by Gwendolyn Gordon

Created on: June 26, 2009   Last Updated: July 02, 2009

It all came in a phone call, quick and painless, on a morning all the Store Managers were at work waiting for a conference call we all inexplicably were dreading to start. We all knew things had been going too well. We worked for this great company that cared about us and had made all of these supposed arrangements/plans in order to avoid the dreaded downfall of our company. It's funny because we would talk so openly about how lucky we were to work for such a company when we were nonchalantly watching companies all around us dropping like flies in the New Orleans heat. And then all of that became a lie. It was happening. To us. To me. All being told to me by my boss: an amazing, caring, and not-coincidentally newly promoted boss. She was crying when I picked up the phone. I knew the instant she started reading the ridiculous script they told provided her with that it was happening. All I heard was 'chapter 11 fifty stores' and then the worst six words I'd heard to date: 'and yours is one of them'. That was it. Clean and simple. Your store is closing because it was underperforming. Huh. Then why exactly am I making my sales bonus when the stores you're keeping open aren't even coming close? Lies.

I hung up the phone and began what would then become the worst thing I've ever had to do which was tell all of these people, my employees, that our store was closing. It'd be fine if I were one of those bosses that told people what to do and didn't give a darn how their day was going or how things are going at home, but I'm not. I could never be. I have people working for me. People. I, too, am a person. And it's just not that simple. I do give a darn. I am a leader, not a boss, and I give a big fat monstrous darn about these people. So I prepare to read the script to each of these amazing people and I break at exactly the same time during each reading of the script: 'they've decided to close fifty stores and (break/cry/pull myself together) ours is one of them.' The truly incredible thing about these people, these teammates of mine, is that each one of them had the same response to the news: 'are you ok?'. Seriously? What a great group of people. What a heartbreaking thing to have to do. I wanted to vomit. That's when the era of the constant feeling of I've gotta vomit began. Then you have to tell your family, your friends. How the heck will this go? How will I tell them? How do I tell my mother in such a way that she doesn't freak out that I'm on the other

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