A Guide to Surviving Your Corporate Execution

The first thing you'll think about today is how Monday is the Ringo Starr of days—often overlooked, but essential to making something important whole.

But on this particular Monday, with layoffs looming at the company you work for, instead of letting the burden of this knowledge combined with the perennial angst of shuttling kids to school and getting yourself situated for another week of laborious meetings and sports practices and dance recitals, you will make the spontaneous decision to be extra patient. Instead of dreading the number of hours left until the weekend, you will embrace the Ringo Starr of days and appreciate it for being the start of something new that could potentially lead to something extraordinary.

Because of this decision, you will also convince yourself that, although you work for a massive corporation that seemingly keeps all of its employees within spitting distance of the guillotine, you won’t be one of the casualties.

Don’t be too hard on yourself for this conviction - it’s hard to imagine death when you feel so full of life.

As your wife leaves for work, tell her you love her, because you do. And if you don’t hug your little guy soon, he will progressively yell, “Dadadadadada,'' louder and louder until you drop to his level, look into his beautiful brown eyes, and hug him tight. The kind of hug you wish could last beyond the Ringo Starr of days into eternity. Because you know that one day he won’t fit so perfectly in your arms – any doubt you have about this is erased when you peek over his shoulder at his older twin siblings. How wildly the garden sprouts when you aren’t paying close enough attention to it.

As you pull away from him, he’ll smile, and like anything that is hyper-contagious, his smile transfers to you, spreading so aggressively you’ll wonder if the effect is permanent.

Hustling out the door, your wife will say, “Have a great day!” and of course you return the sentiment. Take a moment to watch her as she walks down the front path, admiring the way her corkscrew hair shimmers despite the gathering storm clouds overhead. How much that shimmer parallels her outlook on life and how much strength you secretly draw from it.

Then you will hurry the twins into your car despite knowing what will commence is the eternal battle for the armrest. Even when you say, “Share the armrest” they won’t. Having shared everything in life - including their mother’s womb and a bassinet in the NICU - it’s understandable to want something to call your own, no matter how small or trivial it may seem. So, let them sort it out, hope for a stalemate or a reluctant peace treaty by the time you pull out of the driveway.

When the clouds finally pop, they will unleash sheets of freezing rain that force traffic to slow to a crawl, clogging the main artery to school with a caravan of SUVs and minivans. When the weather is bad, most parents ignore the student drop-off rules for their own personal gains, and on most days, it sends you into a frenzy. But once again, remind yourself that today is a good day to practice patience and compassion -you never know what someone else is dealing with at any given moment.

As the twins hop from the car and scramble toward the entrance, tell them you love them. More than they will ever know. Of course they’ll yell back, “Love you too, dad!” Though it feels more reactive than emotive, hearing it always has the power to refill your furnace. So absorb the heat it generates - you will need all the fuel you can find today.

Driving home, formulate a plan for the day - take a shower, eat breakfast, read emails, check on coworkers and hope they made it through the morning with their scalp intact. For lunch, go get a sandwich from your favorite deli to break up the monotony. If things are still slow and the rain lets up, take the dogs for a walk.

So it will be somewhat jarring when your phone buzzes at 8:55am with a text from your boss. The text will be brief, saying only, "Confirming you saw the meeting invite I just sent."

Without fully grasping the weight of her message, you will check your work inbox, and sure enough, a meeting invite will be waiting. Next to it, a dooming red exclamation point - Outlook’s middle finger – pointed directly at you.

It only takes a split-second for your brain to recognize what's about to happen.

At first, there will be a rush of fear so overpowering it almost paralyzes you. It might even make you consider doing something drastic or insane, like smashing your phone on the pavement and driving to the hospital. Wander into the emergency room and pretend to have amnesia. Try anything that might stall your forthcoming demise, just long enough to allow the firing squad to reconsider a decision that’s already been made.

If you’ve learned anything from witnessing two successful IVF pregnancies, it’s that miracles can and do happen.

But this daydream will be as brief as it is pointless. Despite being many things, one thing you are not is a coward.

So instead of running away or faking a catastrophic head injury, tell yourself to breathe – inhale deeply and exhale sharply – and then text back:

“Yes, I got it.”

It will be hard to describe the numbness that follows—something like hearing about a fatal plane crash or a mass shooting. Comparing your job termination to such horrific events may feel cheap and dirty, but the shock to your brain will be similar.

