Ding-Ding! Ding-Ding! Ding-Ding!
The bell was rung six times - three paired peals. A person reading too much Horatio Hornblower might note that since it was almost exactly three o'clock on Friday afternoon, someone had just successfully rung out six bells in the afternoon watch, a rare feat in most modern offices. Said person would then realize that they were the only person thinking that out of the hundred or so coworkers in earshot, and feel lonely.
Everyone clapped dutifully. The Career Development team had put the bell in place to celebrate when one of our graduates gets a job. Since calling yourself a career college implies that graduates of your programs might be able to find work, our ability to award federal financial aid was dependent on successful workmanship....
Dammit. I need more synonyms. Job, career, work... Employment!
Our company's ability to get money depended on students finding employment. Since this was a hassle and a hustle for the Career Development team, the bell was supposed to be a motivator. Ringing the bell indicated that two equally laudable goals had been achieved: some lucky individual had just achieved their career goal of sending medical claims to insurance companies, and we'd defended the right of our company's founder to dive Scrooge McDuck-style into a mountain of sexy Title IV cash.
Which blah blah blah whatever. Point is, everyone claps when they hear the bell. On my best days, I clap because I'm happy for the former student. As uninspired as I am by their career choice, it's what they chose and I therefore wish them the best. On my worst days, I clap because everyone else claps and you don't want to be seen to be the only person who isn't clapping.
(Ever try just standing there during the national anthem at a baseball game, and not taking off your hat or putting your hand on your heart? Not because you're not patriotic, but because you don't feel the need to call out our twin deities of God and Nationalism to bless the sacred event of eating hot dogs while watching other people be athletic? No? You should try it. It's super uncomfortable.)
In between my best days and my worst days are the multitude when clapping is just a Pavlovian response to the sound of the bell. (Still gathering data on saliva production - I'll get back to you.) This was one of those days. Bell = Clap. I clapped.
Two things were off.
First, no one rings the bell that way. It tends to be either a clamorous ding-da-ding-ding-ding-da-ding or an equally clamorous (loud bells in offices are disruptive) but shorter single Ding! The latter is my preference, not simply for its brevity, but because it's over so quickly that you're not sure you heard it. Heads pop up above cubicle partitions meerkat-style, trying to be sure that you heard what you think you heard. It's funny to watch.
Second, there was some excited talking over in the cubes by the bell. The bell itself is behind a pillar, so I couldn't see who rang it. I could hear the voice of my boss, though. Her voice carries all the time, but especially when she's jazzed about something. When I hear her coming, I normally open up the webpage I control for my department and toggle to an HTML-edit view. I'm usually not doing anything with it, but it's complicated and esoteric, so she can't really come up with anything to say about it.
I hunched over my keyboard and tried to look incurious, but I could hear her getting closer. She stopped a couple of cubicles over and starting talking quickly to the people there. I overheard, "We're going to have to look for a new MBA Program Chair." I couldn't make out the rest, or hear the reactions, but the tones seemed to be surprised.
I wasn't surprised. The old chair was a good guy, but not a first class bureaucrat. He was, first and foremost, an academic. Working at a university should have been a solid fit for him, but he tended a bit too much toward the Absentminded Professor stereotype to do well in a career college. He had the added failing of not being good at smiling and nodding when my boss says something stupid. She says a lot of stupid things and he pushed back on most of them. Not in a "we can't do that because you're stupid" way but in a "how would you like us to implement this plan while we're busy implementing your three great ideas from yesterday" way. So I knew they weren't clicking.
I started to wonder whether he'd left on his own or whether he'd been pushed out. Either way, it was uncommon to hear anything right away. Usually you found out someone was gone about two weeks later, when an email bounced back and you went and asked around. The company usually keeps that information tightly compartmentalized. Siloed, if you like business-speak.
My musing was cut off when my boss bustled into my cubicle, smiling. I spun my back to my desk, leaned back, and crossed my legs. My boss is a close-talker, and I'd perfected this move as the way to keep the most physical distance between us when she enters my space. She started talking without greeting me.
"I just thought you should know," she began, still grinning. "Ed will no longer be with us. I was so excited I had to ring the bell!"
I wasn't sure what to say.
"Oh!" Shit. "Cool! That should make things a lot easier." I wasn't sure if the feigned positivity of my words was making it to my face.
"It definitely will. Now we can get the right person in there and move forward with improving our product." Calling education a product always galls me. She must have picked up at that point that I wasn't actually positively as delighted as she was. "Ed will be able to find something academic that will be a better fit for him." Easy for her to say.
"Definitely," I said, willing the conversation to end. "This should be a big improvement." I looked back at my monitor, hopefully signalling that I wanted to be hard at work in my important role as a diligent worker.
"Sure will," she exclaimed. She seemed to take the hint and rushed off to go share her news with someone who could fake it better than me.
I didn't get right back to work.
My boss rang the employment bell because she fired someone.
This at a company that has done two rounds of layoffs - pardon me, Reduction In Force initiatives - in the last year, the most recent of which was two weeks ago. This from a person whose only qualification for her job seemed to be that her name was on the door outside her office. This at a place where everyone works in constant fear that their position will be eliminated because you looked at someone wrong in a meeting.
I shut off my computer and left for the weekend. I don't need this.
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