Congratulations, You’re Fired!

Lyle Stanford woke up with a seagull standing on his chest.

This would’ve been concerning if he lived near the coast—or even remotely closer than 140 miles inland. But Lyle lived in apartment 3B of a building that leaned slightly to the left and had been cited twice for “accidental rooftop goat yoga.” The bird stared at him, cocked its head, and squawked directly into his face.

“Okay,” Lyle said, wiping drool off his cheek. “I definitely need to stop buying expired NyQuil off Craigslist.”

The seagull flew out through the open window like it had better things to do. Lyle checked his phone. Seven missed calls. Four texts from his boss, in escalating all-caps:

WHERE ARE YOU?

LYLE THIS ISN’T FUNNY

IF YOU’RE DEAD TEXT BACK

YOU’RE FIRED. BRING DONUTS.

He threw on pants (one leg inside-out), grabbed a half-eaten granola bar from the floor (possibly last month’s), and sprinted to his job at BlorpTech—a startup that specialized in “AI-driven mood prediction software for indoor plants.” The office smelled like desperation and unsold kombucha.

Lyle burst in with the energy of someone already unemployed. His ex-boss, Dianne, stood in the center of the open office floor holding a dry erase board that said:

“Congratulations, You’re Fired!”

“Is this a… party?” Lyle asked, blinking.

“No,” Dianne said. “It’s a farewell ceremony. We’re celebrating your departure. Mostly because you set the espresso machine to ‘molten.’”

“Plants like warmth,” Lyle mumbled.

“They don’t like their leaves incinerated.”

Across the office, Jeremy from HR started a slow clap. No one joined in.

“Well,” Lyle said, straightening up. “I accept this firing with the grace of a man who didn’t want to work here anyway. You people make eye contact way too often.”

He turned to leave, tripped over a beanbag chair, and landed face-first into a potted fern.

He tried to take the fern with him. Dianne yelled something about “plant theft,” and he dropped it at the door like a guilty raccoon.

Lyle’s unemployment era began with optimism.

“I’m going to be a freelance… something,” he told his neighbor Kelly, who was trying to unlock her apartment without making eye contact.

“Freelance what?”

“Influencer. Motivational speaker. Maybe a life coach.”

“You don’t even wear matching socks.”

“It’s part of the brand,” he said, motioning to his mismatched feet like they were intentional art.

He started a vlog at 2:17 AM. The first video was titled: “How to Turn Your Rock Bottom into a Comfy Couch.” It featured Lyle shirtless in his kitchen, eating cold spaghetti with chopsticks, and yelling life advice at a dying cactus.

“We all think success is about hustle,” he slurred. “But what if it’s actually about, like… not moving?”

The camera fell over halfway through and recorded nine minutes of ceiling fan. It got 27 views. 14 of them were him. One comment read:

“Are you okay, bro? Blink twice if you’re being held hostage.”

Lyle replied: “I’m the one doing the hostage-ing.”

Next, he tried drop-shipping personalized spoons. Then he attempted to trademark the phrase “Oops-preneur™.” Finally, in a burst of unfiltered delusion, he applied to become a TEDx speaker with a talk titled: “What the Seagull Taught Me About Late-Stage Capitalism.” They didn’t respond.

A week later, he was hired by a wellness startup called SpairMint that marketed “ethical air.”

“You’re selling… air?” he asked during the interview.

“Not just air,” said the founder, an ex-model named Kael. “It’s liberated air. Free from oppression. Sourced from places where vibes are legally protected.”

Lyle blinked. “Isn’t that… just outside?”

Kael smiled. “But outside, in jars.”

The job paid in “equity and exposure.” Lyle accepted immediately.

His job: cold-call yoga studios and pitch SpairMint’s “Atmospheric Rejuvenation Stations” — mason jars filled with air and glitter, perched on stands made from “repurposed broom handles.”

His pitch: “It’s like aromatherapy, but without the smell. Just vibes.”

It did not go well. One studio owner asked if he was part of a hidden camera show. Another offered to exorcise him.

Lyle was fired after three days, following an email blast with the subject line:

“Do you want to breathe better than other people? Capitalism can help!”

He pivoted to TikTok.

His niche? Dramatic reenactments of YouTube comment section arguments, performed by sock puppets. His most viral video had 78 views and featured a sock yelling,

“You sound like someone who’s never built a gaming PC with your own hands, Chad.”

In a last-ditch bid for purpose, he declared himself a life coach on Instagram. He printed business cards that said:

“Lyle Stanford – Mental Gymnastics Instructor. First session free if you bring snacks.”

No one called. Someone Venmo’d him $2 with the note: “Please stop.”

It was while feeding squirrels in the park with half a Pop-Tart and a thousand-yard stare that a man in a trench coat sat beside him.

“You look like someone with untapped potential,” the man said.

