The Fine Art of Being Shown the Door

When a man has been around long enough, he knows when he sees a rigged game. I saw it clear as day.

At every turn, a new contraption of misery came into play until making an honest living felt less like a job and more like a traveling circus act. I did my best to keep jumping the fences, but after a while, they got so high I started leaving bits of myself hanging on the barbed wire—pants, dignity, and other necessary accouterments of a man.

The final insult that broke the camel’s back and possibly its spirit was the sudden and mysterious reduction in pay. I inquired, as a man is wont to do when he finds his pockets have grown lighter through no fault of his own, but my inquiry met an impressive display of silence.

For two long hours, my email sat ignored with such commitment that I had no choice but to bring in the big boss. Even she proved more of a decorative figure, as she promised a phone call that never came—a fine display of executive-level vanishing acts.

To add insult to injury, the author of this lament found hisself promptly dismissed over a comment on social media. The door wasn’t merely closed; it got bolted, barred, and possibly bricked up with a commemorative plaque reading, Here Lies the Career of One Who Spoke Too Freely. Were there a chimney, they’d have stuffed that shut, too.

After hours of waiting for a reply that never arrived and several medicinal applications of bourbon, I began pondering the situation. Where else is a man of advanced years supposed to vent his frustrations but in the public square—or, failing that, the digital watering hole of our modern age? Alas, the answer is clear: nowhere.

And so, with my fate sealed and prospects dim, I am doing the only thing a man of principle can do—I picked myself up, dusted off my wounded pride, and moved on. It might have made a compelling article or short story if the whole affair were not so pitiful.

Either way, it’s bound to be worth more than what they were paying me.