This week was hard. I thought it would be different.

So, last week 100 people got laid off. There was fanfare. We left at 9:30 a.m. with pay for eight hours. Supervisors, process leads and managers lined the walkways and wished everyone (even those returning to work on Monday) goodbye by name. There was hugging and frolicking, crying and laughing.

This week, because they laid off 100 people last week, we had to work every second of the 40-hour work week unless we took voluntary, unpaid time off Friday. And how much time depended on your department, whereas the week before everyone in the building left at the same time.

So a lot of people from support left after 9:30 a.m., returns left at 10:30, inbound left at 11:30, and QC left at 1:30. And leads and supervisors just disappeared throughout the day. One manager wished me well and said goodbye at 7 a.m. Which was rich, considering what happened at 6:30 a.m. But I will get to that.

There were only 15 of us laid off yesterday. I know numerically why 15 people are significant, but when 100 were let go the week before and then 15 each week for several weeks following, it really (in my mind) makes a statement of how impersonal and how meaningless each person is in the eyes of the company. Why not make it another large group? The psychology of realizing you are one of 15 people that the company picked to leave on this Friday, it’s awkward.

Because you’re singled out of a large group.

Now, imagine you’re me. I know I speak up when no one else will, and I know I have challenged the thought process of my leaders. I try to frame everything with logic, to explain why I’m challenging what I’m challenging, but in the end, some people don’t don’t like to reach beyond their comfort zone. And often they just don’t know what to do to fix it, or they feel helpless or they feel attacked.

Yesterday I reported to my assigned station, which has been changed over the course of the week because with the reduction in staffing we have new work patterns. And I told one process lead that I didn’t care where they put me for the week, as it’s only the last week and I don’t feel pressured to challenge my physical capabilities to meet metrics. Most people had stopped meeting their numbers on purpose.

So, on Friday morning, I reported to my table– which for the record, is a table I hated, but no one asked and I just sucked it up and did my job– and I noticed… No one else came near me.

It was my last day. And I think I might have been the only person in my little unit leaving that day (that didn’t take the day off) and now… I realize… there is no one else on either side of my line. I have no shipper, there’s no work for others. They moved everyone else and just left me there. This means all of my work will just sit on the empty line until someone moves it.

Probably because they know I have issues physically and struggle with table changes and more importantly, I have a big mouth.

I feel completely on display. I feel singled out. And at this time, other people are looking at me wondering why I am standing in the middle of a closed line. In the middle of a wide open space. Like there’s a big open field and I’m just standing there. By myself. On my very last day with the company.

And I’m thinking to myself, “See– even on your last day, you’re not part of this group. No one cares about you. You’ve seen how they treat their friends. You are an outsider and you always will be.”

My heart rate is 150/beats per minute. I’m starting to cry. I email my supervisor (although I know what needs to be done, and I will do it, but I want their to be a record, even if fleeting and electronic, a written record of the things that have happened to be because I have a disability).

I walk back to a process lead, and I said, while trying not to hyperventilate or scream or cry, “I know you probably think you’re being nice, and helpful, by not making me move, but do you have any idea how it feels to be isolated and on display on my last day here? I don’t care if it’s high or low, on the left or on the right, please find me a new table. Any table. With the group.”

And I told them– because now a group had assembled– that I would be back after I went to the restroom to collect myself.

I was told to pick any table available, and I said I would grab the first one I saw. And I did.

And that’s where I was when the boss walked up less than an hour later to say goodbye and said she hoped I felt better about everything about talking with everyone throughout the week. And I said no, I felt worse and I just wanted this day to be over. And that I didn’t blame any people, but that as we all know, every company has room for improvement and this is an area where changes should be made and I had hoped to advocate for that change. But I failed.

Or perhaps more accurately, I ran out of time.

This is why more people don’t speak up and advocate for themselves, because it’s hard. And it drains you more than you think. I only did it, at first, because my employers made changes that made me fear I would lose my job if I didn’t.

But I lost my job anyway.

Let’s return to the story about departure. Most people VTOed (accepted the voluntary time off without paid) except for those of us who knew this was our last paycheck and we needed every dime. And when we left– there were no supervisors, no leads, no managers. There was no fanfare. They just let us walk out the door.

Because the critical mass had left the week before.

And we were just a handful of random people that didn’t matter.