workingfortheman.com

Now, I've got to be honest, I was ecstatic when I received my first job offer from the man. And it wasn't so much because I harbored a bizarre yearning to spend 50 hours a week staring at a computer monitor and crunching numbers. No, I wasn't necessarily excited about my new position in life, but I WAS excited to be getting out of the position I had occupied for the three months following my college graduation.

You see, as the proud owner of a bachelor of science degree in anthropology, I was spending about 50 hours per week at work, making an average of $7.00 an hour, between my job at the Gap and my job at Wells Fargo. And until you have either a) cleaned up after obnoxious motherfuckers who pillage your neat piles of shirts with no intention of making a purchase, or b) stood on the teller line at a bank in Brentwood (where people who THINK they are wealthy because they bank in Brentwood cop attitudes when they are charged for the 75 overdrafts on their checking account), you cannot fully appreciate the misery of my existence.

So, take my word for it, that telephone call from the lady who offered me $30,000 a year to underwrite insurance really did seem like a god-send, all the more for an anthropology major.

Granted, the work I do is not rocket science (sometimes, in fact, I question the need for a college degree), but I must say that my job is one that is coveted by graduates of such disciplines as economics, business, math, etc.

And for a while, I felt extremely lucky to have landed this position. Three weeks after I was hired, the company sent me to the east coast for a four-week training program which, essentially, was an all-expenses-paid summer vacation. In exchange for sitting through about 35 hours of class per week, I was put up in a Hilton hotel, given a rental car, given $25 a day to eat, AND paid my entire salary. And, believe me, for a guy whose hourly wage at the Gap couldn't even buy a pair of boxers (AFTER the employee discount), this was like winning the lottery.

But then things started to unravel. In the world of insurance, it is the underwriter's responsibility to leverage risk and ensure profitability. It is the underwriter who determines which insurance policies will be written, and which policies will not. And it is the underwriter who had better make damn sure there is enough premium from those people who will never have to use their insurance to cover the asses of those people who will.

Well, it turns out that my company had not done such a good job in the underwriting department. In the previous fiscal year, overall losses totaled half a billion dollars. Which is why, upon my return from training, I was greeted with this piece of news: the executive management team was undertaking a massive cost-cutting campaign, including position eliminations across the board. So this was my welcome to corporate America.

In hindsight, it wasn't so much the idea of cutting jobs that was bad, but it was the way the company went about doing it. The initial announcement came in mid-August, and we were told at the time that the downsizing effort would be completed by the end of September. By the time October 1 had crept up on us, though, there had been no announcements.

When morale began to sag, the CEO started sending weekly updates on e-mail. These really were not updates at all, and they never said anything more than "we know that we are going through some difficult times, but we need to keep working hard and maintain our focus on accomplishing our goals." It was as if they expected us to forget about the possibility that our livelihoods were in jeopardy. One of my co-workers was actually scolded when, after going on a job interview, She used the office printer to print a thank you note and had it found by a supervisor (her job was spared, but she has since left the company of her own volition).

Then, about a week and a half into October, the big day arrived. Our divisional vice president called us into the middle of the floor, announced that the downsizing plan had been finalized, and then told us to return to our desks. Over the next couple of hours, she said, those unlucky ones whose positions had been eliminated would be contacted by human resources. If you received a call from HR, you were to report to their office downstairs, where your severance package would be explained and you would be given a box to pack your desk.

Now, if you've ever seen the movie, "When A Stranger Calls," you can imagine the look on people's faces whenever their phones rang. Some jokesters took this as an opportunity to have a little fun, and would ring their buddy down the way, just to make his heart skip a beat. But mostly, people were too tense to joke.

And about every 20 minutes, some unlucky sucker would hang up the phone for the last time, rise out of the chair, and walk the long path to human resources. One of the guys nearly danced his way down to HR, an ear-to-ear smile on his face the whole time. A few of the gals sobbed uncontrollably. You'd have thought they were walking to the gas chamber.

Finally, just before lunch, the vice president called us back to the middle of the floor and announced that all those losing their jobs had already been contacted. Then she went on her way, as if nothing had happened, and the rest of the division let loose with a collective sigh of relief.

Our jobs had been spared -- for now.

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