Lost in Transition

It’s official: I’ve been replaced.

Can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Last week, my boss sent me an e-mail, subject line: “your big move.” She needed to know when I planned on quitting work and shipping out to New Orleans. As my left finger hovered above the 2 (for July 2) a co-worker peeked into my office and asked when I might give the new intern a tour of my apartment. “She’s still looking for a place to live, and yours is within walking distance of the office.”

Tour: June 13. Quit: July 2.

“You have new mail!”

Actually, not to put any pressure on me -- not to push me out the door, or anything -- but my boss was really hoping I could leave sooner. Say, the end of June? “It’s a logistics problem.” The racially diverse children in my Hidden Pictures calendar smiled down sympathetically. “It’s not you; it’s logistics.”

I burst into tears.

I’ve always been a crier, always wished I weren’t. The co-founder of Highlights had two messages for his readership: “Children are the world’s most important people” and “Crying is for sissies.” Granted, the second message has been downplayed, but it’s still there. “Gallant asks Mother for a bandage when he scrapes his knee. Goofus sobs like a baby.” Gallant seems to face any injury or adversity with Boy-Scout cheer. I fully believe that if Gallant, say, lost both of his legs and arms in a bicycle accident, he would crawl over to Mother and announce, “I never knew my torso was so strong!”

That’s not me. I cry when my cable goes out.

And let’s just say “expendability” isn’t one of my favorite feelings. I knew that the new intern needed my office space and my apartment, but, of course, I wanted my boss to announce: “There is no magazine without you. You must stay.”

I now reside in a vacant office upstairs. Really, “office” might be an overstatement. “Storage space” is more accurate. Though it has been used as an office, by several employees long-since restructured. My Room Raiders-style inventory produced the following finds:

One pencil reading “Elect Bob (Bruce) Mackle, Wayne County Treasurer”
One pen from the Virginia Marine Science Museum
a McDonald’s Cat in the Hat toy, good condition
book, Community Building on the Web
book, The Unauthorized Biography of J.K. Rowling
book, Great Pets!
book, Instinctual Stimulation of Children: From Common Practice to Child Abuse
book, Dead Serious: A Book for Teenagers About Suicide (ironic, since “Dead Serious” was the name of the improv comedy group at Wellesley)
book, Putting on a Party

I didn’t bother to move my books and photos to the new office, since I’ll only be there a couple of weeks. I did smuggle some magazines into a desk drawer. Figured, as long as I’m on my way out, I might as well enjoy the slide. The December 2004 National Geographic has an interesting article about “new Earths.” My English-major brain couldn’t digest all of it, but I gather that astronomers may have the resources to find Earth-like planets by 2020. Kepler, a space telescope, will look for Earth-sized shadows on stars.

According to the article, “By 2011 or so, Kepler may have detected a few dozen Earth- or Mars-sized planets set just far enough from their stars to be comfortable for life.”

I’m waiting for the memo from God: “We need your Earth space for other life forms. Pack your file boxes.”

In the meantime, I’ll be sniffling behind the packing crates.