Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Now that’s an idiom I’ve not experienced in a long time. Until I did. Twice in the past three months, in fact. I guess I was due. Hey, we all need a little humbling every now and again. The first recalibration of my self-importance came […]
The Irony of Poor Communication
The other day, as I wasted a few more hours of my aimless life plodding through monotonous Candy Crush levels, the voice on the radio caught my attention by mentioning that next year marks the 25th anniversary of Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill. Upon hearing this factoid, my mind blurted an invective lamenting yet further […]
Know Thy Golden Handcuffs
Aristotle said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” The man was centuries ahead of his time with that meme-worthy nugget. He was Facebook before Facebook was cool. Or invented. He was also full of shit. Truth is, knowing yourself is the beginning of depression. And self-loathing. Knowing myself has never so much as […]
There’s No Vaccine for Layoffs
You think you’re immune, until you discover you aren’t. In February 1995, god that’s nearly thirty years ago, I grew up in a hurry. Or at least my budding work persona did. I was one of five wide-eyed geology students freshly fallen from the Ontario turnip truck in the early weeks of eight month, co-op, […]
Crude Awakening
“It builds character.” These words of encouragement, long-favoured by well-intentioned relatives and friends, cycled endlessly in my mind as I sat behind my faux-wood desk in my soon-to-be-former cubicle on the west side of the fourteenth floor of Gulf Canada Square in suddenly not-so-opportunity-filled Calgary. I was numb. A few minutes prior, my phone had […]