Terminated

Now everyone prepares for the worst. It's all going -- family photos, thermal coffee cups, knickknacks from the trip to Amsterdam, Thai takeout menus, SpongeBob action figures . . . We are frantically sweeping the contents of our desks into makeshift boxes, cloth sacks and plastic shopping bags.

Thumbtacks pop off cubicle walls as faded magazine shots of Josh Hartnett's smile and 50 Cent's abs are stripped away.

Two employees race to the bathroom to split a mini-bottle of tequila that had been smacked out of a monkey pi¿ata at a holiday office party two years ago and then get right back to it -- loading crates, making runs to the car, returning for more.

"I was specifically told I had to be here today," says a co-worker who usually works from home on Thursdays. "If I had to be here, it must be because . . ."

Our company has not been impervious to layoffs. Positions have slowly been eliminated in our branch, but the usual MO involved the doomed employee getting a call at home to report to our main office on Green Road, a.k.a. the Green Mile, where one would be disposed of quietly.

But today is obviously a dimension beyond. Human Resources has come to us and literally set up shop in a tiny unoccupied office. Managers don't have time to be subtle anymore. They are not concerned that an employee will make a scene or set off the fire sprinklers on the way out the door. No, this time the cuts will be swift and multiple, consequences be damned.

"Oh, I know the company doesn't really need me. I don't want to go into that tiny office," one employee mutters as artifacts swept from her desk pile up at her feet.

"You're right," I say. "Let's disappear." (Who wouldn't want to disappear at a time like this?)

In seconds, we are all back in the parking lot, slapping a Post-it on Jana's car -- "Meet us at Rotelli's" -- and fleeing a quarter-mile down the street on foot so that when the boss comes back out, there will be no one here to fire.

By the time we make it to the front doors of the Italian restaurant, Jana, who always carries herself regally, is getting out of her car, beaming and primly clutching the severance package to her chest as if it's an award for valor, which, in her case, it may very well be.

The walking papers quickly become a coaster for a Diet Coke, and we laugh at the thought of the boss coming out to find everyone gone and marvel at Jana's full-of-glee Mary Poppins attitude at being terminated. We half expect her to break into song, but instead she breaks out a sheet from the packet that reveals the job description and age of every employee being fired today. "I only had a chance to look at it quickly," she says, putting her finger on the list.

There's Bob. There's Jana. There's . . . me.