Isn't it ironic...

I think it was Alanis Morrisette, or perhaps Lil' Bow Wow, who sang about life being ironic--you know, something about it raining on your wedding day while a fly landed in your chardonnay while your new girlfriend goes down on you in a theater. No, wait--I think I'm mixing up the songs. After awhile, the indignant anger and manic rage in all of her lyrics start to run together...

Anyways, considering the underlying themes of my last two posts, irony came up and gave me a swift kick in the ass recently. It seems after blogging about 'things happening for a reason' and posting a picture of me complaining about having to wear a tie for work, I was called into my boss' office on the Monday after Thanksgiving and was let go. There had been an uneasy feeling hanging over the whole office for several months, following a series of layoffs that began with the secretaries, then moved onto the paralegals, and now, apparently, to the attorneys.

I just went back and deleted a paragraph laying out the background of what led up to this, so let me just say that the focus of the office changed with the arrival of my current boss about a year ago. Timely memos and emails apparently took a higher priority than actually going into court and winning trials for the company. And you have to love the timing of her doing this right before Christmas, especially when her main complaints focused around a timeframe back in May.

This caught me completely off guard, and it took a little time before I could get my feet back under me and begin to focus on getting a new job ASAP. Another small irony is that while I had been able to sit for hours and compose detailed entries for my blog while at work, I immediately developed a serious case of writer's block once my free time became (unintentionally) unlimited.

But...now things are looking up again. I've shaken off the cobwebs, hit the ground running, put my ear to the grindstone, and performed some other tortured metaphors that I can't think of at the moment to indicate that I am once more moving forward with a positive outlook. I view this as an opportunity--an unexpected push towards a more fulfilling career that would have never happened unless these events had unfolded just as they did.

And I have begun to lapse into a recurring fantasy where I have taken a job as a plaintiff's attorney and face off one day against my old company in court. The jury will be enraptured as I serenade them during my closing argument, and the various photos from HNT that I "accidently" introduce as a trial exhibit will have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the seven-figure award that the jury gives to my client. As my old boss stares out from behind the defense table in abject bewilderment after the verdict is announced, I'll lean over to her and quietly assure her that my mandatory trial memo will be on her desk first thing the next morning. The underlying sarcastic tone in my voice will suggest precisely just where I think that memo should be filed...

And guess which tune I'll be whistling while I walk on past her out of the courtroom, as I begin to compose the next verse in my life...