Today marks the three month anniversary of my layoff. In this industry and in this economy, it happens. Accounts come and go and then there’s just not enough work to go around.
I’ll spare you the details (except that the Pepper Canister on Wells serves great Bloody Marys and won’t judge if you order two and that’s all you have for lunch), but it’s been three months I packed up my belongings and said goodbye to the trusty laptop that saw me through my first real copywriting job.
If I hadn’t been so concerned with cleaning out my desk (seriously, who besides an 80-year-old woman needs 4 open bags of cough drops? And why did I feel the need to keep every single plastic bag I’d ever gotten from the 7-eleven downstairs?), I might have realized that I was leaving a much bigger mess on my laptop.
So without further ado, I bring you the list of things I wish I’d removed from my computer before I got canned.
- My browser history. If they see the number of times I Facebooked there toward the end…I don’t even want to think about it.
- A folder on my desktop entitled “INSPIRATION AND STUFF.” Inside was a collection of cheesy inspirational quotes and photos. I don’t even remember why I started that folder, but I sure know that I forgot to delete it.
- All my Turbo Tax info from last year. It was in another folder on the desktop, this one aptly called “Important Stuff.” It’s not that I think the technology guy is going to steal my identity (seriously, Charlie, please don’t steal my identity), but it’s time to do my taxes again and I’m not even sure I remember my Turbo Tax user ID.
- A bookmark tab on my browser that linked to blogs of people I don’t know. Hi, I’m Brenna and I’m a total creep.
- All my comedy sketches from my Second City class. They weren’t really that inappropriate or anything, but one of them was a satirical piece about female restroom etiquette. And the first rule of female restroom etiquette is don’t talk about female restroom etiquette. Just like Fight Club.
- A playlist entitled “Halloween 2k9!!!” When buried among the rest of your iTunes library, a collection of party-appropriate songs is acceptable. When featured on your iTunes as the one and only playlist, that party playlist is always a little shameful. It highlights the music you only listen to when you’re drinking out of red plastic cups or having a ‘90s themed dance party at 2 am. It’s a whole different story in the harsh fluorescent light of the workday.
- Speaking of iTunes, there was an embarrassing amount of Cake on there. And by embarrassing, I mean every album, single and exclusive Japanese tour edition ever. I’m not even a Cake fan, but my iTunes would beg to differ.
- Nine drafts of my maid of honor speech, including at least three versions that referenced how I came to be best friends with the bride after accidentally kissing her boyfriend freshman year of college.
But the real kicker—the pièce de résistance, if you will—is the slideshow I made for my best friend’s bachelorette party. Saved directly to the desktop in all its glory, it was twelve minutes and fifty seconds of embarrassing photos set to the musical stylings of Lady Gaga.
We’re talking pictures that should have been reserved for blackmailing purposes. Photos from birthdays and bar crawls and Unofficial college drinking holidays. Pictures featuring homemade dresses fashioned from garbage bags. Terrifying images harking back to the blonde highlight phase of my college career. Upwards of 57 photographs where at least one person's tongue is sticking out. All capped off with a montage of photos that truly showed off how uncute we are when we aren't smiling.
So there you have it. The legacy I left at my first job, neatly organized on that trusty MacBook. I hope whoever gets my old computer next really appreciates how awesome I am in electronic file form.
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