By Herbert Hadad

I bunked, as New Yorkers say, into the powerful broadcaster outside a Manhattan park. Something was wrong.

The friend I knew as smart, proud, talented, and good-natured was civil enough. But his voice had a sullen edge I'd never heard before. I didn't ask what the matter was, because he was clearly not going to tell me.

By coincidence, a short time later, I visited the great steel and glass tower that houses his television network. I looked for him amid the bustle of producers, reporters, clerks, and technicians but couldn't spot him.

Someone directed me to his office, where I found him sitting at his desk. He gave desultory answers when I asked about his family, who were fine, and his tennis game, which was as good as ever. His opinions on the national scene and the war were well informed.

I still could not figure out what was wrong. It was only after I had repaired to a staff dining room for lunch and he mysteriously reappeared and asked to join me that I knew: He had nothing to do. He was in a professional and emotional crisis, after having been told he was no longer really wanted at work.

As we chatted over tuna wraps, his contributions to the conversation were marked by anger and pettiness, which I found heart-rending. Without revealing outright what I thought I knew, I began to talk about teaching as a career.

I told him I'd taught essay writing and had even considered taking a job as a professor of print journalism at the American University in Cairo. "I'm sure they'd love to have you at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism," I said, but he slapped the idea down like it was no more than an annoying housefly.

What do you do when you love a job and it no longer loves you back? Conversely, how do you extract yourself from a job you've begun to loathe? I was not really in a position to advise my friend or anyone else, for my own history of bowing out of jobs is, to put the best spin on it, checkered.

Several years ago, I signed on as the manager of public information for a big power company. The pay was good, and the medical and pension plans generous. The job itself was soon dreadful.

In the wake of a problem—a blackout or a manhole explosion, for instance—the company posture was twofold: Point a finger, and duck. Having been trained in emergency public relations, I knew there was a better way: Take responsibility, reassure the public, and fix the problem.

The fortress mentality became so unpalatable that I asked for a transfer and was put in charge of writing the annual report. Though trying to please the various layers of an executive committee was not exactly fun, I liked having a role in producing an important document.

My new boss, however, learned I wrote freelance stories for the New York Times, the New York Daily News, and other papers. She accused me of using company time for my outside work, even using company postage to mail stories in, transgressions I scrupulously avoided.

I went to the man who'd hired me. "She can say anything she wants," he said. So I kicked my complaint upstairs to the brass. I explained I was working diligently on my project. I also mentioned the man in the next office, someone protected by my boss, who seemed to be conducting an accounting service in some Slavic language on the side.

One night, I found a note, written in English, in my office: "If I ever see you in the street, I will break your legs at the knees." Not exactly a communication out of the IRS handbook. I cleared off my desk, left a photocopy of the note for the front office, and fled.

A call to a lawyer the next day came to naught. A friend at the utility later told me word had spread, Kremlin-like, that I'd had a nervous breakdown.

Recently, during a ride home on the commuter train, a good-looking woman of forty or so smiled at me. We started chatting, and I discovered she worked as a graphic artist at a giant food and tobacco company where I used to work as a writer/consultant. She remembered me, and we talked about the people we knew and how the great corporation was dissecting and reinventing itself to survive the anti-tobacco movement.

I'd loved working at those Park Avenue headquarters, even as the company prospered around the world selling cigarettes and cheese spreads. I loved emerging from Grand Central Terminal on a bright summer morning, humming the taxi-horn music from An American in Paris, stepping into the building to the greetings of receptionists and colleagues, flicking on the lights and the computer in my office, and beginning the day's labors.

Paid by the hour, I wrote speeches and op-ed pieces. The company—from the director of editorial services to the chairman—appreciated earnest and skillful efforts and said so, in word and deed. "You're here because you're a thoroughbred, not a workhorse," one supervisor said.

In contrast to my experience at the utility, I was even encouraged to continue my freelance career. They were proud I wrote for the Times. "Use our computers and phones and fax machine. Even call upon the secretary," my boss said. "My only request is that you bill us only for work you do for us."

The company held a communications conference at Disney World and invited me to attend. They sponsored a tort-reform conference in San Diego that featured an English lord; they flew me out to write his remarks. They gave me a raise.

And then, one day, they said it was over. I remember what I said when I heard: "This is awful. I just signed up my son for Syracuse University. I don't know how I'll be able to afford it."

My boss explained the regulatory and political climate was so tense and sensitive the company lawyers had decided they could no longer keep freelancers on the premises. When I got home, forlorn, my son said, "Dad, maybe you weren't cut out to promote smoking." How sweet, how wise.

So I was fired, but I was still trusted. "Use the office for two months," my boss said. "We'll pay you, but don't feel obliged to turn out any work. Just work at getting a new spot for yourself." They gave me an office party and tacked on a parting bonus. Today, my former boss and I are still friends.

Meeting the woman on the train brought back a rush of good feelings. "Know what else I miss?" I told her. "The company store." I felt like a Santa Claus when I treated my family and neighbors to the best coffees and chocolates and mints from the corporate product line.

"Here's my card," she said. "Call me, and I'll take you in."

I felt like hugging her. For some reason, a New Yorker cartoon flashed to mind. A man is on the phone in an office, talking to someone who has just suggested they "do lunch." He replies, "How about never? Is never good for you?" It always makes me laugh, but the laugh is a mordant one.

Somehow, seeing the broadcaster and reminiscing with the woman reminded me of the first crush I'd had growing up in Boston. She and I had great times and lots of laughs. We'd expressed our love for each other.

I often wonder what it would be like if we ran into each other. Would we hug and shed a tear and introduce spouses? Or would she thrust out an elegant, bejeweled hand, murmur a few polite words, and keep walking?

It's precisely because I bungled the bowing out that her memory still lingers so persistently. I've forgotten the content of the spat over the phone, but I remember it was loud and bruising, and demeaning for both of us. I saw her only once afterward, crossing the street in a raincoat as I passed in a cab.

I know what I have to do. I'm going to call the broadcaster and ask him to meet me by the park.

"It's about dignity, pal," I'm going to tell him. "Your departure doesn't have to be a humiliation. Tidy up your benefits. Make your retirement announcement. Then hold your head high, and bow out with your dignity intact."

Herbert Hadad, a Northeastern graduate and award-winning writer, tells his children to forgo acting dignified but to treasure their dignity.