Suddenly you are undead

December 17, 2011


You walk around the corridors for the month that you are permitted to stay in the company

But nobody seems to see you.

Your blackberry doesn't vibrate and you get no emails (other than the ones from justgiving). Even the spammers seem to think you no longer need more hair  or viagra.

The 150 emails a day have disappeared.

You don't need to switch your mobile phone on silent. It's not going to ring unless you call it yourself. I try that a few times to look busy but it's a bit difficult to talk on your landline while listening on your mobile. I think people were starting to notice.

Nobody seems to talk to you. Well, not other than platitudes most of which focus on why this is the best thing that could have happened to you and how your life will change for the better. Inside you can see them leaping up and down,  pumping their fists and saying 'Yessss that was a bullet dodged for me'

The whole environment is a bit like a crunch hole in a golf game and you hit your drive out of bounds. No matter how poker faced your playing partner's 'Hard Luck' is, you know that his heart is turning cartwheels.

Yes, suddenly you are undead. You consume space, air, and coffee, but do you really exist in the office ?

No more afternoon naps

December 15th 10 am.

No I'm not. Well, not yet anyway.

The meeting yesterday wasn't quite that bad. After I got the tears out of the way and finished blowing into a brown paper bag, I walked across with my envelope to the desk.

Five years of my life were in that piece of paper.

Sitting at my desk it was clear that a thousand eyes were on me. Bad idea.  I went instead to the corner stall in the refuge for the weary. The Sanctum Sanctorum called 'Gents'.

It was a bit of a comfort area for me. On particularly tiring days (basically Mondays through Thursday, unless it was a busy Friday) I used to choose that stall to take my afternoon nap. I read somewhere that it would increase my lifespan by 5 years. Crap. That meant 5 more years of unfunded retirement.

So I sat there, slit open the envelope and read a bunch of platitudes, a number that would pay my mobile bill for a couple months and an access to a counsellor should I need one.

I wonder if the counsellor fees could be monetised ? One to ask. I made a mental note.

So what was I going to do when the money ran out ?

My plan of action was very clear.

I had to stop this flirtation with longevity.

No more afternoon naps. Take up smoking and bacon.

First day of the rest of my life

December 15th 9 pm.

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. I am liberated. I am free.

No more life by powerpoint, death by politics.

I'm going to learn a new skill.

I'm going to take up singing.

I'm going to lose 5 kilos.

I'm going to launch a technology startup.


December 16th 4 am.

I'm going to commit suicide.

Top 10 warning signs of the soon to be undead

10. Your colleague who was about to walk past you in the corridor takes a sudden detour to the men's room.

9. There's an HR intern hovering around nervously in the distance, watching you closely while pretending to examine some blank papers in her hand.

8. A man in a security guard uniform is fixing the perfectly good photocopying machine and if you look really closely you can see an earpiece.

7. Are they really boarding up the windows ?

6 You walk in to your boss's office for a meeting and the HR person is sitting there with him.

5. The overweight son of a bitch actually gets up to greet you for the first time in his life.

4. He's suddenly your best friend and knows your personal life. Last week he asked about your girlfriend (you're been married forever, same as the previous meeting), your three kids (last of whom is not even conceived of being conceived) and your pet cat (a dog, actually but hey, an animal is an animal). Now he even knows their names and what they are doing and that your labrador is recently neutered. Like you are about to be.

3. There's a white envelope lying on the table in front of him while he's talking. And a brown paper bag.

2. He finally puts on a steely look and starts a sentence with  ''Can I be frank with you", so you know he's about to start lying through his teeth.

1. He talks and talks but all you hear is 'Yadda Yadda Yadda'

Becoming Undead

December 14th , 2011. 9 am.

And so it happens.

People start looking at me closely as I line up for the lifts in the office lobby.

That HR intern makes eye contact with me for the first time in six months, smiles briefly and looks away.

The ticker on the computer screen shows the stock price of our bank moving up for after 3 years.

A little flashing red light on my blackberry tells me that I have a meeting in the next five minutes. I'm well on time.

The coffee queue is short, and they get the right amount of milk in the cup.

The sun is out and if there were birds permitted in the building, they'd be singing.

Yes, I'm about to get laid off. Restructured, Compromised. Whatever.

I'm about to become a statistic in the daily mail.

I'm about to join the ranks of the Undead.