As isolated and frustrated as I had been at Houlihan Lokey, I was still shocked and felt rejected to be made redundant for the second time. The Managing Director who had hired me had barely spoken with me during the entire two years I had worked for him, and same as the first time I had been let go, he had instructed a subordinate to deliver the bad news.
The first time I had been fired, the Managing Director had told me, “You should start looking for a new job. You can have a few months.” However, it had been a relatively new Senior Vice President in the Hedge Fund Portfolio Valuations group who had called me into her office to negotiate the specific termination date.
I had been devastated. I had learned quickly and worked hard for nine months, but the Analyst with whom I worked closest had been anything but my champion. He would take my perfectly good work, scribble meaningless instructions all over it and complain to the Managing Director. Unfortunately, he happened to be the Managing Director’s favorite Analyst, so there was not much I could do.
A year later, at the time of my second termination, it was a Senior Vice President from the Washington DC office who delivered the bad news. I had been working closely with him and a Senior Vice President from the San Francisco office for several months—since the Senior Vice President who had negotiated my termination date the first time and who had subsequently rehired me, had quit.
The Senior Vice President from the Washington DC office called me into the multi-purpose office he used on his weekly visits to New York City and admitted he did not know the full story but said he had been told by the Managing Director to give me notice. I would have until the end of the year, six weeks. There would be no extensions and no severance. After two years of hard work and no benefits, some Thanksgiving! I stared blankly at him and kept my thoughts to myself.
I went back to my desk and lost myself for a while in my work. I gave the distressing news time to sink in and when I couldn’t sit still anymore, I went out for a stroll.
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