And I Feel Fine, Act 2: Ghost Town

“Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town? We danced and sang, and the music played inna de boomtown.” — The Specials, “Ghost Town”, 1981

On the Monday after the end of the world I returned to my office to begin my personal countdown to termination. I wasn’t sure yet how long I had before my lease on life would run out, but it would be at least two months, and probably three. The duties of my half-life weren’t yet fully determined, but it seemed unlikely that they would be ready to throw the switch on the largest systems until July or August. Of course, finding anyone who had hard facts at their disposal was only eclipsed in difficulty by finding someone willing to share that information. Even after Ragnarok, no one seemed to really know what was going on. You just knew to keep your head down or risk losing it.

Those of us who would be needed briefly, the NGFs and the zombies, would be let go in waves of steadily decreasing size. One batch of a hundred or so would leave at the end of May, a group of about forty at the end of June, and then in ones or twos as their usefulness ended, stragglers to the end.

Compared to the bustling pre-apocalypse days, the building’s offices were largely empty. The new corporate structure required that the living spent most of their time traveling, leaving their desks vacant. Additionally, most of the cube farms, completed mere weeks before the fatal announcement, were being broken down for reallocation to other regions, or sold off piecemeal. Chairs still carrying their ergonomic instructions were corralled into empty rooms for resale, virtually unused. Phones were heaped haphazardly on carts; stacked file cabinets formed beige steel buttes in open spaces.

Amid the constant movement of offices and shifting of ill-defined responsibilities, it became increasingly difficult to find people you needed, or even to know who your new (or remaining) co-workers were. No directories were published, as far as anyone could tell, so a lot of time was spent wandering through silent corridors to see who was still there. The new and never to be worn down carpeting silenced any echoes.

Most of the dearly departed took sentimental items with them, but plenty of evidence of bitterness toward the company remained. Professional awards — not mere laser-printed certificates, but team photos and engraved trophies — were left in piles, or thrown into trash bins alongside shredded files and performance reviews. I confess, that bothered me. I’d spent a good portion of my personal time over the last few years helping to build a recognition system for the company, and to see the celebration and goodwill we’d created turned to wormwood was rough, even if understandable given the circumstances.

And of course, the hyenas were busy cracking the bones of the old company, looking for morsels not yet ferried off to some Ohio warehouse to rot, waiting to depreciate. Keyboards, mice, phone cables, staplers — all kinds of equipment and office supplies had been rounded up in the final days, and were sought out as prizes by the living. The process of determining which positions were qualified to have a rolling laptop case, for example, had not yet been worked out. Anything not locked away at the end of the day ran a risk of being gone by morning.

My fellow IT zombies and I stayed hidden away in our keyed and monitored complex most of the time, but we had frequent visitors. In their zeal to scavenge some bit of forbidden or “non-essential” equipment the survivors would come to our offices looking for treasure, and were often surprised to discover we were still living there. Embarrassed conversations would ensue.

“Oh, you got a position in the new company? That’s great!”

“Actually, no, I’m just being kept on a couple more months until they decide how to replace me. Then I’ll be laid off.”

“Oh.” A moment’s silence, then: “Hey, what happened to the nice monitor your assistant had? I could use one of those, and New York says I can’t have one.”

Chance encounters in the hallways or local restaurants would lead to similar situations. Sometimes people would forget that there were still zombies among them, carrying out our assigned duties while the new regime grafted on new departments and processes, and would think I’d come back just to visit, to say hello. And while touching, it was no less frustrating to hear the repeated refrain, “I can’t believe you aren’t staying on! Don’t they know how much you do here? How will the company survive without you?”

To which I could only reply that the company would do just fine without me, if for no other reason that it wasn’t the same company any longer. That was becoming more and more obvious every day, with each new misstep and oversight in planning. It wears away at you, though, to be reminded over and over again that the opinions of your peers are meaningless, and that you, yourself, continue to have meaning only until your usefulness ends.

