Can/Make/Do/Think

Up until yesterday, I worked in the financial department of a rather large media planning and placement-focused ad firm. I was promoted last spring to client accounting, which basically means that instead of sending people checks on behalf of the clients, I was dealing directly with the clients to ensure that they give me the money so other people can send out checks.

Last June, I received a major client responsibility - a little production company you might have heard of had requested a new accounting representative, and even as the newest person on the totem pole, I was the one selected by my bosses, and approved by the head of the finance department, to take on the role. This production company is the major client for one of the agencies that is covered under my company’s umbrella, and while many other clients were being lost or dropped, it was my responsibility to keep that client happy, thereby keeping the lights on for the smaller agency, and bringing in revenue for the company as a whole.

You might have also heard of a little movie that my production company client released this week. You may have even been one of the legion (I among them) who went to see said movie in the wee hours of this morning at a midnight show. There are 25 theaters in the AMC that I went to in Times Square. All 25 were showing it. It was literally the only movie playing last night.

Around 3:30pm yesterday, I returned to my desk from doing various things related to my job - confirming billable amounts, discussing other client situations with various departments - to see a post-it note on my computer screen asking me to go see one of my bosses. Thinking nothing of it, I headed down to her office, my brain full of responsibilities, my to-do list, e-mails and audits and backup, my day off the next day, and excitement over the Harry Potter movie I was seeing that night; not even a little tension.
And then, I was informed that due to significant client losses across finance, and across our company, we no longer had the budget to support the current staff numbers. There were to be department-wide layoffs.
And I was a casualty.

That’s right. On the day when my major, BILLION-DOLLAR client released probably the most lucrative film in an 8-film series that makes the production company so much money they could stack it up in a pool and paddle around like Scrooge McDuck…. I was let go because there was no longer the budget at my agency to support my salary.

Ironic.