Provided that he or she gives notice or pays compensation as prescribed by FUCKING CIVILISED law

Hungover after celebrating San Francisca’s dismissal with her briefly but efficiently on my way home last night. She’s ecstatic - she's been working here more than five years, which means she gets half a year's severance pay instead of the standard three months, and the timing couldn't have been better in terms of her family's move to Amsterdam. Not to mention she’s feeling as though she’s dodged a bullet, having turned down a transfer back to San Francisco a few months back, which would have seen her get handed a box and a fortnight’s pay, instead of half a year, minimum, upwards-ly negotiable . . . Unworthy as it is, I'm having to deal with jealousy issues where she's concerned, not to mention upset because I'm going to miss her so much, but I'm trying to just focus on being happy for her.

I feel a bit sad in an abstract sense* about all the Americans who got canned, though. Here's a box and two weeks pay, merry Christmas, fuck off now. I don't know how Americans, or Canadians for that matter, can bear it . . . those are some of the worst labour laws in the eurocentric world, in a couple of countries that pride themselves on being the best in the eurocentric world, with that sort of ‘we rock, you suck’ nationalism. And now here we are in this crumbling economic edifice we call the 2008 financial year, and thousands of North Americans are learning the hard way that their political and employment structures don't give a shit . . . they can watch middle class assholes who bought more house than they could afford get mortgage holidays so that whole neighbourhoods don’t run to seed and erode general property values, while the unemployed queue at overstretched soup kitchens. If this all gets as bad as I fear it will it’s going to be really dreadful, and the Marxist lizard part of my brain says ‘about fucking time’. I don't know how long I'll still be able to keep hearing that if this downturn touches my friends and family harder than it has, but something has to give, as they say, and people have to see how powerless they are to get their power back.

*BTW, I say 'abstract sense' because out of the nine Americans who got canned, I only knew two personally, and one probably needed canning, and the other apparently did too, despite being a piece of ass. Ho hum.