We don't count

So, my colleague comes into my office last night and closes the door. He has been told he needs to get a list together of 12 people in his group to be laid off at some point this year. (Luckily my business area is growing, even in this economy, so I've been hiring, not laying off. One thing to be thankful for!)

What a horrible thing to have to do. I've had to lay people off in the past, he's had to, too. It stinks. It really stinks.

So he's bouncing names off me and we're debating who should be on/off the list. At one point he says to me:

"When I give the list to [our boss], I'm going to tell him how many kids each of the people have."

What!!?!?!?

Now, first of all, our boss does not care about things like that, he's all business and would probably get annoyed at my colleague for doing that. But more importantly, WHAT!?!?!? He knows I don't have any children . Although he has no idea I'm trying - probably thinks I'm a "career" woman who has no desire for kids. (I do have a great career, and I also want children - how hard is that to imagine??).

I told him that I didn't think he should do that. I asked him if he thought it was any better to lay off someone without children, and I reminded him that I don't have any children. Is it OK to fire me just because I don't have kids? ha ha ha. I don't think he really got it, but he did agree that [our boss] probably wouldn't take well to that bit of information.

I wasn't nearly as aggressive as I should have been. I don't think he was embarrassed at all for saying that. And of course, he has no idea how it made me feel.

I (and people like me) don't count because I don't have kids. I'm expendable. Lovely.