Friday was revving up to be a slow work day. I didn't have a lot to do, and I wasn't properly motivated to make anything up either. That's when I noticed the server was down.

"Can you get on the server?" I asked my officemate. "Nope, the Internet is down, too," she said.

I decided to eat the donuts I'd picked up on the way to work before investigating the mysterious crash of the server. Since our tech guy was on vacation, the possibility that something like this would happen was high. Somehow our Windows-based server knows when there is no one around to fix it and chooses those days to go on the fritz.

When I was done having my power breakfast, I checked to see if anything was up and running. My computer gave me the equivlant of a blank look.

"Maybe we should have called in sick," I mused, and my officemate said she had thought seriously about it. Except she's rather new and has something like three hours of sick and vacation put together.

I decided to wander downstairs and see what was up--and if anyone was trying to fix the problem. Everyone downstairs seemed to be somewhere else. I checked with one of my many bosses, and she told me that they were running a backup on the server and everything would be back in a half hour or so. She didn't seem very concerned that no one could do any work, and since I didn't have anything to do anyway, I shrugged and went back to my office.

A half an hour or so later, the question was answered--sorta. My best friend at work, who I play racquetball with after hours, came in carrying a ring toss set we used to play with a lot back when we'd been working in a smaller building. He handed all the pieces to me and then stuck his hand out for a shake.

"It's been good working with you," he said.

"You got fired?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said and walked away. I gathered up the ring toss set and put it on the bottom row of a bookshelf. My officemate and I stared at each other for a few seconds.

"What the fuck?" was the silent question hanging in the air. And then ominous messages started flying over the intercom. People were being called into closed door meetings. The big boss, who hadn't shown up yet, was calling one of the lesser bosses (the company is set up like the rings of hell, with a large, top-heavy management team in charge of plebeians like myself). Because there were a few people on vacation, the building was rather quiet anyway. As news of the initial firing began to circle, it got even quieter. As if we were going to be next on the block if someone heard our voices. My officemate and I exchanged theories in low whispers.

Eventually, the entirety of the carnage was known. Three long-time employees were let go (forced resignation: they are getting pay and health insurance for the rest of the year). The official reasoning is "bad attitude." It's not financial (the company will more than double its gross profits from last year), it's restructuring. Out with the old, in with the new, apparently.

Strangely, this makes me the senior analyst (I was hired exactly two years ago) and decimates the leadership and experience of the other team in our company. Word is that there will be no more unexpected departures, but other than that, most of us are wondering what this really means for the company and our jobs.

The unemployment rate jumped from 4.9 percent in September to 5.4 percent in October. These three newly unemployed people will not be counted in the November unemployment tally because they officially resigned. Not a lay-off or a firing, I have to wonder how many other people are out of work but remain uncounted in this rapidly increasing number of unemployed. Can someone say recession without putting ifs, buts and wherefores on the end?

I lost a good work friend and the company lost employees that had been around for more than three years, meaning that they were around when the company itself was just getting assembled.

I can't say that the company was wrong about these moves (all three had loudly expressed their unhappiness with changes the company is going through), it's just a little shocking. For a company that rarely lets anyone go (we had another forced resignation earlier this year, and a straight out firing about a year before I started), this is the equivalent of an earthquake on the scale of 8.2 on the Richter scale.

In the somewhat immortal words of Axl Rose, "Where do we go now?"

Matt Worley always quits before he can get fired.