You never know when your life is
going to change. It’s a cliché, I know, but I think about it a lot. I was
really thinking about it a lot earlier this year: Sure, I woke up this morning
and got ready for work like I do every day, but what if ironing the shirt that
I just picked up off the floor is the last routine thing I do in this life as I
know it? Something dramatic and scary could happen, or just something small
that changes my outlook on life or the way that I do something that I’m used to
doing every day. Even the thought of something good changing my life in an
instant was scary enough to send me into a downward spiral of thoughts that
just made me want to drive my car off a bridge.
Then, after a long time of thinking
and spiraling and NOT driving my car off of any bridges, it happened. One small
conversation changed life as I knew it.
It was Tuesday, March 8, 2016, and
I was asked to come into work for an earlier shift than I was scheduled. I
wasn’t happy about it, but I loved my job and almost every part of it. Our
district manager was coming in for a visit and we all assumed she asked me to
come in earlier so that I could watch the sales floor while she kept all of my
bosses trapped in the office.
So I got there promptly at 8:02 AM,
did everything that an opening manager needed to do, then got started on the
things I needed to get done in my section that day. The district manager, Vicki,
arrived a lot earlier than usual – about 8:30 – but she left me to do my own
thing. I wasn’t too worried about her being there, other than the fact that she
always silently judged what I wore to work.
My boss, Trish, and I opened the
store at 9:00 and I was running furiously back and forth to get the 3 days’
worth of work that I needed to do done in one day. I was also one of the only
employees in the store at the time, so I was supposed to be running the cash
register, the fitting rooms and the kids’ section all while I had so much other
shit to do. At about 9:30, our general manager came out of the office in a big
hissy, almost ran directly into me, then said with a terrifying look in his
eye, something that scared me more than anything he had said in my 3 years of
working for him:
“Vicki wants to see you in the
office.”
Vicki never wanted to see me when
she came to visit. I was virtually the lowest on the totem pole; the only time
she really acknowledged me at all was to point out all the pieces of dust that
had settled on the sunglasses displayed in my section and tell me that they
should always be clean, like anyone had time for that.
I had to double check to make sure
I heard him correctly. “Vicki… wants to see me. Me?” Me.
So I let myself into the office and
she invited me to have a seat. As I sat down, I made sure that I wasn’t wearing
anything off-brand, that my tattoos weren’t showing and, most importantly, that
I didn’t look as terrified as I was. I sat down and she asked me how I was
doing – a strange question considering I had just greeted her at the door an
hour earlier. She seemed nervous too, which did not make me feel any better.
She motioned toward the computer screen and I realized that we weren’t alone:
we were video conferencing from some man from corporate HR, let’s call him
John.
She started off the conversation
with “I’m going to read this straight from the script so I don’t mess anything
up.” OK. Sure. Then she started saying a lot of things about a “census,” and a
lot of other words I just couldn’t process because I was so overwhelmed. After
the first minute she asked me if I understood and if I was OK and, because I
had absolutely no idea what was going on and I felt VERY uncomfortable, I told
her yes I understand and yes I’m OK.
Then, all at once, I started to
understand.
“Even though this will be your last
day at Ralph Lauren…”
Suddenly I wasn’t OK. I could not
tell you what she said after that. She continued to read from a script, then
turned it over to Computer John to explain something about health benefits. I
just nodded along, focusing a lot more on holding back tears than retaining any
of the information he was listing off to me.
I was so dumbfounded that I can’t
even tell you now what was going on in my head. I know that I took a second to
scan my brain for any memory of any mistake that I may have made recently that
would lead to my termination. But that thought process didn’t last long,
because I knew I had done nothing wrong. In fact, I was basically running half
that store singlehandedly. At some point, after the conversation had moved on,
I realized what she was telling me right when I sat down: the company had to
make cuts worldwide and my position was “nonessential.” I was being laid off.
Fired.
When everything was said and all
the documents signed (unread), I gave her my store keys, gathered my phone and
car keys and left my office for the last time. There was so much hard work just
in my little mailbox in that office: store maps; 70-page packets of
instructions that I had studied for weeks, adapted and re-drawn; customer
information; new formats for employee training and re-training; and so many
memories of working and unwinding, anger and laughter.
She walked me out the office door
and I was again hit with all of my hard work, finished and unfinished:
half-dressed mannequins waiting for their finishing touches; boxes and boxes of
handbags and jewelry, all individually unwrapped and sorted in whatever free
minutes I could get during the day; nearly 75 shelves packed full of clothes, perfectly
folded and organized by style and color, waiting to be destroyed by the first
careless stock employee that’s too tired at 5AM to just read the labels on the
shelves.
When she led me out the stockroom
door and onto the sales floor, the feeling that I now feel the strongest when I
look back on this situation hit me: humiliation. She led me straight to the
door, past my section, half torn down because I was in the middle of a complete
overhaul. I wanted to signal Trish, who hired me 5 years earlier and was the
one who fought for my promotion, just to say goodbye; she was with a customer.
We walked past her.
I passed the cash register at the
front of the store, perhaps the section of the store that had seen the most of
my blood, sweat and tears. It was also where I was supposed to be working at
the moment and I know Trish was wondering where I was.
When we actually got to the door, I
was on the verge of panic. I could not believe I was being escorted out of this
place that I was so dedicated to, out of this store that had become a home
without saying goodbye to my team that had become a family over so many years
together. I could not leave without saying goodbye right then because there was
no way I could show my face in that store later.
As I started to stall saying
goodbye to Vicki, looking around, hoping I could catch someone’s eye, the
general manager came barreling around the corner with another look on his face
that I had never seen before. This was a different one, though: one of regret
and sadness. He didn’t know this was happening until the minute Vicki asked him
to bring me to the office. We both looked at each other cluelessly and, while I
wanted to ask “what the fuck?!” all I could say was “thank you.” I had grown to
love that company and I wanted that job so badly for such a long time and he
finally gave me the chance to do the one thing that I was sure that I loved. He
was nothing but help every day at work and constantly praised all the hard work
I had put into that store. He opened his mouth, but it took a second for him to
speak. “All I can say is thank you.” And that’s all he did say.
I thanked them both again for the
opportunity and told them I’d think about taking another position that was open
elsewhere in the state. I knew I wasn’t going to take it, but for some reason I
wanted them to think they devastated me a little less than they did.
I made it to my car before I
started crying.
The next day I didn’t have to get
up for work or iron a shirt off my floor.
