I Get Fired, Rehired in Fifteen Minutes

The Executive Board of BYX had it's annual meeting on Thursday; since I'm in training to become a National Advisor, I'm here in Ft. Worth for the week and was taken along to sit in the corner wearing a dunce cap. I didn't speak and my mouth felt freeze dried the entire time, like it feels when you sleep on a stranger's couch and are afraid of doing something normal which is prohibited in that stranger's house.

There are five members on the Executive Board; they, along with the full time staff, met from 8 until 12, talking about budgets and proposals and individual chapters. Then after lunch we were joined by the seven member Advisory Board, and that meeting ran from lunch until after dinner, around 8 at night. A twelve hour board meeting - and I didn't fall asleep (in the conference room - there was a family restroom right outside. Bingo).

I don't think I was expected to understand what was going on. I was brought in, along with the other new staff member, to meet the board and get a feel for the issues we would be dealing with. In fact, I enjoyed the morning session. The executives were engaging and even funny, and I understood what we were talking about. It was in the afternoon that I lost control. That's when the graphs came out, and the handouts became only numbers with no pictures. I can't read without pictures. It's called hieroglyphics and the Egyptians used to do it.

One board member, Wendell, started BYX at the University of Texas in 1985. He created the whole thing. And I was terrified to say anything to him. The worst part was, I never knew where he was. When he first spoke, he was sitting at the table. Then the conversation moved on and I forgot about him, he spoke again and suddenly he was on a stool. Then in an arm chair. Then sitting on the snack counter. Then on the sofa next to me (when I totally lost the conversation thread, I was told I could sit on the couch away from the meeting and rest my brain. They gave me applesauce to cool off). That was the terrifying part. He spoke, and I wanted to say, when did you sit down? After the conversation moved away, he looked at me and said, What's up? I just nodded with a high frequency, like a sound wave, and when I looked back he was gone.

I lost my job for about thirty minutes. In the middle of the budget section, someone said, "Let's cut the staff by half. All the new guys are out." I panicked. I took out my phone and texted my dad to ask if his company internship was still open, then I asked one of the board members, did I just get fired? He shook his head no. He told me it was hypothetical, and it happened once a board meeting. When my dad texted back yes, I had to make up an excuse. I told him it was still available because no one with a college degree wanted to wash cars for the summer - I have a real job now. I'm done with menial labor.