Downsizing with conscience

I've been canned from several jobs, but none involved a meeting with George Clooney, who plays corporate downsizing expert Ryan Bingham in the movie Up in the Air.

There's nothing subtle, or pleasant, about being pink-slipped. If being hired is like scoring on a first date, getting sacked is more like surviving a shark attack. It is pure carnage, and the memory keeps chewing on your mauled ego for years.

On the plus side, my employers in England had the guts to do their own dirty work, rather than employing an emotional punching bag like Clooney's character. On the down side, they were brutally efficient, and indifferent. One only required 13 words to execute my dismissal. Of course, I had crashed a government vehicle the day before and not thought to inform anyone. So that probably wasn't such a bad trade-off.