The Ides Of March

The Ides of March.

March 15th.

In Roman times it was a festive day featuring a military parade.

In 44BC, it was Julius Caesar's assassination day.

So beware! Be-bloody-ware!!

My Ides of March occurred a week or so earlier on the 6th March.

That's was the date I was made redundant.

Didn't really feel like an assassination I must admit, although one of the people who got rid of me I have likened to a smiling assassin - friendly enough to your face but ready to plunge the knife into your back when given a chance.

It was more like a mugging, where I played the perfect victim.

The managing director, the one who ultimately had the power - well, the less said about them the better... Poisonous, evil, a bully, their life so empty that they are happy for work to entirely dominate their life (and everyone else's). Sad, bad and more than ever so slightly mad.

So redundancy, when it happened, was a relief.

It was like being released from prison.

After the meeting with HR, (a Show Trial if ever there was one - the MD being judge, jury and executioner) I remember wandering around the streets of London in a numb daze. A pale-faced, sleep-deprived, over-worked, suddenly out-of-work individual blindly walking around the West End in the late afternoon sunshine.

I left a two word message on someone's voice mail, "I'm out".

Not out of the closet. It's always been women for me. Just out.

As in outside, no longer inside. No longer a wage slave, no longer an organization man heading to an early grave.

6th of March - Ghana's independence day. And mine.

No more spreadsheets for a while. And no more festering in a crap office.

I went home and slept.

A lot.

But not before checking myself for knife wounds.