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Termination
Why Being "Let Go" Is the Best Euphemism Ever for Losing Your Job

"Courage is what others can't see, what is never affirmed. It is made of what you have thrown away and then come back for."

-Leonard Cohen

Have you ever thought about the phrase "being let go," instead of "being fired" or "terminated"? Terminated sounds like your life is actually being put to an end. Being fired conjures being engulfed by flames, so that's also like your life is being put to an end, but this time in the most painful way possible. Both of these phrases have a covert implication that losing your job is tantamount to being extinguished as a human being.

To be "let go," by contrast, sounds downright delightful. As if your old job set you free to greet something else that was calling you. Like being released into the embrace of something more beautiful.

The morning after I lost my job (another ridiculous phrase, like "oops-where did it go?!"), I definitely felt like I had been fired. My insides felt like they were burning, as acid roiled in my gut at the thought of calling my family to share the news. I decided to hit the road for a few days to clear my head. I'd call my family from the car.

My parents were going to freak out. My mother, like many Jews of her generation who lost family in the Holocaust, is obsessed with financial security. My grandparents were the sole survivors of large families all killed by the Nazis, so my mother grew up without grandparents, aunts and uncles, or extended family. Instead of weekends playing with the cousins, she was raised on stories of acute loss from the Old Country. If you want to know what kind of effect this has on the psyche of Jews, look no further than your average Jewish garage. Growing up, I did not know a single Jew without a second refrigerator tucked away in the garage. Instead of a second car, Jews would opt for the second fridge. You never know when you might have to run for your life, so make sure there is plenty of kugel for the apocalypse. For people with two refrigerators in their home so they don't run out of food, a family member being out of work is like a nuclear event.

"Oh no!" my mom said when I broke the news. "How could they do this to you? Those schmucks. Do you want me to call my friend Esther, the lawyer in Boca, to see if she has any leads?"

I think this is a Jewish thing-when a crisis hits, the answer always seems to be to call another Jew who is tangentially related to see if they can help. This person is usually either a cousin eight times removed, or an "aunt" who is not really related to you but shared a scrap of bread with your grandmother at Auschwitz that one time. I've always hated this system, because usually the person cannot offer any meaningful help, but they'll always try to do something, which usually results in me having coffee with some poor schmo who also can't help but is a Jew, and therefore willing to show up for a coffee obligation with a total stranger.

"No thanks," I said, "I'm not sure that a retired lawyer ten states away is going to help with my search here. I'm not sure I want to go back to that, anyway."

"What do you mean you're not sure you want to go back to that?" my mother asked.

"I really didn't like my job" I replied. "I'm not sure I want to get another one like it."

My mother sighed. "You see, this is what's wrong with your generation. No work ethic. You think you're supposed to enjoy working. That's why they call it work, and they don't call it fun! I'll call Esther and give you a call right back." My mother clicked off.

I stared at the road and, in an attempt to avoid my own thoughts, decided to keep calling people. To counterbalance the effect of my mother's disappointment, I called my best friend Kate, a native Michigander who has the upbeat countenance only a non-Jewish Midwesterner can have.

She picked up on the first ring. "Hey there!" she said, "You feeling better about being freed from the worst job of your life?"

I paused and thought about it. "I'm not actually sure that was the worst job of my life. There was that summer I spent working at the flower store, where my boss had cameras everywhere and watched us from home. That was pretty creepy."

"Fair enough," Kate said, "the second worst job of your life."

"Oh! And then that summer where I worked at a factory applying labels to linen packages in the 100-degree heat. That was pretty awful, too."

"Okay," Kate said, "the third worst job of your life."

The more I started thinking about it, the less sure I was that I had ever had a job I would describe in a positive manner. When people said they enjoyed getting up to go to work in the morning, I worried that maybe they were just a different kind of person. Like Kate was just made of different stuff than my mom. More positive stuff.

"So what's next?" asked Kate.

"I feel crazy even saying this out loud," I admitted, "but I keep coming back to restaurants."

"Really?" said Kate. "I thought you were done with that."

"Not working for other people, but opening my own."

"Ooh, now you've got me interested," she said.

I had been mulling it over for months. I'd come home one night from the office in the pouring rain with a pounding headache, craving a bowl of macaroni and cheese and a good old-fashioned couch-sit. I had perused the take-out menus of practically every restaurant in Oakland before I realized that there was no restaurant I could go to that would make the dish I was craving. What I wanted was my dad's mac and cheese, and I had yet to visit a restaurant that could make it as good as he did.

My dad cooks exactly four and a half things: macaroni and cheese, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, pancakes, and chicken à la king (which is just the sauce for mac and cheese with peas and chicken added, poured over rice-so really a variation on dish number one). Although that's all he's got in the bag, all of these dishes are the very best version of those foods you will ever eat. So when I was craving my dad's mac and cheese, no other recipe would do.

Even though I wanted to fall onto the couch and binge-watch The Sopranos, I dragged my body to the market to get the ingredients. I set about grating the cheddar and whisking the cream sauce until it was silky and smooth. The steam from the final dish flushed my cheeks, and the warmth of the bowl felt good in my hands. I took a bite and closed my eyes. The sharp tang of the cheese, the silky richness of the sauce, and the rounded simplicity of the elbow noodles took me back to a much simpler time in life. I licked the bowl clean.

In that moment, I realized how rare it is to enjoy a food where my version is the most delicious one I've ever tasted. Yet there wasn't a single restaurant dedicated to it. There are pizza restaurants, burger joints, BBQ places; why was there no place to go to for mac and cheese that night? I couldn't stop thinking about it.

"You know," I said to Kate, "I tried to scrape together the money before I went to law school to open my own bakery but couldn't quite swing it. I did that underground wedding cookie business, which was fun. I feel like I've been circling the wagon for years but haven't taken the leap."

"I thought restaurants were too crazy for you." Kate responded.

"Well, they are too crazy when I'm working for other people. The work is repetitive. The hours are long. The bosses are unhinged. Maybe if I was the boss, it would be different."

"How different?" asked Kate.

"I'm not sure. I feel like I've always wanted to do my own thing. I feel like I'm in this little window right now where I don't have a house, don't have any kids..I don't know if and when I'll have this kind of freedom again. I just don't want to go back to being a lawyer."

"Well," said Kate, "then you shouldn't. This is the only life you've got. If you feel like you'll always wonder if you don't try this, then why the hell not? What's the worst that happens?"

"I lose all my money," I said. "I'll have no house, no savings, no nothing. I'm also afraid of looking like a complete idiot."

"Anyone who would judge you for trying for your dream isn't worth your time anyway," said Kate. "And don't you think you could make more money by being a lawyer again if you had to?"

"I suppose so," I said, despite my doubts.

"Well, then your worst-case scenario looks exactly like your default scenario if you don't try it, so why wouldn't you go for it?"

I had never thought of it in that way. She was right. I had settled in my career for my default worst-case scenario and was thinking about doing it again. I had picked something that would pay the bills...