Are you firing me?

What happens when hardest isn't hard enough? What happens when your best isn't the best you could be doing? "I think it's time to move on", she says. "This is in your best interest", she says. "I want you to leave on good terms", she says.

So you sit there, hunched over, with your arms over your head like you're taking part in an earthquake drill; because if you could crawl under her desk, you would. Anything to protect yourself from humiliation and rejection.

And every minute you spend trying to perfect the line of liquid eye liner on your top eye lid has been wasted, the once flawless cat eye effect is now streaming down your face in two almost perfect vertical lines. Perfect makeup, perfect outfit, perfect way of styling your Betty Paige bangs, and all you have to show for it is a final check and a lecture on "one hundred and ten percent", when really, you had been giving one hundred and twenty the entire time. One hundred and ten is for someone who hates their job or who just needs the money, or who wouldn't think twice about taking a bullet for a position that pays minimum wage. Those who consider themselves one hundred and ten know nothing about losing sleep over presser feet prices or being comfortable with unpaid overtime. They know nothing of picking up dog shit or keeping company secrets in order to keep the doors unlocked and the open sign brightly lit. "Fuck your one hundred and ten percent", you think. You weren't just a number.

Now, on this cold rainy day in February, you consider yourself to be once again, just a number, just another statistic. Just another part of the unemployed percentile. Your once expanding passion to make this business a better place and the willingness you carried to go above and beyond, well, both have fizzled.