“Are you about to recruit me into a pyramid scheme?” Lyle asked.

“No,” the man said. “Worse. Politics.”

Through a mix of sarcasm, a viral meme, and a Discord group called “Municipal Mayhem,” Lyle was elected District Sanitation Liaison of Zone 3B. The position wasn’t technically real, but the city forgot to delete the form from their website. Now it was official. He got a badge, a desk in a shared broom closet, and access to the city’s email system.

His first act: declare the sidewalk between 14th and 15th a “free expression zone.” This led to three interpretive dances, a man dressed as a sad balloon giving tax advice, and a sword duel that ended in a tie because both duelists got winded.

When the local news interviewed him, he wore a bathrobe over his pants and offered the reporter a mason jar of “historic air.”

“What inspired your policies?” she asked.

“Mostly caffeine,” Lyle said. “And a deep mistrust of squirrels.”

Within weeks, Lyle became a local legend.

Not respected. But discussed.

He gave motivational speeches at bus stops, launched a newsletter called Gutter Gold: Wisdom From the Streets, and introduced “emotional recycling bins” that sorted feelings into categories like “Mildly Regrettable” and “Probably a Therapy Thing.”

He tripped into relevance and stayed there, like a cat stuck in a window shade.

By the time Dianne spotted him on the cover of a zine titled Unqualified But Unbothered, Lyle had achieved his ultimate goal: to be taken just seriously enough that no one stopped him, but never seriously enough to be trusted with real responsibility.

He still wore inside-out pants. Still talked to plants. But now, people listened.

And somehow, amid firings, mason jars, and sentient seagulls, Lyle became what he always was deep down: accidentally iconic. His fame—or infamy, depending on the angle—snowballed like a confused avalanche that wandered into city council proceedings.

People quoted him online. His line, “Don’t follow your dreams. Ambush them,” ended up on reusable tote bags. Local college students invited him to speak at a seminar titled Rejecting Excellence, where he gave a 40-minute lecture entirely through interpretive dance and sock puppets. Half the audience gave a standing ovation. The rest assumed it was performance art and clapped just in case.

Then came the woman in the pantsuit.

He was at a gas station, trying to microwave a burrito using solar power and aluminum foil, when she approached.

“I’m Sylvia Brand,” she said. “Senior producer at VisionPeak Media. We turn minor weirdos into major internet personalities.”

Lyle blinked, mouth full of lukewarm bean mush. “Am I being scouted?”

“Not scouted,” Sylvia said. “Discovered.”

“Like a continent?”

“Exactly.”

VisionPeak gave him a three-episode pilot deal on their streaming platform. The show, Lyle on the Loose, featured him visiting normal businesses and offering aggressively unhelpful advice. In episode one, he convinced a bakery to rename its products after emotional states.

“May I interest you in a Regret Croissant?” he asked a visibly disturbed customer.

“Or perhaps a gluten-free Disappointment Danish?”

Reviews were… polarized.

One viewer wrote, “It’s like if a human shrug got a camera crew.”

Another said, “Lyle is the spiritual successor to that guy who sued himself for emotional damages and lost.”

The show didn’t last.

But it didn’t matter.

Lyle’s brand had legs—slightly hairy ones, usually in Crocs, but legs nonetheless.

He guest lectured at a community college class called Modern Dystopia and Social Collapse. His PowerPoint was titled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Terrible Decisions.” One slide just said “Oops” in 72-point font. Another was a photo of a bird staring into a mirror, captioned: “This is me, metaphorically.”

The students loved it. One guy wrote his final paper on Lyle’s life philosophy and titled it: “Chaotic Neutral as a Career Path.”

Then came the call from City Hall.

Apparently, someone had forwarded Lyle’s “Emotional Recycling Bin” idea to the mayor’s office—either as a clerical error or a bureaucratic dare. The mayor, fresh off a PR disaster involving the phrase “relatable commoners,” decided to embrace absurdity.

She invited Lyle to pitch the idea in person.

He showed up wearing a cape.

“Good morning,” he said, striding into the chamber. “I come bearing innovation and mild confusion.”

The mayor, mid-sip of regret-flavored coffee, raised an eyebrow. “You have five minutes.”

Lyle cleared his throat and launched into what may have started as a breakup speech for a plant.

“Feelings are like banana peels,” he began. “Useful in cartoons. Dangerous in real life. We walk around with emotional trash clogging our mental hallways. What if we had bins—public ones—where you could sort your junk, drop it off, and walk away lighter? Think of it as therapy meets public sanitation.”

The mayor stared at him.

He stared back.

She sighed. “How much would it cost?”

“Probably less than fixing the potholes.”

“Sold.”

