FUCK HAUS MORGENROT.
I suppose I finally got my answer.
After sixteen days.
Sixteen.
Fucking.
Days.
Not sixteen days of vacation.
Not sixteen days of PTO.
Not sixteen days where somebody said, “Hey, Mr. Germlin, go home, relax, we'll pay you while we figure this out.”
No.
Sixteen days sitting at home while my workplace apparently conducted the world's slowest séance to determine whether I was still employed.
No schedule.
No return date.
No final decision.
No paycheck being generated while I waited.
Just:
Stand by.
So I stood by.
Then I sat by.
Then I laid the fuck down by.
Eventually Couch Doog appeared, ate an animal cracker, and developed a more coherent administrative philosophy than the entire fucking building.
🛋️🐕
CRONCH.
And today, September 30, at approximately 4:52 PM, the ghost finally picked up the telephone.
My employment is over.
There.
See how fucking easy that sentence was?
Watch.
I'll do it again.
Your employment is over.
Holy shit!
Communication!
Somebody alert Harvard Business School.
Apparently you can actually tell an employee whether they work for you.
I DID NOT NEED SIXTEEN DAYS TO HEAR ONE SENTENCE
That's the part that pisses me off.
Investigate.
Fine.
Seriously.
Investigate.
An allegation was made.
There were procedures involved.
There were things I should have handled differently.
I've never had a problem saying that.
In fact, I've developed an entire personal philosophy around it:
Own your shit.
I fucked up a procedural requirement?
Mine.
I should have gotten another staff member?
Mine.
I should have handled notification differently?
Mine.
Put my name on it.
Staple it to my forehead.
Print it in eighteen-point fucking Arial.
I have never needed to be dragged kicking and screaming toward the concept of personal responsibility.
But here's the second half:
DON'T OWN SOMEBODY ELSE'S SHIT.
I'm not going to confess to something simply because somebody says it happened.
I'm not going to turn uncertainty into certainty because it makes somebody else's paperwork cleaner.
My recollection is my recollection.
Your investigation is your investigation.
Those two things are allowed to exist simultaneously.
Apparently that's an advanced concept.
I WAS TRYING TO BE BORING
That's the funniest part.
For months, my entire employment strategy became:
BE BORING.
Go to work.
Learn the routine.
Follow the routine.
Stop improvising.
Don't become the main character.
Clock in.
Do the job.
Clock out.
Collect money.
Go home.
That's it.
I wasn't trying to become Employee of the Millennium.
I didn't need my photograph mounted above the fucking water fountain.
I wasn't building a dynasty.
I wanted a paycheck.
You know what I wanted my coworkers to say about me?
“Oh, Germlin? Yeah. He's here.”
PERFECT.
FIVE STARS.
NO NOTES.
Instead, somehow, working at Haus Morgenrot became a roguelike.
Every shift loaded a procedurally generated side quest.
Today's objective:
Perform ordinary workplace duties without accidentally unlocking an investigation.
Difficulty:
Nightmare.
Permadeath:
Apparently enabled.
AND YES, I LEARNED THE FUCKING PLACE
That's another thing that makes this weird.
I know Haus Morgenrot.
I know the rhythm.
I know what a long shift feels like.
I know when the day starts dragging.
I know when lunch comes around.
I know when the evening starts creeping toward movie time.
I know when headcount is coming.
I know what the building feels like when everybody is moving.
I know what it feels like when everybody needs something at the same fucking time.
For the last two weeks I could look at the clock from home and know approximately what I'd normally be doing.
I'd be coming off lunch right now.
They'd be doing this right now.
I'd probably be dealing with that right now.
Except I wasn't.
I was sitting at home wondering whether the job I knew like the back of my hand was still technically my job.
That's a very specific kind of bullshit.
FIRST I WAS GOING TO NIGHTS
Remember that?
Because I fucking do.
There was discussion about moving me to nights.
Maybe this whole mess results in a transfer.
Maybe I move away from the environment that kept generating problems.
Maybe I get a different schedule.
Maybe I go back to work.
Maybe I start earning again.
Fantastic.
I'll take it.
I'm flexible.
I'm available.
Put me where you need me.
Hell, I'll become Count Germlin of the Night Shift.
BLEH! I VANT TO PROCESS ZE MEDICATION PAPERWORK!
Whatever.
Just let me fucking work.
And then...
Nothing.
The proposed night move disappeared into whatever dimensional portal Haus Morgenrot uses to store final decisions.
THEN THEY WANTED A STATEMENT
Fine.
You want a statement?
Here.
I wrote one.
Professional.
Calm.
Specific.
