“You’re part of the core team,” the boss declared that day over sushi rolls. “You, me, Jack and Joe. If everything takes a downturn, we’re the people that stay.” Seeing my startled face, he added, “I don’t see anything coming right now. But in my position, you have to think like that.”

Cue to six months later, one month into the COVID pandemic. I knew cuts might be coming. I also knew I wasn’t one of them. Until, during an unrelated meeting, the boss started rambling about revenues, about what a hard day it was for him but a much, much harder one for me. Until that moment, I was clueless. “Wait a minute,” I broke in, too surprised to be upset. “You’re letting me go?”

Yes. Yes, they were. In 11 days, with no severance. I went from indispensable to out in eleven days. Just like that. 

“But!” The boss continued, attempting to light a candle. “But! We’ve applied for the Paycheck Protection Program. If we get it, no one goes anywhere. You and Jenny and Joanna. Everyone stays, and we’ll all forget this ever happened.”

This is not an urban firing legend. As God is my witness, this scene actually went down, one of millions sweeping the country like a tsunami of pink slips in the spring of 2020. The fact that I was let go was, sadly, not unusual. The way I was let go? Pure goat rodeo.

Goat trick #1: notice we weren’t actually let go. We were probably let go….unless the company got PPP money in time. Which created a very weird situation in which the team did not talk about us being let go, and did not tell the customers we were being let go, and we did not know if we were being let go. This went on up until right before we were actually let go. 

Goat trick #2: going nicely along with goat trick #1, the team talked about things BESIDES half of us being probably-but-not-for-sure let go. (As a team, that is. Naturally dozens of honest individual conversations/therapy sessions went down.) 

But as a team, the Monday after the probably-let-go’s were announced, the boss made no mention of this at team meeting. Instead he told us about golfing with a guy who was struggling with the fact that half of the restaurants he’d just bought were closed due to the pandemic, and asked us if anyone had gone bowling that weekend. I worked very hard and swallowed my reply, which would have been something like, “No, we did not go bowling, because we’re probably being fired and people losing their jobs don’t waste money on frivolous shit. Too bad about your golf boy trouble.”

No, I am not usually this blunt and/or mean. Being probably-but-not-definitely let go and then peppered with insensitivity brings out the edges in me. 

Goat trick #3: Once we started telling clients we were leaving, a whole two days before it happened, something magical happened. Our company grew a board. 

That is, the boss told clients in front of us that “the board” had decided to let several of us go, to ensure the company’s long term financial health and longevity etc etc.

This time I did not resist. I very nicely said, “I actually didn’t realize we had a board. I’d love to hear more about that later.”

(Spoiler: we didn’t have a board. We had the boss and the founder, like we always had. Who for purposes of our downsizing, were dubbed a board. When I explained later why I thought this was disingenuous and unfair, the boss stopped the board references.)

I thought the show would be over once we were actually gone. I was wrong.

Boss had assured us upon our you’re-probably-out-of-a-job convos that of course, we could use COBRA to continue our benefits. 

Then after we were actually terminated, he attempted to deny us COBRA. His explanation was that the company was too small to be required to offer it and our insurance carrier therefore would not honor it. 

I did about 15 minutes of Googling, confirmed this was incorrect and illegal, and wrote as such to “the board”. Shortly after, we got an email saying, never mind, good news! You can continue your benefits after all!

Turns out there is a thing called mini-COBRA, or continuance, effective in the majority of states. Even if a company is too small for COBRA….you still have to offer mini-COBRA. 

Was everything with my former company this much of a hot mess? No. But the letting go has really damaged my opinion not just of “the board”, but of the almost mythological faith we put into small business in this country. I want to believe it too, America. I really do! But it just ain’t true. They don’t always take care of their people. Sometimes they cut their losses and shove folks off the boat. Do they feel bad about it? On some level, I’m sure most of them do. But we’re still the ones falling. 

On the bright side? My layoff was such a goat rodeo that what came next – dealing with the unemployment system – was amazingly functional by comparison.