My Severance Pay Is In The Form Of A T-Shirt.

I'm the only one in my TV and movie obsessed family that works in this silly business, so last year when I made the trek home for Thanksgiving, I schlepped up a bag of swag I've accumulated from the past couple years of work. In it were a few mugs, t-shirts that don't really fit, and various miscellaneous show items that I didn't want to keep for myself and no longer wanted taking space in my apartment. I brought the bag to dinner and let my cousins have at it. The t-shirts went quick, but the most popular items in the bag were a couple of jackets and hoodies.

Later on at dinner, a couple of my relatives were talking about what a cool job I have, namely because of all the "free" stuff I got.

"I wish my job gave us shirts and jackets," a couple of them lamented. "We never get anything."

I thought about that for a sec. Yeah, I guess it is pretty cool that we usually get gifts from the shows we work on! But then, I remembered why we typically get presents.

"Actually, most of that stuff were wrap gifts, which happens at the end of a job," I explained. "So whenever we get something, it's kind of like them saying, 'Thanks for doing a great job! Now you're unemployed.'"

Everyone then proceeded to look at their newly procured goods, realizing that each one symbolized a time I was essentially fired. All my cousins of working age have a steady 9-5 job with benefits and paid vacation time and have been at their perspective jobs for years now. Suddenly, my job perk didn't seem like such a perk anymore.

"Yeah, okay," one of my cousins said, "That does kinda suck."

I suddenly realized that all my hard work over the years essentially amounted to a bag of ill-fitting tees. Though if I ever was given a shirt that says "I worked on [insert show name] and all I got was this lousy t-shirt", that one, I would happily keep.