Orangepekoe

I have been working on my thesis in a coffee shop (don’t ask) and I have found myself sitting next to two gentlemen. Today, they are in the far corner of the shop, which is a good thing, because I found that I was eavesdropping (horrors!). Their conversation was about how to lay people off.

Now, for those of you who still work, the coffee shops are  getting crowded with unemployed depressed people, mostly men, mostly who sit, nursing one drinking with a page of the local paper drifting on the table. These two men look employed, and I don’t know why they would have this conversation in the graveyard of broken yuppies, but they did.

Before they lowered their voices, one man said something quite striking, he said, when you lay someone off, you have to realize you are breaking the social contract, the commitment that the job would be  committed to you as long as you do a good job. That contract is being severed when you lay someone off.

I remember being laid off. It came with a lot of unemployement benefits, freedom and no more work. But I was depressed for weeks. In fact, the only way I recovered was by going to school. But I realize that I never got to say goodbye, my work was not rewarded and the commitment I had been part of was suddenly severed, and the severing felt like a betrayal. No wonder why I was depressed.

What was also hard was having to go one as if it never happened. No one wants to hear about the loss of a job that you did not like anyway. What are you going to talk about, what you use to do? There is no ritual for this broken social contract. In funerals, we  celebrate the resurrection, not the gut wrenching loss that is being experienced. Years ago, a commission introduced a liturgy for break ups between non-married partners (boyfriends and girlfriends). The liturgy seemed ridiculous, having two people who have decided to part ways to get before a congregation and agree on something, anything at all, even their own separation. If the couple was able to pull that off, then they should have stayed together. No, just like in the funeral where the hope of the resurrection, not the pain of death is celebrated, perhaps there can be a liturgical ceremony for  celebrating the person’s work, life and family.

Or perhaps churches can give the laid off worker a laid off package, full of coffee club gift certificates, subscription to newspapers and four free pastoral care visit and one massage visit.

Maybe they will get lucky and overhear a conversation that will give them some kind of insight. Or at least a cafeine boost without the work anxiety.