With the end of May came the release of the first wave of undead, with an unofficial happy hour to send them on their way. The halls emptied a bit more, the rest of IT said goodbye, a few more loose ends were tied off, there was a little less to do, and my boss and I got our official date of execution: July 31.

In fairness, a restructuring of this scope will always have problems, but from the perspective of the people in the new Macy’s, the living were starting to envy the dead. Every day I received an endless stream of phone calls from people in our stores or in the headquarters asking for help. “Can you reset my password?” “Who do I call to get this fixed?” “When will this report be published?” “Where can I find these numbers?” “Please help me! I can’t even do my job any more!” For a decade employees throughout Florida had learned my phone number practically during their orientation; I have always had a knack for knowing things, or at least being able to figure them out. But now I was an unperson in the eyes of the corporation. I wasn’t included on mailings; I wasn’t involved in meetings; I didn’t get the new organization charts or phone directories. To the new gods on Olympus I no longer existed, so there was no need to tell me anything; I couldn’t help anyone anymore.

“I’m really sorry, but I don’t even know where to start trying to help you. If I hear something, I’ll let you know.”

Day after day, call after call, I felt my self-worth erode. Eventually I gave up and changed my phone greeting to say “Hi, no matter how much I might want to, I can’t help you with anything any more. Please ask your new boss and see if they can figure it out for you. I am really, truly sorry.”

It didn’t matter. People were so confused by this time that they left me voice mail anyway. I never even listened to the messages.

And so my days became strange. I would handle whatever random tasks came my way, as projects faded into and out of existence. I stripped away sections of the old corporate identity as history was rewritten. I went to the classes offered by the outplacement company. I wrote resumes for friends. I chatted with my boss about this madness, as he was in the same position of relative helplessness. I sorted through and boxed up my personal effects. I took notes on stories and worked on my writing. I looked at financial statements and tried not to freak out. I thought about the future, and what I’d do once I was free.

But mainly I stared at a monitor and tried not to think about where I was. My life here was over, but my spirit couldn’t move on until I completed some unfinished task. The building where I’d spent most of my professional life was haunted now, and I was the ghost.

Eventually June ended and another batch of undead went to their reward, deserved or not. The first batch still hadn’t found work, but we tried not to think about that. My boss received a stay of execution until some time in 2010, giving him more time to figure things out. He was ready to fight with the new world order to get me something to keep my paychecks coming, but as brave and generous as his offer was, I knew I wouldn’t survive it. After three months in limbo so much of my self-worth had been ground away that I knew I had to go, as terrifying as the prospect of unemployment was.

Ten years of personality were stripped away in preparation for a new occupant. The weird artwork came off the walls of my windowless office, and the Justice League went into bubble wrap with the rest of the tchotkes. Drawers were emptied, files were shredded, trophies were boxed, drives were purged, and a major chunk of my life was carted away, one box at a time.

The final day was predictably rough. My office was barren, no longer comfortable, but a reminder of a loss in progress. While my boss wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow if I blew off early, I felt a responsibility to stay through the day, to leave with my work ethic somewhat intact. So I said my goodbyes to those who visited me — often feeling like a participant at my own wake — and did a fairly good job of keeping my emotions in check. Finally, I wrote and e-mailed my farewell address. It was not a scathing indictment of the lay-offs, but just a goodbye letter to a few people who had been good partners at least — and friends at best — wishing them well. You can pretend you’ll keep in touch all you want, but it’s usually better to play it safe and grab closure when you can.

And then it was five o’clock. I picked up the remnants of my personal effects, threw my bag over my shoulder, and walked out of my office for the last time.

Fourteen years, seven months, twenty-four days, and nine hours earlier I had walked into the building as a nervous kid from the suburbs, worried about my ability to survive in the big time and the big city. Now I was walking out again, having traded fifteen years for a jaundiced view of corporate America and a sackful of stories. Did I get a good deal, did I get my money’s worth? It doesn’t matter, not really.

This was a clearance event. There are no exchanges, no returns, no money-back guarantees. All sales are final. Everything must go.

Everything.

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