Brenda and I watched Up in the Air.
George Clooney fired people for a living.
He travels to where he’s going to do it.
The company flies him in. He tells them,
the people he is downsizing, they’re being
terminated. He gives them a packet. Usually,
they get some kind of severance package.
So many weeks pay and outplacement counseling.
It’s not enough. They’re fucked. They’re not going to
recover. They’re damaged goods. They were expendable.
They outlived their usefulness. He doesn’t think this can happen
to him. It doesn’t. He has sex in airport motels with strangers.
Female executives like himself. Women who want to have casual,
anonymous sex with good-looking strangers. They don’t think they
will get old, or be let go. They aren’t lonely. They have their career.
Firing other people. They don’t get fired. They fire people. People get
fired. It’s the American way. The American dream. We appreciate
your loyalty. We know you’d fire us, if the shoe were on the other foot.
It isn’t. If it were, that would be different. It isn’t. That’s the difference.