For every yin, there’s a yang:

LinkedIn

Date: 2/05/2009

Subject: Hey!

You are no longer in the White Pages!!!!! You must have been impacted! I hope this email finds you well. Someone with your credentials I’m sure will soon, if not already, be in a place where you want to be. Take care and keep up on your blog!

Notes:

• “White Pages” = Schwab employee directory
• “Impacted” = current HRspeak for being laid off and used interchangeably with the oh-so-lovely term “severed”.

Life outside the confines of employment has been utter bliss! Spending each and every minute doing exactly what I want. Sleeping when I want. Seeing who I want, when I want. Working out.

But here’s where I need YOUR help: I think there’s a socialization piece that may be getting lost. What do you think?:

I just received an invitation from a friend who has her PhD in education. She is putting together an event that costs $15/person to:

Come to dance and PLAY together…giving adults the opportunity to rediscover the joy of play alongside their children as well as meet other like-minded families….inside developmentally appropriate ways of playing and engaging to support critical thinking for children ages two through eight years-old.

The evite responses were private, so I failed to exercise developmentally appropriate restraint and fired off my “no” RSVP:

Pay to play? What is this world coming to!

Hey, but maybe it’s not unemployment. I think I just didn’t play well enough as a child.

Suspension of disbelief: the audience tacitly agrees to provisionally suspend judgment …

My current attempt to suspend disbelief comes in response to this unsolicited note from a friend who noticed my changed LinkedIn status:

Subject: Bummer!

You got laid off? I know you are so good at what you do, but you were certainly in the wrong industry at the wrong time, huh? 🙁

So sorry.

I hereby suspend any judgment as to the value of this message or its author!

Of course, the alternative to such suspension – actually sending my response that is currently saved in my “drafts” folder – may not really build bridges anyway….

Subject: Bummer back!

Hey, thanks for the note. Guess NOBODY’S safe these days: I just read that (your industry) is due to shrink by a gazillion percent this next quarter. But I’m sure you’ll recoup at some point. Hope you don’t lose your shirt in the meantime!