Hatchet Man

Many cubicles ago, I worked at a start-up software company and miraculously survived a substantial round of layoffs. The body count went from 120 to 40...in one day. It was probably the worst experience I've ever had in Cube City, and my overly dramatic boss only added to the stress. She'd come out of the meeting room (where they were apparently making decisions on the fly about who to cut) and would say things like, "It's a killing field in there! I'm fighting to protect bodies! I'm fighting for your life!" Sheesh.

One high-level executive delivered the bad news to each person on the cut list that day. Strangely, he wasn't even in Human Resources. He was the Chief Financial Officer! As several of us waited to hear our fate that day, we started referring to him as Hatchet Man. The name couldn't have been more fitting under the circumstances.

Long after the massive layoffs on that doom-filled day (which occurred three days after I had closed on my first house, by the way), the name Hatchet Man lived on. I think many of us even forgot the guy's real name. Of course, word got around that we were calling him Hatchet Man, and he seemed to like it. Many of us concluded that Hatchet Man took great joy in firing people. One of my more daring, or perhaps just stupid, co-workers would even ask him, "Hey, Hatchet Man, why the big grin? Are you firing somebody today?"

He eventually left the company to start his own business, and we were all relieved to bury the hatchet.