No cactus.
No Jerry.
No Couch Doog.
No FAAAAAAAAAAK.
I described what I remembered.
I acknowledged what I should have done differently.
I stated what I did not believe I had done.
I sent it where I was instructed to send it.
Good employee mode.
Corporate English.
Full sentences.
Respectfully,
Mr. Germlin.
Surely now the investigation concludes.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
No.
“TO CONCLUDE HER INVESTIGATION”
Those words became comedy.
My statement was sent along to conclude the investigation.
Excellent.
Conclusion!
That's traditionally the part where something concludes.
You know:
Beginning.
Middle.
End.
So I followed up.
I contacted the person I was told I could contact.
I left the voicemail.
Then I waited.
Again.
Nothing.
And eventually even I had to recognize the obvious:
There was no useful action left for me to perform.
That's where Panda Doctrine entered the workplace-management literature.
🐼
I blink.
I do nothing.
I still win.
And Couch Doog joined him.
🛋️🐕
Couch I see.
Doog I become.
Animal cracker I consume.
CRONCH.
Because what the fuck else was I supposed to do?
Send another email?
Maybe the eighth email contains a magical rune.
Call again?
Perhaps if I leave seventeen voicemails the director appears like Beetlejuice.
THUNDERCLIP. THUNDERCLIP. THUNDERCLIP.
poof
“Hello, Germlin. Your employment status has been summoned.”
No.
My turn was over.
Enemy phase.
BUT HERE'S THE THING ABOUT WAITING
Waiting sounds harmless.
Waiting sounds free.
Waiting sounds like nothing.
It isn't.
Every day I sat home was a day I wasn't earning my normal wages.
Bills did not enter investigatory suspension.
Rent did not say:
We understand there is an ongoing internal process and will await the conclusion.
Uber didn't institute Administrative Leave Pricing.
The grocery store did not accept:
PENDING HR DETERMINATION
at checkout.
My bank account did not blink and do nothing and still win.
That motherfucker took damage.
Every.
Single.
Day.
And that's what increasingly pissed me off.
Not merely that an investigation existed.
Not merely that I didn't know what the outcome would be.
It was the fact that indecision has a cost, and somehow the cost was entirely mine.
Haus could deliberate.
Haus could investigate.
Haus could wait.
Haus could take another day.
And another.
And another.
Meanwhile my paycheck was lying in an alley somewhere coughing blood.
“Tell my family... I tried...”
MY POOR FUCKING CHECK
Seriously.
That check has been through enough.
That motherfucker didn't die peacefully.
It was beaten.
Dragged behind the building.
Had its shoes stolen.
Got tossed into a dumpster.
Then Haus came back twenty minutes later because apparently it forgot to take the wallet.
There were entire conversations where my financial planning basically became:
“Well, assuming Haus eventually lets me fucking work...”
And that's no way to live.
You cannot budget around:
¯
(ツ)/¯
AND TODAY WE FINALLY COLLAPSED THE WAVEFORM
For sixteen days I was Schrödinger's Tech Assistant.
Not working.
Not resigned.
Not cleared.
Not terminated.
Still attached to the company somehow.
Payroll-adjacent.
Employment-flavored.
A ghost with a badge.
And then:
4:52 PM.
Phone rings.
The box opens.
Oh!
There he is!
Fired.
Well.
THANK YOU.
Not for firing me.
I'm not going to send a fruit basket.
But thank you for finally producing a fucking noun.
I am no longer:
PENDING.
I am no longer:
UNDER REVIEW.
I am no longer:
AWAITING FURTHER DIRECTION.
I am:
FORMER EMPLOYEE.
That's shitty.
That's expensive.
That's disappointing.
And somehow it's also a fucking relief.
Because certainty—even shitty certainty—is something you can actually build around.
AND NOW TDCJ GETS THE BALL
Apparently the matter is going onward for continued investigation.
Fine.
Then it goes onward.
That's a separate road now.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend I know what happens next.
I don't.
If somebody officially contacts me, I'll deal with that carefully when it happens.
What I'm not going to do is spend tonight inventing imaginary conversations, imaginary outcomes and imaginary catastrophes.
I've already spent sixteen days living inside one institution's uncertainty.
I'm not volunteering for the sequel.
SO WHAT DID EIGHT MONTHS TEACH ME?
Quite a bit, actually.
I learned I can survive twelve-hour shifts.
I learned routines.
I learned how institutional workplaces actually function instead of how the handbook says they function.
I learned how quickly an ordinary day can become paperwork.
I learned that policies are extremely important right up until two policies meet in a hallway and begin fighting with knives.
