My first job out of college was at an advertising agency in Cleveland. I remember buying a few pairs of khakis and some button-down shirts because they had a dress code, which it took me six months to learn to ignore. As far as first jobs go, it was a good find. The pay kind of sucked, but most of the people were really cool. There was all kinds of wacky shit on the walls, and plenty of down time to goof off. One of the copywriters even tried to teach me how to play the guitar—I learned how to switch from a G chord to a C chord and play the opening bars to Wish You Were Here. I’ve since forgotten how to do those things, but I still remember feeling like I was finally a Real Adult Working Man when I went to my first office Christmas party. It was at a nightclub in Cleveland’s Warehouse District called The Funky Budha, which only sounds cheesy because it was. Still, an open bar with all-you-can-eat coconut shrimp is nothing to scoff at, and unlike the office parties I’ve been to here in New York, we were allowed to bring dates. Tracie and I got so drunk that when we got home, she passed out in the bathroom. I wound up peeing in the kitchen sink.

Last week I got an invite to join a Facebook group of ex-employees sharing memories of life at the old company. I accepted the invite, looked through a few posts, referenced an inside joke about the deli in the basement, and didn’t think much more of it after turning off the notifications. I had a lot good memories of my time there, but there were some bad ones as well. When I took the job in 2004, they were the second largest agency in Cleveland with over 200 employees, and a healthy roster of well-known clients. The years between then and now have been tough on a lot of businesses, especially in Cleveland, but for this place it was especially brutal. In the less than two years that I worked there about 80 or so people were laid off. I was lucky enough not to be one of them, but two of my good friends—including the guy who tried to teach me guitar—along with the entire HR department were let go. You know things are bad when they fire the people who do the firing, and after that happened, I realized it was time to move on, and found a job here in New York.

This morning I learned that last week all but 20 employees were let go, most likely without severance.  I talked to some former co-workers who still live in Cleveland but have since moved on to other jobs. The rumor is that the ownership has filed Chapter 11 and are running a skeleton crew to wrap up existing client obligations. Whatever your thoughts on advertising, what makes this story particularly sad is that this was/is an independent, employee-owned company. There aren’t a lot of agencies—or companies for that matter—that can still say this. Also, it’s Cleveland. I know that because I grew up in Pittsburgh the official position is supposed to be Cleveland Sucks, but I still have a lot of friends that live there, a few of which still worked at this company. Some of them are of an age where it’s not especially easy to move on, especially in a business like advertising. Advertising is a shitty business, and I’ve seen a lot of shitty people who do really well by being shitty people, but these people are good people. I guess that’s what makes this extra shitty.