What the numbness won't do is slow fifteen years of work memories from dominating your thoughts during those precious few minutes before the meeting begins. Whether or not they make you feel sad or angry or full of despair – let them in, if only because it’s the last time you will think of so many highs and lows and headaches in the present tense.

Then go make yourself presentable. Put on a clean collared shirt, comb your hair, find your glasses. Be professional until the end. Show the executioners that you aren’t afraid of what’s coming, even if it’s a facade.

If you follow these steps, by nine o'clock, you'll be ready to click into the meeting without too much hesitation. Of course, you'll be alone for a few moments. So while it’s only you staring at a digital reflection, ignore the fabricated image of a firing squad hiding behind the screen, loading their guns and telling themselves it’s their duty to do what they are about to do. Instead, study the face you see on the screen. It might look fearful, tired, anxious. You may even be tempted to ask aloud, when did I get so old? How did it come to this? Why me? Again, this is normal - the clock is about to strike midnight - but in order to prepare yourself for a resurrection, you must question everything.

Eventually these racing thoughts will be interrupted by a robotic bloop, followed by a second face - your boss - entering the frame. When she says, “Hey there,” a slight tremble will stutter her words, and that tremble will erase any doubt you might still be holding on to.

Because “Hey there” is the signal for the executioners to level their guns at your head.

She will recite many scripted points about how “the company is going through a transition” and there are “tough decisions being made” and there are “no easy conversations to be had” when it comes to “situations like this.”

Finally, she will say, “Unfortunately, this will be your last day working for the company.”

You won’t hear the guns fire, but you will feel the metaphorical bullets rip metaphorical holes through your body, split the metaphorical cigarette dangling from your lips, and tear the metaphorical blindfold away your eyes so that instead of seeing nothing, you see everything. But it won’t be painful –it will feel more like a barrel of cold water being dumped on your smoldering remains.

Your boss may decide to keep talking because you have nothing to say in response, but now her words are now spoken in a foreign language, one you could speak fluently up until thirty seconds ago, but has quickly been wiped from your brain.

When it’s clear to your boss that you no longer understand anything she says, she will signoff and a new face will replace her. This face belongs to the shepherd who will escort you into the afterlife, familiarizing you with the rules of being dead. But don’t expect halos or tunics or angelic music to accompany her – instead, you will see a black blazer and a neat bun plopped on the head of someone who looks as engaged in the conversation as a person waiting in line for coffee at a Starbucks.

Your shepherd will say many phrases in the same language you no longer speak, and although you can hear her, everything she says is dulled by a hum growing from somewhere deep inside your brain, a place where memories and anger and sadness collide to eventually explode. Later, you will need to sift through the twisted fiery wreckage if you plan on finding anything worth taking with you into your next life.

When your shepherd finishes, she disappears too. Once again, it will be just you and your reflection, except now it's a face from your previous life, already committed to haunting you. For now, pay no attention to this ghost. It’s only purpose right now is to remind you that you’re metaphorically dead.

Next, you will call your wife. Remember to absorb her words of encouragement, promise her that you will do everything possible to resuscitate yourself. What she says is comforting, things like, “That job was going nowhere” and “You deserve better” and “It’s their loss, not ours.”

When she says, "Also, fuck them" you may even laugh a little. It's important to appreciate her ability to infuse some levity into your demise. Even though the aftermath of your execution is grisly and miserable and complicated, ultimately, she will be right.

Your next task will be to focus on the documents that have materialized in your inbox, explaining the details of being metaphorically dead. But know that as you attempt to read them, you'll be interrupted by an influx of coworkers reaching out - the news of your execution travels fast. Many of these calls will be from coworkers who are genuinely upset to hear the news. Some might even cry while telling you how sorry they are – be prepared for these tears. But also, be ready for the other calls and texts that come next, ones that seem hollow and cold. These people may say things like “I enjoyed working with you” and “I’m sure you’ll find something better,” but these people also know you don’t speak their tongue and thus no longer provide any value to them. What they offer will be akin to a cordial prayer whispered over the coffin of someone they barely knew.

Soon you will be left alone to focus on the list of tasks for your burial – shutting down your mobile devices and extracting personal files from your work laptop - but know that these tasks can wait. Instead, take a minute to reflect. Wander around your house and think about how different life is now than it was an hour earlier, when arbitrating the battle for the armrest seemed so important.

