The Layoff Beard

Extended Thought ▪ It’s A Resume AND A Blog

By Matt Sussman | Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

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Here’s a box of stuff that I own. Neat, huh?

On April 30 of this year, my metaphorical world came crashing down when my employer told me they didn’t need my services anymore. I cleared out my desk, turned in my corporate credit card, and deposited all those pop cans I had in my cubicle for a net profit of $10.20. After some calculations, I discovered that would likely not pay the mortgage, especially since the calculator cost $14.99.

It was a fun three and a half years. It was my job right out of college. My former colleagues can probably attest that it’s just about as good a job as you’ll get in that situation. I have absolutely nothing terrible to say about them. Well, except that they laid me off.

The job market in Michigan ain’t that pretty, and with this brand new condo holding me down like a wooden dummy on a desperate ventroloquist’s arm, it was high time I began staying busy in the only way I knew how: start a blog and include as many references as possible that only I find funny.

Using the calculator THAT I ALREADY HAD (so far I’ve already saved $14.99), I did the math and, sure enough, the odds of someone understanding all the obscurity on my blog was slightly better than landing a job in Michigan the traditional way. And thus, the Layoff Beard was born.

While most of my cyber cuneiform in the past consisted of sports, sports, and why everyone spits in my quesadilla, The Layoff Beard will encompass all those topics and more, including realms of study nobody has thought of yet. Blapology. What the hell is that? Maybe we’ll find out in the future.

The twist in this entire beast is that I spent, like, two days stealing a WordPress theme, buying a domain name, and neglecting my girlfriend. All that time will be for naught, because you see, this blog will cease whenever I find full time employment. You just can’t sell writing about having no job when the opposite is true. People frown on that sort of misleading hook.

Until then, my sofa has kind of a square shape to it. That’ll work nicely as a cubicle. Especially since there are way more places to strategically set up those little Cheat Commandos.