Rant #2,991: The End of the (My) World

Today is my own personal Armageddon date, a date that will live in infamy in my mind, body and soul for the rest of my life.
 
Three years ago on this date, I lost my job as the company I worked for fiord nearly a quarter for a century went out of business.
 
It was the last full-time job that I had, and barring something unbelievable, it will be the final full-time job I will ever hold.
 
I remember the day so well … maybe too well for my own good.
 
I got up that day took a shower, ate breakfast, and took my lunch and my newspaper with me as I drove to work, something I had done many, many times before.
 
I arrived at work early—something I always did—and waited for the back door of the building to open, as I always did.
 
I was usually joined by one or two co-workers as we waited for the door to open and work to begin. We usually talked about how we could not believe that the business was still operating, because we all knew that the company was not doing well.
 
We had all looked for other work, but to no avail, and as I expected, two of my co-workers arrived, and we spoke out the inevitable before the door was opened—by our chief operating officer, who basically lived at the office during the workweek and on some weekends (don’t ask).
 
Eventually the doors opened and we all went to our stations. Mine was in an office I had shared with no one, but once shared with the managing editor of the publication I worked on, Exchange and Commissary News. He had passed away from a massive and fatal heart attack several months prior, a guy only a couple of years younger than me.
 
My office was opposite the place where one of our artists had worked until he died of suicide, only in his late 40s, so for months, where I worked specifically, was surrounded by woe, and it really wasn’t helped by the fact that the six remaining full-time employees of the company were constantly looking over our shoulders for the inevitable Sword of Damocles to fall on our necks.
 
I had some things to do the worming of that day, things to get into order for our next publication, which would be the November 2019 issue of the more than 50-year-old publication. We had just put our our biggest book of the year—the October 2019 issue—and we were planning for the next issue, which gave me something to do until lunch time, because quite frankly, there were days that there was noting to do there but stare at my screen, as things were beginning to dry up.
 
So I did my work, and then it was lunch time, I ate my lunch, and when lunch was over, I went back to preparing some stories I had for submission.
 
And then, sometime after 1:30 p.m. or so, we all received a call to come to the conference room, and I have to tell you, that walking over there with pad and pen in hand, I knew exactly what was going to happen at that meeting.
 
We were told what we already knew, that the company had been teetering for months if not years, and we could not continue to operate like this, and that as of today, Executive Business Media (EBM), the company that I had worked for during all of those years, was going out of business..
 
(Remarkably, the web site is still up on the Internet at https://www.ebmpubs.com/ECN/index.asp,)
 
We were also told that the higher ups had fielded some inquiries about selling the company, but for reasons that remain unclear to this day, decided against doing that.
 
We were also thanked for our service, and amid some tears and a lot of questions, we were told to spend the afternoon taking our stuff out of our offices and leaving the office for the last time.
 
(The two higher-ups, and a part-timer who was related to the chief executive officer (CEO)--a young lady in her 40s who suffered a stroke while at work just a few weeks earlier--stayed on for a few weeks to tie up any loose ends before going out of business, but as for the rest of us—five of us were there when we were told we were going out of businss, the other one evidently being spared this torture for whatever reason—we found out the inevitable at that last and final meeting.)
 
After all the talk, I asked about our final paychecks and some other money, and those checks were on our seats in our respective offices (the company never believed in direct deposit).
 
So after this meeting, I went to my office to sift through nearly 25 years of my career, and it darn well took me probably about two or three hours to get what I wanted into my car—the trunk and the front and back seats—and move on from there.
 
I asked the COO if I had to “de-Larry” my computer, because there was us so much on it that wasn’t needed anymore, and he graciously told me that I could take my computer with me as I left. A day or two later, he actually brought to my house a couple of other things that I had left behind that I had asked about but could not find.
 
When it was all over, we said our goodbyes, shook hands and hugged each other, and that was that.
 
I kept in touch with a few of my fellow workers for some time afterward, but for all intents and purposes, this was the last time I saw any of them.
 
And as I trekked home, I knew my life would change forever because of what had happened, and unfortunately, I was correct in my assumption.
 
And again, this was a few months BEFORE the pandemic hit, so the six of us were kind of ahead of the curve when it came to being out of work for an extended period of time.
 
I registered for unemployment—little did I know that I would have to register my son for unemployment a few months later—and went about finding another job, which was like fishing for flounder in a cesspool.
 
There was nothing, no matter what job I applied for, it led to nothing, and that was just in the first two or three months before the pandemic really hit, and things just had gotten way worse than anything anyone could imagine.
 
(I also had a tough time getting unemployment because a case that I launched against unemployment 25 years before—the last time I was unemployed—had never been officially closed by the State of New York, and I was denied this insurance for several weeks until someone in Albany actually helped me, electronically closing a case that should have been closed way back in 1995/1996.)
 
To make this long story short, literally at the end of my unemployment insurance period and after applying for roughly 1,000 jobs, I was contacted by a trade organization that knew my work, and they hired me as a freelance writer/editor, a job that I have filled for the past 27 months.
 
I was forced into early retirement at about the same time that I got this part-time-at-best job, so right now, that is where I stand.
 
I still believe that I was robbed of at least seven years of work by the closing of this business and my subsequent inability to be hired to do anything—and remember, I applied for all different jobs, not just in my field during this horrid period, including working for the Long island Ducks as a food worker and various jobs with supermarkets and other entities way out of my field—but this was and is the best I could/can do,, and let me tell you, I am grateful that at least someone had the confidence in me to hire me to do anything.
 
So yes, this day is a day that will live in infamy in my life, a day that I will never forget, even though I knew even years before, when the company started to teeter, that this was pretty much going to be my destiny.
 
It didn’t soften matters, only made then worse when my “premonition” turned out to be spot on, but with the backing of my family, I have been able to get through all of this fairly well—although I still am not comfortable as a retired person, because to me, what I am doing is not “retirement,” or at least what I thought that “retirement” was.
 
That is really all that I have to say today, and I guess that each year that I am removed from this day, the better off I am.
 
But the thoughts still linger, and I don’t really think that they will ever fully disappear.