If you love me, let me go

As I've said before, here in France the worker (as opposed to the customer) is king, and as Mel Brooks phrased it so well, it's good to be the king. For example, consider the unemployment package salaried workers are entitled to if and when they get fired: up to twice their annual salary as a lump sum "indemnity payment" followed every month by 80% of their previous monthly salary for a year and a half. The incentive, therefore, is clearly to get the highest-paying job you can and then completely suck at it in order to get fired. Not very surprising that France's economy isn't exactly firing on all cylinders, is it?

Since I'm on contract with the French office, I'm considered a salaried employee as opposed to an independent contractor, the situation most of my colleagues have. This morning I was bringing some papers to my partner to review but omitted to staple them together before I gave them to him. He joked that he should fire me for not knowing how to staple documents correctly, and I immediately started begging him to follow up on his threat. I literally fell to my knees in front of him and pleaded with him to fire me so I could collect unemployment while sitting around the house all day eating bon bons and watching reruns of Les Feux de l'Amour. Sure, it was a little embarassing to scream "Do it! Do it!" while I was at face level with his crotch, and it didn't help that we were in a crowded hallway at the time, but I'm pretty sure that at this point he's seriously considering either letting me go or asking me out. Go me!