The Laid-Off Lament

Via our colleagues at AgencySpy, the tale of a very strange layoff from R/GA. A copywriter there tells his side of the saga at the domain name he bought—ReallyGiantAssholes.com. Hmm. Those letters form a real familiar-looking acronym. We see what you did there.

I was offered a column in the weekly company-wide, internal newsletter. The column was a collection of the wackiest, weirdest stuff I could find on the Internet. I would even get links from people at R/GA — the head of my department even sent me links — to some pretty crazy crap. I would then pick the best and least offensive content; throw in a dash of context and off it went.
….
I got a meeting request from the head of the copy department. There was an HR person on the request – so I’m thinking this is where I get my walking papers, cool. As I sit down my department head tells me, “I have some bad news.” Then this creepy HR lady jumps in, “Someone saw you viewing objectionable material on the Internet and complained to HR so we’re going to have to let you go.”

D’oh!

The story gets weirder, and we don’t totally understand it—at one point the guy refuses severance because it would have meant…something.

This guy was either laid off last month or in April, based on his statement that “I wish they could have just included me in the big round of lay-offs they did a month or so later.”

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