Three years ago this week I was laid off from the Sun-Sentinel. I was in Australia, speaking at a travel writing festival, when I got an e-mail from a woman in the newsroom I rarely spoke to. She asked me to call her immediately. I called her when I got home - I wasn't going to phone from halfway around the world to learn that I was no longer employed - and was told that the position of travel editor had been eliminated.
The next morning I drove to Deerfield Beach for my exit interview. The jet lag made it seem even more surreal. I handed over my parking garage pass, my ID badge, my corporate credit card. I had forgotten my camera, so I told the woman in human resources that I would bring it to the newsroom.
Downtown I turned in my camera (which still used film), cleaned out my desk, received a disk containing all of my files and e-mails, and said my farewells. Then I walked out of the newsroom for the last time.
No mention was ever made in the Travel section - where my picture had appeared above my column every other week for 19 years - of my departure. Like in the old Soviet Union, I simply disappeared.