All of it will seem like another life, and you must understand that it was if you plan to move forward.

If reflecting morphs into procrastination, do something that has a proverbial beginning and end - like taking a shower. At first, it will feel weird to not talk to yourself about in-progress work projects or ongoing strategy sessions while washing your hair and scrubbing your face. But then you will realize that while you were being executed, someone snuck into that part of your brain, closed the door, and snapped off the key in the lock. Even though the air is still heavy with the smell of gunpowder and your body isn’t even cold yet, it will feel like a blessing to have that door locked for good.

Nothing behind that door will ever matter to you again.

Fellow ghosts who want to share what they've learned since their respective executions will reach out, explaining how they managed to resurrect themselves. Listen carefully to these ghosts, even if it’s hard to focus, because one day, you might be doing the same for someone else.

Eventually, there will be silence. When it settles, you may be tempted to fill that silence by listening to voices in your head who are ranting about money and bills and 401Ks and health insurance. Frantic voices unprepared for what just happened, so they end up shouting over one another, begging to take the floor first because their concern is the most pressing concern of all. Even if you ignore these voices, some words will slip through - your daughter needs braces and the family vacation you just booked a few weeks ago still needs to be paid for. But try to deflect these voices as best you can, because if you allow too many words to breakthrough, a different voice will exploit on the breach. And this one is guttural, biting, and evil, the kind of voice that has no intention of providing helpful, albeit anxiety-inducing reminders. This voice only uses words that are venomous and cruel:

Loser, deadbeat, fraud.

The voice will growl as if it wants to hurt you and cackle at your misfortune. More than anything, this voice wants you to believe what it accuses you of being.

You might feel the need to run from the site of your demise, and know that this is perfectly okay, so be prepared to get in your car and go for a drive, maybe nowhere, maybe downtown toward the beach. If you do end up driving to the beach, sit in your car and let the sound of breaking waves combat the hate and fear and sadness clamoring for attention. Seeing the jetties flank a peaceful stretch of sand will take you back to the last time you were here with your family, several months ago. When you and your wife watched the twins help their baby brother build a sand castle - how gentle and tender they were with him. How they treated him like a delicate flower, and how the sight of them working together filled your heart with so much heat you were afraid it might burn out of control and scorch your insides.

Recognizing how distant the recent past feels will remind you that soon, today will also feel like it happened eons ago. And this realization will create a spark that ignites those cold embers inside your heart. Let them catch, and wait to feel that familiar warmth. Know that any flicker of flames will be strong enough to incinerate the panicked voices and evil voices and soundbites still echoing from your execution.

A rush of hope will follow. It may be fleeting, but knowing that hope can still exist within your riddled body will give you the strength to turn over the ignition and drive home, encourage you to finish your burial. You will call the metaphorical priest and the funeral director and finalize the details of your death because, although it won’t be enjoyable, it provides a sense of closure.

Your newfound hope might buckle when an email arrives that details the company’s policy about removing system access by eight o’clock tonight - their method of lowering you into the ground and packing dirt onto the casket so you are no longer visible to coworkers and friends. Prepare for a weird sense of loss, even if it seems ridiculous. It’s also important to note that this is when the evil voice will try to reemerge. Maybe less confident than before, but no less malevolent. If it does, stoke the embers in your heart by helping the twins with their homework or offer to cut the vegetables for the salad you wife is preparing. These actions demonstrate that it will take more than a metaphorical execution and a verbal assault on your character to finish you off for good.

The day will end with you focusing on a seemingly Sisyphean mission - find a way to be reborn into a new world, learn a new secret language, make connections with new coworkers and foster relationships over years and years of establishing confidence and trust. And finally, succeed against all odds to rise above your peers.

It will be tempting to view this as impossible, worse than any plane crash or shooting rampage, but you must remember the remnants of hope inside you, and know that whenever you stoke the embers, they’ll ignite. It will help you relive the brief moment by the water, chasing an elusive past but recognizing it’s always one step ahead, reminding you how important it is to be present.

Finally, you must remember that what the executioners who cut you down didn't realize is your heart continues to beat, and relish knowing that they never had enough firepower to stop it from beating anyway. Because you are you, you'll always find a way back to the way things were at the start of today, when Mondays were the Ringo Starr of days and everything moved a little slower, if only because every other day moves too fast.