Velvet cushion

Just as everyone has a silver bullet, so too does everyone have, intended for them, a personalised, embroidered velvet cushion with a loaded revolver on it. It comes with a glass of scotch. Like a comet, deep in the black space beyond the edge of your solar system it moves, imperceptibly but inevitably, closer to you.

Office anthropology™ →Go uptown The JC puts on his pith-helmet, grabs his butterfly net and a rucksack full of marmalade sandwiches, and heads into the concrete jungleIndex: Click ᐅ to expand: Work anthropology Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

So hush, little baby, don’t you cry —
You know your daddy’s bound to die
And all my trials, Lord,
Will soon be over.

—Mickey Newbury, An American Trilogy

For many this is a deep terror — well, it must be, seeing how many people doggedly remain employed in the financial services industry for many years longer than common sense would allow — but for even the most fearful it comes with a tinge of relief, release, and hope: that there might be a better place, a better way of being, a place for you in the Iron Mountain’s Valhalla or even if there isn’t, just that whatever way of being the velvet cushion does bring, isn’t this.

The worst case is when your silver bullet is the very one who brings you your cushion. That hurts.

Even so, go quietly.

See also

• Silver bullet
• Iron Mountain
• survivor