Pink Slip
By Curt Jeffreys
Jordy Clarke sat hunched over his keyboard in the open coffin that was his cubicle. His eyes scanned marching columns of phosphorescent numbers as his fingers flew across the keys. It was Friday, four hours and counting and, God willing, he was going to make it through another day. He looked at the clock for the millionth time, counting each and every excruciating minute till he could escape the clutches of the Evil Empire of Corporate America. Ten years had been sucked from him here, insufferable years of unbearable months, agonizing weeks, excruciating days.
Still, Jordy Clarke honestly considered himself to be a lucky man. He had a job, and his family had food, shelter and clothing. That was something millions of Americans did without. It all came down to survival, and to survive, Jordy Clarke counted beans day in, day out, ten hours a day, six days a week, for a corporation that made billions of new beans every hour. The pay was atrocious, the hours horrendous and the benefits non-existent, but things could always be worse.
"Psst, Jord!" Jerry, from the cubby next door, peered over the cubby wall.
"Are you crazy, Jerry? You want the old man to see you?" Jordy hissed.
"You hear about Carlson?" Jerry ignored him. "He got the ax today."
Jerry craned his neck, sweeping in the maze of cubicles, like a prairie dog scanning the horizon. "He had a pink slip in his mailbox this morning," he whispered, "and now he's..." he made a slashing motion across his throat.
Jordy was stunned. He hadn't heard, not a thing. Poor Carlson worked -- used to work -- two floors down, in Accounts Payable. He'd been a good man. A hard worker, too.
"Jord," Jerry broke into his thoughts. "This was in my mailbox this morning." A small slip of pink paper floated from Jerry's open fingers like a feather, landing silently on Jordy's keyboard.
"Aw, crap, Jerry! Not you too!" Jordy looked at his friend in horror.
"Looks like it," Jerry said, his voice cracking. "Have you checked your mailbox today?"
"Yeah, this morning. I think..." He had checked it, hadn't he? Aw, crap, now he couldn't be sure.
"Shhh! Someone's coming!" Jerry ducked back into his burrow, too late.
"Jerry," Jordy heard the old man's voice, "would you come with us. Please." "Please" was added on as an afterthought, more punctuation than courtesy.
Out of the corner of his eye Jordy saw Jerry, the old man and two armed guards walk past his cubby. Moments later a single gunshot cracked, echoing down and around, in and out of every little cubicle. Aw, crap, Jerry!
Jordy bowed his head, a moment of silence for a fallen comrade, then made two tick marks on a scrap of paper he kept under his keyboard, one for Carlson and one for Jerry. An even dozen this quarter, four more than the last quarter.
Jordy looked at the little framed portrait of his family next to his monitor. Eilene and the boys smiled at him from behind their glass wall. What would they do if he was terminated? How would they survive without him? God, he wished he'd planned more for their futures.
He stared at the sad-eyed man reflected in his monitor. He was thirty-seven, and thirty-seven's not old. He was still productive, still pulling his weight. So maybe he was a little bit slower than he was ten years ago, but look at all the experience he'd gained, you can't put a number on experience. The old man'd be awful foolish to get rid of someone with Jordy's experience. Besides, there were lots of guys around who'd been with the company longer than him.
He turned in his chair, stopping with a jerk and laughed -- there, on his filing cabinet, was his stack of mail. He had checked his mailbox. He rifled through the papers, laughing again out of pure joy, relief and a touch of hysteria. No pink slip! There was no pink slip! Everything was OK. Life was good! No pink slip, no problem!
"Jordy."
He jumped. It was the old man. The guards stood behind him.
The old man was holding a slip of pink paper. "I forgot to put this in your box this morning. Sorry."
Aw, crap.
The End
