Graduating the CEOChapter 2

And just like that, his true endgame was on the table.

"Are you… are you firing me?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"No, no, no," Mr. Sterling said, shaking his head with a phony smile. "We don't fire family, Leo. You're graduating. You're graduating from this company and moving on to give back to society. With your skills and experience, I have no doubt you'll build something amazing out there, something that will make all of us proud."

He paused, letting the corporate nonsense hang in the air. "Considering the immense investment this company has made in you over the years, we're hoping you'll do the right thing and tender your resignation."

My mind went blank. So that's why he was having this chat, not HR. He didn't want to pay my severance package.

I started here right out of college. More than a decade. I’d poured my life into this place, from a scrappy startup to a publicly-traded company. I wouldn't say I was a hero, but I damn well kept the lights on more than once. I remembered a time, during the last recession, when I single-handedly ran three departments for almost a year because we couldn't afford to hire.

I was always in the top five for overtime. It's how I survived for so long. And now, because my body was finally starting to rebel, he wanted to toss me out?

And the timing couldn't be worse. I had a mortgage, a car payment, rent on a temporary apartment while the house was being renovated. My wife was pregnant. I was stretched thinner than I’d ever been in my life.

And these bastards didn't even want to give me the severance I was legally owed. They wanted me to just quit.

Squeeze the orange dry and toss the peel, right?

My vision started to blur with rage. I wanted to leap across the desk and smash that smug look off his face. But then I thought of my mortgage. My car payment. The baby.

My voice softened, cracking with desperation. "Mr. Sterling, please, it was a misunderstanding. I can still grind, I promise. Yesterday was an exception, I wasn't feeling well. Ask anyone on the team. Just give me another chance. I won't let you down."

My voice was practically a whimper. A buddy of mine in Seattle had jumped off a bridge last year after losing his job. The mortgage on a house that was suddenly underwater and a mountain of debt had crushed him. I had a family. I couldn't let that happen.