day of February. It was a long time coming- but perhaps the most prolific moment of it all was when they let my boss go...
My old boss (and I'm leaving his name out of it) was a real company martyr. A real "bank man" as we called them. Did you guess I used to work for a major bank?
While we had a good relationship- I can't say I loved the guy. I did, however, like him a lot.
(Funny thing about love- and in my life this has become more and more relative- you can love someone but not like 0r respect them- very sad, but true. You don't have to love everyone- but liking them and respecting them is a move in the right direction...)
Anyway, my boss was a self-made man- having been one of like ten or twelve from blue-collar, working-class Middlesex County.
He was a military guy- he crossed his T's and dotted his I's... He was Irish- a shoe-in for our line of business- which in actuality is a niche, low-brow part of the game known as Wall Street.
My old line of work loved guys like this- it was just political to do so. He worked hard, he drank, he worked cheap for decades and slowly but surely amassed quite a bit of material success (for a guy like him, anyway)- if only by default- he who stands longest and strongest sticks around long enough to be running the place.
Guys like me, however, while we were liked, and quietly respected- we're never loved. At the time I had left and then came-back to my bank job (largely because of the said boss- and I'll always be grateful for it)- I wasn't looking for love. Just money.
I turned down the title- and got paid more money. It was a skewed place, my old job- and while others pounded their fists with bullshit titles- with what I made in comparison, well... it would have made even King Kong fall-off the Empire State building.
But back to my old boss- I believe personally, and not politically- we respected each other.
When my boss lost his job mainly due to nasty politics and a newly merged company not in-love with his old-school bullshit- some were sad. Others got scared. Me, well... I got excited. Raging hard-on excited.
My boss was our champion- our only reason for being, as we knew it anyway- in a company that was 1.) cheaper than ever and 2.) disinterested in paying for performance but rather cutting the price to build value- another performance metric.
They let him graze in his office for the better part of a year, like a castrated bull, before finally axing him right before Christmas.
He cried. He got into religion. Started looking to the mystical powers in the sky- quietly asking... why?
Why. I knew why. He probably knew I knew why too. Maybe that's why he spoke to me.
There were people who knew this guy for 25 years, working with him and for him for decades. Now that he's gone- well, these people (if they know it or not) are gone too.
They're all relics, products of a by-gone era- never to comeback again.
Some say I should reach-out to him "put a little bird in his ear" and say hello.
I've e-mailed him- just kept it light. Made sure he hasn't blown-himself-up or anything like that... I don't recall ever getting an e-mail back.
So when I did get an e-mail with my boss's name on it- much to my elation- it was a total spam. Directing me to a bogus, Canadian pharmaceutical company selling Viagra on the cheap no less.
I never knew they made so many varieties of penis pills. Then again- they make a variety of hard-ons...
Some you're excited and happy to hear from. Others not.
Ironic, but true. He tried his best. Even if he is a hard-on.
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