September 26, 2001
  RIF

Yesterday we lost two of our people to a RIF.

God, that sounds awful. RIF. One letter different and it would be RIP, and we all know what that means. RIF, for those who don't speak Corporate Speak, means 'Reduction In Force,' a nicer way of saying 'Canning Your Ass.' The casualties this round were The Intern and another girl in my office, Ip, who I rarely wrote about because she was so quiet. The Intern wasn't quiet. She might have pretended to be quiet, but she was sort of like a weather front. One minute you're "Aw, how cute!"-ing about the puffy, Hello Kitty-shaped cloud on the horizon, the next minute you're watching your toy poodle get blown away by Hurricane Vanessa.

It was a traumatic day.

Why, my friend asks, don't you look for another job?

Good question.

Why, asks my other friend, didn't they lay your lazy ass off?

A better question.

Let me think about it.

As a result of the RIF, I had to confess that I was the one responsible for the roses showing up on people's desks -- yellow ones last week, pink ones this week. I had to. Ip was crying, and she asked me before she left. What's the fun in drawing this out when people won't be here to be toyed with anymore? I'm demoralized, dammit.

We took The Intern to lunch at Fresh Choice, -- College Boy's selection, since the rest of us were too depressed to object -- where we subsequently ate the entire lettuce crop of Iowa and made tactful conversation about our salaries and being employed.

"I don't want to go to school again," the Intern sighed. "I didn't want to do interviews again, either. If I'd known, I wouldn't have stayed at work until seven last night, finishing up code."

"Let's go steal office supplies," I said, hopefully. "I'll pack, you pick. You can always use a good stapler."

The Intern, being less criminally inclined than me, politely refused. Wasted opportunities...

Today I came in to work and there were empty cubicles where the Intern and Ip were. I'm sad. Sniff.

Sigh.

Not much to write about today. I mean, there is, but I'm about as motivated as a vegetarian at a pig-calling contest. I'll write later, when I'm in the mood.

In the meantime, I've made a couple of additions to my links page, the most significant of which is the addition of another journal called The Sex Pistols are Alive and Well and Living in Sohatsenango. The writer is a very talented woman of Iranian-American ethnicity, and -- inevitably -- she has a unique perspective on what's been happening these days in America. For the record, I'm with her on her September 25th entry.

For those of you who haven't seen the other links yet, check them out. My other especial favorite is Postal Experiments, a bizarre and hilarious little interlude from your friends at improbable.com, a group of intelligent people with way too much time on their hands. I need a good laugh, now and then.