Like millions of other Americans, I recently found myself laid-off. My erstwhile employer wasn’t a giant, downsizing corporation but a small book publisher. Two years previously I’d had my photo in color in the business section of the New York Times, in a lead article lauding our company for exemplary “niche” publishing. Even so, after more than a decade in various management positions, I was told, “You’re a fixed cost that needs to be a variable cost.” I wasn’t expecting the difficulties of finding a new job, nor the jolt to my self-respect, ordinarily rather sturdy. I missed my colleagues, most of them also fired. I missed seeing my name…