A month later, the city had six Emotional Recycling Bins installed—scattered across parks, libraries, and one inexplicably placed inside a Subway. Citizens were encouraged to drop written regrets, unrequited feelings, and notes like “I peaked in eighth grade.” Interns anonymously sorted and shredded the submissions weekly. For some reason, the public adored it.

Lyle became a meme again. A photo of him beside a bin, captioned “Let it go, but make it municipal,” got over 300,000 likes.

Despite everything, Lyle still lived in apartment 3B. Still forgot laundry in the washer. Still yelled at squirrels like they owed him rent. But now, people waved when they passed. Strangers asked for selfies. One woman named her dog Stanford in his honor. He thanked her by mailing a potato with googly eyes and a note that read:

“Your move, Martha.”

Then came the award.

Yes, a real one.

The city issued him a certificate for “Civic Innovation in Community-Based Catharsis.” They spelled his name wrong—“Kyle Stanfield”—but framed it anyway and presented it at a ceremony where he wore mismatched socks and gave a speech while balancing a coffee cup on his head.

“I didn’t expect this,” he said. “Mostly because I didn’t know what day it was. But thank you. And also, if anyone sees a seagull wearing a necklace made of bread clips—tell him I forgive him.”

That night, as he walked past one of the bins, he saw someone drop in a crumpled note. The person looked around, exhaled, smiled—just a little—and walked away.

Lyle stood there a moment. Not thinking. Just existing. He scratched his beard (which he had grown by accident) and whispered, “Huh.”

It wasn’t enlightenment.

It wasn’t success.

But it was something.

He turned, tripped over a traffic cone, and shouted “SCIENCE!” for no reason at all.

Because of course he did.

The wind picked up. A lone bread clip tumbled across the pavement like a plastic tumbleweed.

Lyle smiled.

Shortly after, he was recruited into the city’s “Innovator Mentorship Program,” meant to connect eccentric public figures with high school students interested in “non-traditional leadership.” No one could explain how Lyle ended up on the list. The program director said it had been “manifested by several interns using the city’s vision board.”

His first mentee was Max—a teenager who wore noise-canceling headphones at all times, including during conversations. Max had been suspended three times for “creative misinterpretation of homework,” including a history paper written entirely in emojis and a Civil War diorama featuring sock puppets lip-syncing Taylor Swift.

Naturally, they were a perfect match.

Lyle took Max on a “tour of inspiration,” which included thrift stores, lunch on a merry-go-round, and a debate over whether pigeons were government drones or “vibe assassins.” At one point, Lyle yelled his goals into an alley to demonstrate how to connect with the universe. A raccoon stuck its head out of a dumpster and made aggressive eye contact.

Max gave it a thumbs-up.

Their final project: a pop-up art installation titled “Oops: A Civic Meditation.” It featured a circle of lawn chairs, a playlist of motivational voicemail outtakes, and a giant balloon filled with glitter and printed confessions from the bins. A toddler mistook it for a moon bounce and popped it in 20 minutes.

The crowd applauded anyway.

Two days later, Max’s teacher emailed Lyle:

“He turned in a project on time. It was weird. But thank you.”

Flushed with purpose, Lyle hosted a public Q&A at the library titled: “Ask Me About Anything, But Don’t Expect Answers.” Twenty-seven people came, including a woman with a scarf-wearing hedgehog and a man who thought it was a magic show.

Lyle answered questions with cryptic honesty:

“How do you define success?”

“Waking up and not immediately wondering if I’m haunted by unpaid parking tickets.”

“What’s the secret to happiness?”

“Flexible pants.”

“Do you believe in destiny?”

“I believe in leftovers. Kind of the same thing.”

Afterward, the audience stood in a confused but deeply entertained silence. Then someone clapped. Then another. Then the man with the hedgehog stood on a chair and shouted,

“I FEEL UNREASONABLY INSPIRED!”

Lyle bowed and knocked over a pamphlet display titled Understanding Boundaries.

Later that evening, Lyle sat on the floor of his apartment next to his spider plant, Kevin.

“Kevin,” he said, “we might be doing something weird and wonderful here.”

Kevin said nothing. But that was fine. Lyle had learned silence often meant agreement in his world.

He glanced around. The place was still crooked. Still cluttered. Still full of mismatched furniture and a stack of “someday” projects.

But it was his.

And for once, he didn’t feel like he was waiting for life to start.

Somehow, without permission or a plan, it already had.

Outside, the wind carried a paper flyer down the sidewalk: a badly printed ad for

“Lyle Stanford’s Urban Zen Pop-Up — Sponsored by City Funds and Leftover Confetti.”

It got stuck under the tire of a parked scooter.

The message was out there.

People would see it. Or they wouldn’t.

Either way, Lyle would show up.

In inside-out pants.

With a mason jar of optimism and a pocket full of granola crumbs.

Because that was the plan.

Sort of.

Maybe.

Close enough.