[...]... post-crash price, they’d still owe the bank over $200,000 The house, with all Duane’s beautiful built-ins, was now “underwater.” Since their mother was by then o the scene and their father had left no other signi cant inheritance beyond a $15,000 death bene t and a $6,000 credit card debt, his children couldn’t a ord to keep paying the mortgage So, on the advice of a lawyer, they mailed the keys to the. .. between the spring and the fall rituals that should book-end this tale, the four members of the Pink Slip Club had morphed into the long-term unemployed.” They didn’t retire, and they didn’t find jobs Their stories just dragged on I waited a decent couple of weeks after the ceremony to phone Gerri about her job interview with the liquidator The people in the o ce seemed to relate to each other in... the way, what happened to L—— [the last full-time job Elaine was told she was up for]?’ He said, ‘Oh, they passed.’ Then he said, ‘This one is business casual, and it will last two weeks.’ I had just bought some nice corporate-looking clothes, so fine He sent four of us women up there on Friday.” The four temps had a longish wait before they met the woman they were supposed to report to “She was very,... already had a roommate for the past few years (That explained the man who padded silently up the hallway, opened the refrigerator, and slipped back down the hallway a couple of times during our get-together.) I know that Gerri’s mother was a legal secretary who hadn’t worked in twenty years and lives in special-care housing of some kind Gerri hadn’t told her mother about the divorce for almost three... freelancer these days, you have to have a ve- to six-thousand-dollar stake You need a prudent reserve of like three months.” It took him six months to nd the sta job that he’d held for two and a half years before the recession started Then the textbook company red twenty people The way Feldman describes the day, his immediate response had been hard and cool “First they sent us in in groups, like cattle... going to the slaughter Then they brought us in one by one to explain the terms of the severance My boss’s boss and someone higher than her, they’re smiling, saying how nice we’re going to treat you, and I’m sitting there like daggers coming out of my eyes “Some people just got the hell out of there, like they were in shock But I stayed because I had stu of my own on the computer that wasn’t backed up. ”... reassuring small routines, even when they can’t be sure of larger patterns like where they’ll work the next month or, in a couple of cases, where they’ll sleep the next night As I talked with people who’ve lost jobs, homes, and savings, I couldn’t help wondering what shape they and the country will be in after we fully emerge from the downturn I think there are enough clues in their individual histories for... professional till the end There are people I worked with who need answers from me to get their jobs done That’s what I was there for It’s not their fault.” Elaine was proud that throughout nine years of mergers, buyouts, and other corporate discombobulations, she had kept those paychecks coming to the network’s celebrities, behind -the- camera employees, and vendors Elaine continued the story to the nal moments... been feeling the same way, for the coven decided to add a “prosperity ritual” to the fall equinox ceremony Kevin was to be the special facilitator Though it was a closed ceremony, he invited a couple of sympathetic outsiders, including me and Feldman’s new sweetheart, to the sunset event in Central Park We welcomed the four winds and other divine powers as usual But the special honoree was the goddess... often), they “stiffed the guy at the bottom of the totem pole,” Feldman said “Yes, there’s a lot of freelancers getting stiffed,” Kevin confirmed “Sorry, our client didn’t pay us, so we can’t pay you—boo-hoo-hoo,” Feldman japed “One time it made me so angry that I went up to the o ce, and I didn’t physically threaten the guy in charge, but I did intimidate And of all the people who got paid, I wound up . the bank over $200,000. The house, with all Duane’s beautiful built-ins, was now “underwater.” Since their mother was by then o the scene and their father had left no other signicant inheritance. the others earned around the same (they didn’t say)—to maintaining themselves, supporting their church, and experiencing the city. Even before they lost their jobs, the four friends were constantly. buy the cars it made. When the companies Duane worked for began to cut wages, they reasoned that instead of paying their workers enough to buy stu, they could lend them the money. Or perhaps they