The buyout, the stock option payoff, the golden exit -- everybody says that it's a moment when dreams come true, but nobody says that your dreams die in the process. Jeremy sat diagonally from me at the conference table, looking like he wanted to skip the rest of the day and get to the drinking. He was never one for wearing ties, much less suits, so having to be dressed up in the Google Manhattan offices wasn't doing him any favors. He looked stiff, uncomfortable, and when he looked at me, it was easy to see the sadness that went along with it.
"I guess we should've seen this coming, Jake."
"What? The money or the layoff?"
He winced at that. I just chuckled and continued.
"It makes sense, you know. Google knows more about their customers than any of us do. Dinosaur like me would be redundant around here. Can't argue with the logic, and can't argue with the cash. I'll be ok, J-one."
He smiled at the nickname, "Are you sure you won't stay? I'll miss working with you."
"What? And be another director something or other? Honestly, I need to step away. Been doing this too long and need a break to clear my head."
"Yeah, I can see that. God, sometimes I wish I could do that. But, my contract's a bit different ..."
"Yeah, now it's your turn to keep my promises. Don't look so fucking sad, man! We did good. We built a company, sold it, got the brass ring. We should be on top of the world."
"I'm just going to miss everyone. It's never been about the money. It's always been about the team. The smartest people in the room ... The magic ... it's all dead with all of you gone."
"If that's what you want, I suspect your grad school will take you back. Pick your doctorate back up. Plenty of smart and poor people there doing nothing but being smart and poor.""
"You've always been a bastard, J-two."
"That's why you paid me. Face it, J-one, now you're just getting sentimental. We created something. We cashed out. We all move on to the next thing. It's what we do."
We sat up as the conference door opened and a Google HR exec came in. "Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Traeger. I've got your separation paperwork and just wanted to make sure it was all in order."
"Nothing to worry about. Let's do this."
The paperwork didn't take that long: standard non-disclosure and non-defamation acceptance along with severance package. The package that they had put together was ... well, it was pretty respectable. I had talked to other colleagues who had gone through some kind of executive layoff and heard their stories of golden parachutes. It was one thing to hear the stories. It was another thing to essentially see a vested stock option package with that many zeroes. After signing everything, Jeremy and I adjourned to the bar to have one last wake for our old company, now another cog in the Google behemoth. Jeremy got up to go use the bathroom and I pulled out my messenger to text Rachel.
>> "Hey, want to play hooky? I'm drinking at The Painswicke with Jeremy."
<< "Jake, it's 3 in the afternoon. I've also got aerials class later tonight."
<< "Oh, wait, why are you both day drinking? Congratulations or condolences?"
>> "Bit of both? That thing that might happen happened."
<< "Oh no! So you got laid off then?"
>> "Technically speaking we could not come to a mutual agreement. They offered a director position"
>> "but it was the same thing just w/ more politics. I turned it down and they eliminated my old job."
>> "and they cut me a nice big package as thank you and goodwill insurance."
<< "That sounds more like congratulations! Hey, I'm not going to be home until 7, but come over and we'll celebrate."
>> "See you then."
I closed the messenger as Jeremy returned. He smirked as he saw me put the device away.
"Giving Rachel the news?"
"Yeah, we have plans to celebrate afterwards."
"How's that going?"
"Oh, you know, we're taking our time. Letting things happen."
"You let moving to New York happen. Relocating for a woman is not what I'd call taking your time."
"It made sense when the Alphabet buyout was picking up steam. I was making all of these trips out to meet with you and Alexei, anyway ..."
"yeah, Jake, that's bullshit and you know it. We'd been working together remotely for three years and you were all Mr. West Coast, gloating over your perfect weather while we dug our sidewalks out from another blizzard, and then right after that December visit, you're coming over every two or three weeks, and six months later, you're shopping for apartments in Greenpoint. Those are not the actions of the man I knew. That Jake Traeger liked accumulating frequent flyer points."
"Well ..."
"Hey, don't let me shame you. If I had someone like Rachel waiting for me on the other side of the country, I'd move to. I'm not blaming you for your choice. I'm just saying, friend ... you guys have already taken a lot of time. This may be my, as you said, sentimentality talking but I'm in a mood to believe that shit isn't gonna last forever. You have to make the most of it while you got it."
"That's my cue to go then. Thank you, Jeremy. It's been a pleasure. Don't let the beast swallow you up."
"Fuck you for leaving, Jake. Goodbye."
I thought about what Jeremy was saying as I took the train over to my apartment in Brooklyn to get some things before heading up to Rachel's in the Bronx. When I moved, we had both decided that my getting a separate apartment was still wiser than us moving in together. We were both independent people, and it would take a little more time with each other before we decided on that next step. Still, since it took more than an hour to ride the train from my place to hers, we had settled into this pattern of taking turns staying over at the other person's place for several days. It was still like a long-distance relationship except separated by the New York subway system.
I had only been in this place in Greenpoint for three months and had barely unpacked or furnished it. It was habitable, but Rachel's was still more comfortable, and that's where we wound up spending a good deal of time. Still, I grabbed a small set of clothes, my mail, and my overnight bag and took the train to head back up to the Bronx.
I let myself in with the spare key she gave me. It was now 5:30. The apartment still made me think of that winter weekend nine months ago, and now it was bathed in the golden light of a late fall afternoon. I rummaged in Rachel's cupboards, pulled out a tumbler and her bottle of Highland Park, then poured myself a drink and lay back on her couch and thought to myself "... now what?"
Rachel came in two hours later, carrying her gym bag and her mail, dressed in her workout clothes. She still looked beautiful, even when grubby and sweaty. Her leggings accentuated her long, graceful legs, now looking toned and sturdy with her recent silks workout. The Bronx was well into its gentrifying phase and there was no surer sign of that than an acrobats gym opening up in her neighborhood, taking the space of an old abandoned car garage. Her brown-red chestnut hair was growing out from its earlier shorter phase and now bound in a small ponytail. Rachel was talking on a Bluetooth headset, but her lovely sapphire blue eyes shone at me as she came in. Then she smoothly tapped her wrist to end the call and pull the headset from her ear as she switched off from work mode.
"Jake, sweetheart. So tell me what happened."
"Oh, you know, as I said in the text, I got let go. Google was always more interested in our technology than our people. Most of my team's gotten folded into their Partner Technology group already, and there isn't room for two Vice Presidents. So, when they offered me the choice of what was, essentially, a demotion or to get laid off with a tidy severance package, I took the money.
"So, this is ...," she said as she started walking to me "... congratulations?"
"Feels weird saying that to someone who's unemployed, doesn't it?"
"But not so weird to someone who now has the freedom to do something new." She settled into my lap and just put her arms around my shoulders.
"Yeah, now I'm trying to figure out what that is."
"Must be hard. Getting what you want. How much are you getting, anyway?"
"Well, it's complicated, and I should really talk to an accountant. But, between the severance that was in the contract for the next six months, and the vested options that I got out of the deal, it's maybe ... $5 million?"
"Oooh, maybe that's enough to buy the tiny violin that's playing for you right now."
Her smile, of course, said otherwise, but I still chuckled. "It totally is. I've been working a salary for someone or other for almost thirty years. You're right in telling me to be brave and do my own thing, but I still don't know what that is."
Rachel just smiled and kissed me softly on the lips, then my chin, then my jaw, then she whispered.
"Maybe I can help take your mind off of it for a bit?"
