Nov 24, 2008 04:43 PM
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New York, 10:21 PM
Tue Feb 9
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Remember last Friday? Laid-off Weinstein company employees sure do. They had been asked on Wednesday to clean up their desks because a "special guest" was coming. Turns out it was HR to tell them they were fired. Surprise! We have more tales from the front lines of the inanity known as "work" (send your own stories to tips@gawker.com.) In this edition, a tale of being newly hired only to be fired, and another reason to hate Gmail chat.
"Evil Fucking" Insurance-Cheating "Bastard":
I was with the publication for 7 years while it steadily grew and prospered. We had a down year in 2008, however, and it coincided with yet another acquisition.
They had to save money, so they jettisoned me at the end of September, two days after my daughter was admitted to the hospital for another lengthy stay. I'm convinced that the outside insurance consultant that they paid to help us employees navigate the treacherous waters of Aetna-land was also paid to tip the bosses when an employee had high health care benefit usage. But to make things worse, they gave me no severance, arguing that I was a "new hire" to them, instead of an editor who grew that damn title into a 7-million property. Evil fucking bastard.
"my newest job is reading Gawker in my pajamas all day and getting
rejected by literary agents."I have a journalism degree from NYU and three years of newspaper experience, including a very short stint at the Daily News last summer that didn't work out (that's a whole other story). This means I'm perfectly qualified to get laid off as a hedge-fund receptionist.
At my two-month gig through a temp agency, I watched analysts and traders freak the fuck out about Lehman Brothers and every subsequent turn of the market (examples: "Do I think the world is coming to an end? It's already come to an end and we're just picking up the pieces," "Let's do six hours of pregaming and relive our past glory," and "I've had it with this trading shit"). Then I restocked the candy
in the tiny front desk jar, made conversation about Smarties and got snapped at about mail sorting by from admin assistant who didn't even graduate from community college.The hedge fund started liquidating its accounts and the woman who got me from the temp agency turned in her notice, but I still had hope that maybe, just maybe, I could fill that job during the final months
of the company, get health insurance and not pinch pennies anymore.They started interviewing hot blonde temps for the job instead. By the way, I have dark hair. And that's when I learned of my demise in a Gmail chat window. One of the assistants led me to her desk to sign my
timesheet. As she signed it, my eyes fled to her computer, where I saw these words in the little Gchat box: "Let's use one of these girls to replace Kristie."One week later, I got a call from the temp agency say that I just worked my last day there and that the company couldn't afford me anymore. Yeah, but they can still afford to hire hot blondes and company-wide bagels on Fridays, right?
Now, my newest job is reading Gawker in my pajamas all day and getting rejected by literary agents.
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