Dear Job,
I know it’s all over between us now, but I find myself still thinking about you. You and I had been together for nearly a year, and I was having a great time. I really thought things were going well with us. Everyone who’d seen us together commented about what a great match we were. I had even started to think, that maybe, just maybe, you were “The One”.
Imagine my surprise, when I got your letter in the mail. Suddenly, you decided, out of the clear blue sky, that you didn’t want me around anymore. I was completely shocked that you felt this way. I didn’t see this coming at all! There wasn’t the slightest outward indication that your feelings toward me had changed. My thoughts about our bright future together disappeared in an instant. Needless to say, I was both angry and heartbroken about it. Many of our mutual acquaintances were just as shocked and upset as I was when the news about the end of our employment relationship reached their ears.
Sending me a letter in the mail to inform me that I was no longer your valued employee was completely spineless of you. In fact, it reminded me of the types of notes students used to pass to each other back in high school to let someone know they wanted to break up with them. I suppose they send emails, or text messages now instead. Either way, I expected something much more professional from you that what I got.
I tried to talk to you the next day, Dear Job, but that didn’t go very well. I was too upset, and your vague answers to my question of “Why?” didn’t help to clarify anything at all.
Thinking back, I suppose that there were some clues that you had issues. You needed us to meet several times before I officially became your employee, and you kept bringing more and more people along with you to these little interviews.
I still don’t understand why you needed me to answer the same questions over and over again, both verbally and in writing. Once, you even put a cassette recorder on the table, and pushed record while I was answering your questions! At the time, I though you were just eccentric, and I put up with it. I should have realized right then that you were not to be trusted.
You wanted to know everything about the Jobs I’d had before you came along. You urged me to break up with my current Job in order to be with you as soon as possible. I told you so many personal details about myself, and you still couldn’t give me any indication about what you were looking for, or even precisely what you were offering.
I must admit that at first, I wasn’t very interested in starting an employment relationship with you, Dear Job. I’d had other Jobs similar to you before, and I they always left me unsatisfied. It was always the same, I would give and give until I was exhausted both physically and emotionally, only to find that the Job wasn’t giving me very much back to meet my needs with. I wanted to believe that you were different, Dear Job. When you finally started talking, you painted bright pictures about our life together, you offered me things most of my past Jobs could not, and you spent a lot of time making me feel like you needed me. Well, until the day I got that letter, that is.
It would have been nice of you to have given me some warning that you weren’t happy with what I was doing for you. You probably don’t care, but, the truth is I had come to depend on you, Dear Job. So many of the day to day things I do were made possible because of what you gave to me each hour, each week, each month. I have sought out some help for myself, but honestly, I haven’t seen any benefits come from that assistance yet. I wish you would have left me with something, instead of cutting everything off with no warning. That would have made my life much easier.
When our employment relationship first ended, Dear Job, I was convinced that I would never, ever, find another Job as good as you were, despite your flaws. There just aren’t that many fish in the sea right now. Instead of giving up, I find myself spending more and more time on the internet, looking for a new Job. I haven’t found the Job I’m looking for yet, but, I want to believe that someday, I will. I won’t simply sit at home and wait by the phone for you to call me, and tell me you need me once again, (which I have heard you have a pattern of doing). You actually aren’t as special as you seem to think you are, and I have plenty of other things to keep myself busy with.
When our employment relationship first ended, I couldn’t get you out of my head. I wondered if you had replaced me yet. Was there someone else in my place, doing all the things I used to do? Did other people like her, or do they miss having me around? Is she as good as me? I wonder if you started meeting with someone else before you even started to write that horrible letter you sent to me.
In desperation, I confided in a kind soul about what had happened. This person really helped me out when we had that little problem last year, Dear Job. You know the little problem I mean. Don’t make me spell it out for you.
She wasn’t at all pleased to hear about the ending our our union. I know she has things she wants to say to you about it. In fact, I am certain that you have heard from her already, and that cannot have been too comfortable for you. Some of her friends have taken an interest in this situation, and they will be talking with you very soon as well.
I know you hoped I would disappear without a word, but, in the real world, there are consequences when you treat someone as badly as you have treated me. I don’t really think my friends will be able to make me your valued employee once again, but perhaps they can do something to improve my life anyway.
I returned the items of yours that were still in my possession to you last week. You made it quite clear how important that giant binder of paper was to you. I have lost count of how many times you have mentioned, Dear Job, that you would want the binder back if our employment relationship were to end. My first impulse was to burn it, or rip the pages into tiny pieces, and return it to you in a large trash bag. Instead, I drove it back to you intact. Consider this my way of saying that I am completely over you, Dear Job. I didn’t want your crap taking up space in my house anymore.
Now that I am no longer your valued employee, I am experiencing a freedom that I never realized I could have. It’s quite exhilarating! It’s nice to no longer have to arrange my life around your many, and ever increasing, needs, Dear Job. It’s wonderful to be able to spend my time and energy working on things that matter to me, things that other people are finding to be of value to them as well. I wake up in the morning well rested, now that I am not carrying around all the stress you constantly placed upon me.
My first waking thought is no longer of you, Dear Job. I don’t even miss you anymore! You broke up our employment relationship with a letter, so I suppose it’s fitting that I write these words here. I suspect you would prefer that the details about just how this employment relationship ended were kept secret, but it’s way too late for that. Everyone I know has been told every little thing about what you did, and how you did it.
You pissed me off, and gave me plenty of free time to do whatever I wanted with. Not a smart move on your part, Dear Job. I really thought you knew me better than that. I hope your life is as uncomfortable and stressful for you as you tried to make mine be for me.
Goodbye, Dear Job, Goodbye!
Tags: work