Pink Slip Party

Informationen zum Autor Cara Lockwood Klappentext She's been handed her walking papers.Jane McGregor has just been laid off from her job designing pink slips for an office supply company. The irony is not lost on her. She's a twenty-eight-year-old art major whose last major career accomplishment was being propositioned by the company vice president. Desperate to maintain her freedom from her oddball parents, tyrannical older brother, and slacker ex-boyfriend, Jane starts sending out resumes. So what if some of them aren't exactly, well, true. Chapter 1 I think if someone fires you, they should have the decency to do it in person. My boss, lower than vermin on the food chain, was too chicken to actually tell me. Instead, I found out via email. It's not like I would have wanted a show of tears and prostrated apologies (although these would have been nice). I just wanted a minimum level of decency. Personally, I'd prefer a twenty-one-gun salute, but that's just me. My dad always says I have an over-inflated sense of my place in the world. Three days ago, on the day after Valentine's Day, I was part of a massive layoff of 1,000 employees from my company (an office supplier that manufactures pink slips). The irony here is not lost on me. Technically, we print office supplies -- your blue phone-message pads, your Post-it notes. I worked in design and development on such riveting projects as redesigning "While You Were Out" notes and writing instructions for the backs of correction fluid jars. On my last day of work, my boss (is it wrong that I wake up and hope daily he's reincarnated one day as toe fungus?), a bald, corpulent, smelly man with a shiny, greasy-streaked ring of hair around his ears and down the back of his neck, blinked his black, beady eyes at me and said, "Your severance package would be greater, but you've used up all your sick days." I suppose I should have been glad. Some people got laid off via voicemail. And others got the news scrolling across the screens on their Blackberry pagers. The worst thing about being laid off is that it completely nixes your dream of storming into your boss's office, telling him what he can do with his status reports, and quitting to internal audience applause. "Does Mike know about this?" I asked my boss. Mike Orephus was the vice president of the Midwest Division, and just happened to be the same man I'd been dating for seven months. "He knows," my boss said. "He's the one who signed your pink slip." The pink slip wasn't actually pink at all. It wasn't even a slip. It was just a regular piece of paper, white, with large even margins and a form filled out in Helvetica font, point size 12. "Listen, we both know this isn't working out," Mike said, when I went into his office that same day. He couldn't look me in the eye. He fixed his gaze on the framed picture of his chocolate Lab, Buddy, sitting on his desk. I didn't know whether he meant my job performance or our relationship or both. "You're firing me and breaking up with me?" I squeaked. I thought he'd show me a little pity. I didn't take him for the type who'd run me down with his car, and then throw it into reverse for good measure. "Jane, come on, you know that the layoffs are not my decision. They come from above me." He sighed. "And, you had to see that our little fling was over. I mean, I didn't call you for almost a week. You had to see this coming." I'd believed it when he told me he couldn't talk, that he was swamped at work. "I thought you were just busy," I said. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. He used that annoyed snappish tone. The one that all men use when they're breaking up with you and feel bad about doing it, so they try to make it somehow all your fault. "But, I thought..." Now would not be a good time to tell him I'd been thinking we were headed somewhere. Th...

Autorentext

Cara Lockwood

Klappentext

She's been handed her walking papers. Jane McGregor has just been laid off from her job designing pink slips for an office supply company. The irony is not lost on her. She's a twenty-eight-year-old art major whose last major career accomplishment was being propositioned by the company vice president. Desperate to maintain her freedom from her oddball parents, tyrannical older brother, and slacker ex-boyfriend, Jane starts sending out resumes. So what if some of them aren't exactly, well, true.

Zusammenfassung
She's been handed her walking papers.
Jane McGregor has just been laid off from her job designing pink slips for an office supply company. The irony is not lost on her. She's a twenty-eight-year-old art major whose last major career accomplishment was being propositioned by the company vice president. Desperate to maintain her freedom from her oddball parents, tyrannical older brother, and slacker ex-boyfriend, Jane starts sending out resumes. So what if some of them aren't exactly, well, true.

She's taking the future in stride.
When Jane's dad, a staunchly conservative believer in the corporate dream, loses his job, and her mom goes to work for a trendy dot com, Jane discovers that the family she's taken for granted is unraveling. After a fellow lay-off victim hatches a plot to seek revenge on the office supply company, Jane must choose between living in the past and seeking out a new future. To her surprise, that future might involve a most unlikely partner in crime -- handsome, funny Kyle Burton -- and maybe, just maybe, a new job, too.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

I think if someone fires you, they should have the decency to do it in person. My boss, lower than vermin on the food chain, was too chicken to actually tell me. Instead, I found out via email.

It's not like I would have wanted a show of tears and prostrated apologies (although these would have been nice). I just wanted a minimum level of decency. Personally, I'd prefer a twenty-one-gun salute, but that's just me. My dad always says I have an over-inflated sense of my place in the world.

Three days ago, on the day after Valentine's Day, I was part of a massive layoff of 1,000 employees from my company (an office supplier that manufactures pink slips). The irony here is not lost on me. Technically, we print office supplies -- your blue phone-message pads, your Post-it notes. I worked in design and development on such riveting projects as redesigning "While You Were Out" notes and writing instructions for the backs of correction fluid jars.

On my last day of work, my boss (is it wrong that I wake up and hope daily he's reincarnated one day as toe fungus?), a bald, corpulent, smelly man with a shiny, greasy-streaked ring of hair around his ears and down the back of his neck, blinked his black, beady eyes at me and said, "Your severance package would be greater, but you've used up all your sick days."

I suppose I should have been glad. Some people got laid off via voicemail. And others got the news scrolling across the screens on their Blackberry pagers.

The worst thing about being laid off is that it completely nixes your dream of storming into your boss's office, telling him what he can do with his status reports, and quitting to internal audience applause.

"Does Mike know about this?" I asked my boss. Mike Orephus was the vice president of the Midwest Division, and just happened to be the same man I'd been dating for seven months.

"He knows," my boss said. "He's the one who signed your pink slip."

The pink slip wasn't actually pink at all. It wasn't even a slip. It was just a regular piece of paper, white, with large even margins and a form filled out in Helvetica font, point size 12.

"Listen, we both know this isn't working out," Mike said, when I went into his office that same day. He couldn't look me in the eye. He fixed his gaze on the framed picture of his chocolate Lab, Buddy, sitting on his desk. I didn't know whether he meant my job performanc…