Hardly Workin'
I recently accepted a job offer after about two months removed from being laid off from Sports Illustrated.
After about three and a half years with SI, I got the pink slip. It was surreal. I’ve never been fired before. I guess technically I wasn’t fired per se, but I kinda was and it felt that way. It is what it is. But in the moments before I knew officially, as it was happening over a video call and in the moments after. It was surreal.
You get comfortable. You take it for granted. Or I did anyway. You do your job. You believe you’re doing it well. Then one day, they ask you to stop doing it. Like okay fine man, you were the one paying me to do it.
In the quiet hours right after, I’d look at my cat, Ivy. Sitting beside me, unawares. Like usual, her job is to get pets and treats. She’s been knocking it out of the park for years. Or wanting firm taps on the butt (cats love it, trust me). And I’d give her pets, treats and butt taps and try to not let it bother me. Ivy, sweet Ivy. Not understanding the gravity of what’s actually going on. Oh, to be like Ivy.
Your job, your career, it is a part of your identity. What you do for a living. It can define you, not wholly, but it can. And being a man, the provider, the caretaker. Having that taken away from me left a hollow feeling.
I believe I handled it well. Being given the news. Being on that aforementioned video call. I suppose I could have or should have been more demonstrably upset. But one lesson I’ve learned in life is that sometimes all you have is your dignity. And I’ve given that away to people in my weaker moments. More than I can count. More than I’d like to admit. And it’s taken those countless drubbings for me to better handle the bad times. There’s no harm in being vulnerable or showing emotion. Not at all. But I wanted to be a professional and perhaps I wanted myself to believe it wasn’t as big of a deal as it was. So if I allowed myself to flip out, it would serve no purpose other than externalize the chaos inside.
One of the first random strangers I told about my job at Sports Illustrated was a lawyer I hired to draft my will. Morbid, right? I had just gotten the job and I have things now. This is what adults do, right? Draft wills? Choose heirs? So it came up in conversation and I told him. And y’know I’ve told people before that I worked in the fantasy sports industry and their ears perk up. Like they’re thinking oh shit, I’ve got an inside guy to help me in my fantasy league. But there was a certain extra validation to name-dropping SI. People take it more seriously. I’ve had people call me a liar and I’ve had to prove it to them that I wasn’t bullshitting.
It felt like I made it. This wasn’t JoeSchmoFantasySite.com anymore that nobody had heard of. This was the fucking big leagues, bro. A nationally-known media brand. To the outsider, SI has weight. For years, I had paid my dues as a freelancer. I had given so much time and energy. One of the things I wish my mom could have experienced was the small respite she may have felt from knowing I had a real job, with a real company. Seeing that my years grinding, even going back to when she bought me my own domain, 49ersFrontline.com, when I was kid in high school with a budding interest in covering sports and web design. That it had finally stuck. I had made it. Sports Illustrated, baby.
But so often in life, what you believe you’re searching for, it just the next thing you’re searching for. Nothing lasts forever and the next thing becomes the last thing. You get the next thing and then you get comfortable again. You take it for granted. Luckily, in this moment, I’m at the start of the next thing. I feel seen. I feel appreciated. I feel validated. And on one hand, I should provide myself more of that validation. Rather than relying on something external to dictate how I see myself or feel about myself. But I’m only human. And I’m excited for the opportunity to work and excel at something I know I’m very good at.