I learned that boring is good.
Predictable is good.
Routine is good.
“Nothing happened today” is one of the finest sentences in the English language.
I learned that accountability matters.
Real accountability.
Not:
Employee acknowledges everything while institution floats above Earth as a perfect and blameless sphere of light.
Everybody should own their shit.
Employee.
Supervisor.
Management.
System.
Everybody.
And I learned perhaps the most valuable thing Haus Morgenrot ever taught me:
If the battlefield changes, change the mission.
I wanted this job to work.
Then I wanted the night move to work.
Then I wanted an answer.
Now I have one.
Mission changed.
TOMORROW
Tomorrow I don't wake up wondering whether Haus will call me back to work.
I don't wonder whether I'm still scheduled somewhere.
I don't wonder whether the night move is coming.
I don't wonder whether I'm technically employed.
I already know.
So tomorrow the objective is brutally simple:
Find the next fucking job.
Warehouse.
Shipping.
Receiving.
Assembly.
Freight.
Logistics.
Something predictable.
Something boring.
Something where, ideally, the most dramatic sentence of my shift is:
“We're out of shrink wrap.”
Oh no.
Whatever shall we fucking do.
Get another roll.
Crisis resolved.
Nobody opens an investigation.
Nobody gets suspended.
Nobody spends sixteen days contemplating the metaphysical nature of employment.
Beautiful.
AND TO HAUS MORGENROT
We had some good people.
That's true.
I'm not rewriting history because the ending sucked.
There were people there I liked.
People I respected.
People who made awful shifts tolerable.
There were funny moments.
There were ridiculous moments.
There were hallway cats.
There was Rebel.
There were stories I'll probably be laughing about twenty fucking years from now.
But the institution?
The institution and I were badly mismatched.
I spent months trying to become predictable inside a place that repeatedly demonstrated how unpredictable it could be.
Eventually the battlefield changed enough that the mission changed with it.
So no dramatic final plea.
No “please reconsider.”
No fifteen-page manifesto mailed to corporate.
No standing outside the gates in the rain screaming:
YOU'LL REGRET LOSING ME!
Nah.
You made your decision.
Now I get to make mine.
I'm leaving the building in my head too.
Take the badge.
Take the keys.
Take the uniforms.
Take whatever little pieces of Haus Morgenrot are still sitting around my house.
I'll keep the lessons.
I'll keep the stories.
I'll keep the satire.
And I'll keep one final professional observation regarding the sixteen-day journey from suspension to termination:
FUCK HAUS MORGENROT.
Not because they investigated.
Not because I believe workplaces aren't allowed to discipline or terminate employees.
Not because I think I am incapable of fucking up.
Fuck Haus Morgenrot because for sixteen days my life was sitting on PAUSE while the bills remained stubbornly committed to PLAY.
Fuck the silence.
Fuck the uncertainty.
Fuck watching a paycheck evaporate while waiting for somebody else to finish making a decision.
Fuck knowing the building's routine well enough to know exactly where I would have been while sitting at home earning nothing.
Fuck refreshing the phone.
Fuck wondering.
Fuck pending.
Fuck maybe.
Fuck we'll let you know.
And most importantly:
Fuck having to ask whether I still have a fucking job.
Now I know.
You fired me.
Message received.
Crystal fucking clear.
Took you long enough.
Mr. Jerry's Unsolicited Advice
There are two kinds of doors.
Some doors are worth knocking on twice.
Some doors deserve patience.
Some doors deserve another conversation.
And then there are doors where you've knocked, called, emailed, submitted the requested paperwork, stood politely on the porch for sixteen fucking days and eventually somebody opens it just long enough to tell you:
“Go away.”
When that happens, do not argue with the architecture.
Leave.
There are other buildings.
And should you discover that the old building still possesses some of your property—or you possess some of theirs—conduct the exchange professionally.
Then return home.
Locate couch.
Deploy Doog.
Issue cracker.
CRONCH.
The next morning?
Find another door.
— Jerry “The Ankle-Biter” Silverhand
- Senior Vice President of Severance, Snack Acquisition & Hostile Margin Notes
Haus Morgenrot: 16 February 2026 — 30 September 2026.
Eight months.
Three suspensions.
Approximately nine million fucking side quests.
One very tired Germlin.
And one final administrative update:
THROW. THE. DEUCES. ✌️
Disclaimer: Haus Morgenrot and Mr. Germlin are fictionalized names used for workplace satire. This post reflects the narrator's personal frustration, recollections, opinions and comedic exaggeration. It is not intended as a factual determination regarding any allegation, investigation, individual, or organization's conduct.