So the long weekend came and went and, as hoped, I didn’t really feel jobless since no one else was working, either. But today, everyone went back to work…except me.

I spent the day rummaging through stacks and stacks of CD’s finding one with a copy of my resume on it. Hopelessly out of date, but tomorrow is an all-day class/seminar/thing about getting a new job, and part of that is about polishing up your resume. Supposed to bring a copy of what you have, no matter what shape its in.

I’ve been thinking about finances a lot, preparing for the worst. I think if I roll my credit cards into one account, pay off my car insurance for the year now while I have cash, and live very carefully…I think I’d be able to get by on unemployment, if it came to that. I won’t know for sure until I find out how much my payments would be, and since technically I’m still on the payroll I can’t apply yet. I am confident I can live on my severance, of course. It’s almost full pay, the only difference being that its taxed like bonus pay, so my ‘take home’ will be smaller.

So my officially sanctioned moping week is over. Now I need to start being productive in some way, shape or form. Obviously part of that will be looking for a job, but I need to look at this break as an opportunity as well. All the things I never had time to do…well, I have nothing but time now. And yet today I found myself napping twice. Depression, perhaps? Well I’ll need to fight that, and fight it intensely.

The thing that has my most frightened right now is quantifying my skill set. I started updating my resume and couldn’t think of a single thing that I did that seemed ‘significant’ enough to list. And yet, I was always busy! Part of this problem was that, in the closing months of my employment, I was learning a lot of new technologies. So yeah, I was tweaking Java but I’m not experienced enough to call myself a Java programmer. I was working on fixing the mangled mess that the contractors made of our new search engine, but I didn’t get far enough into it to claim expertise with that search engine. Ditto the content management system that had just been installed. I could still list being a Tcl coder, sure, but somehow I don’t think that’s a skill that’s in high demand.

Well, hopefully this thing tomorrow will help on just this kind of problem.

Spent a pretty quiet day today.

One highlight, so to speak: the GM who I’ve been griping about sent me an email, thanking me for my dedication and so on. Said she had to be at another meeting right after the layoffs (without going into details, this makes sense) and by the time she got back, I was gone. She also offered a reference.

So my biggest issue with the whole layoff thing has been soothed quite a bit. Maybe someone prompted her to email me, maybe not. It doesn’t really matter. The fact is she made the effort.

As of right now, I’m not carrying a lot of anger about the whole situation. Anxiety, yes. Every time I buy something I get freaked out: “Should I be buying this or should I be saving that $2.50 for something else.”

Now we head into what is a 4-day weekend for most people. Hopefully I can treat it that way too. This’ll probably be my last ‘daily’ report about the layoff. Honestly I expected a lot more, ah, drama, in these posts, but I’m just not feeling the strong emotions that I thought I’d be feeling.

Mind you, I’m not complaining!

Today I had to return to the scene of the crime. I needed to drop off a signed severance agreement as well as return a book that my IM had lent me. I went no further than reception…I really didn’t want to face my former co-workers again.

As it turned out, I ran into both a former peer and the IM. The peer was not happy; due to the layoffs her vacation had been cancelled. How’s that for management screwing the employees? “Sorry, but due to us whacking one of your co-workers without thinking things through, your vacation is cancelled.” Way to boost morale.

The IM happened to be walking out as I was standing at the desk. An awkward silence, then we both said “Hello” while trying not to look at, or acknowledge, each other. This was pretty strange since I still believe my termination was not her idea and I hold no animosity towards her. Yet she had been the one weilding the axe and something primal in me resents that.

Hmm, I’m not even sure if its resentment of the events, so much as resentment and frustration that I can’t allow myself to really say what I’m thinking. I’d love to point out how she looks from my side of the fence, having told me that what has now happened was not going to happen. But to say that would just be hurtful, because I know she knows what she said, and again, I don’t believe that this was her idea. The other individual that was let go was a peer of mine but had a different manager, which suggests the call came from the GM.

In any event, that’s done and now I don’t have to go back there for anything. I had a slight panic/anxiety attack as I pulled into the parking lot. But the receptionist is one of the sweetest ladies you’ve ever met and she put me right at ease, so in the end the visit wasn’t so bad.

After that, I went to Target and bought a Brita water filter because I don’t think I should be buying bottled water any more. Weird the things that pop up as being important money-saving devices! And then to Best Buy to pick up a copy of a computer game. I got to the register and almost turned around and put it back. So damned strange…something that would’ve been so casual on Monday was a Big Purchase that I felt I had to justify today on Thursday.

One other freakish thing happened today. I got an email that said:

Thank you for your time yesterday I am sorry I am just getting to e-mailing you the job spec today; my computer has been giving me problems. Please reply with the soft copy of your reume and I will get the process moving.

It wasn’t addressed to me. I assumed it was some kind of spam/phishing junk mail, but the attached file was indeed a job description, and the addressee had a name with the same first initial as mine, so it could’ve been an honest typo of an email address.

I actually replied to the email telling the recruiter that she’d emailed the wrong person, and pointing out the oddness since I’d just been laid off. She responded saying she’d like to talk to me more and giving me her phone number.

Weird, huh? It seems like a legitimate company but I’m still looking for the telltale evidence that it’s some kind of scam email.

Today was a strange day. I spent most of my time acting like it was just another day off.

But interspersed in these relatively mild periods were pockets of total rage. But not rage against the decision to lay me off. Rage against how certain factions of the company suddenly turned around and started treating me like a criminal. Last night I tried to log into my (ex)work email, and it was closed already.

Now that might be a fine policy but…it isn’t the policy of my former employer. I know for a fact that some people are let go and allowed to use their work-provided laptops and emails for a few weeks to allow them to notify contacts and so forth. Not so me. So that really irks me. That says to me “This person isn’t trustworthy so we’d better cut him off immediately.”

Second, I keep dwelling on the GM and how she didn’t so much as say goodbye to me. In fact, I fear I’m obsessing over this fact. I’m not going to claim we were best friends, but we’d had some common outside-of-work interests and have had many happy conversations about these things. I’d lent her DVDs and things like that. But no goodbye from her, and certainly no offer of a letter of recommendation or to be used as a reference or anything of that nature. Remember, the reason I was given for the layoff was that my skillset no longer matched the requirements of the company.

The other reality-slap in the face came this evening as I was eating dinner and watching TV. There was a segment on ‘next gen’ gaming consoles comparing the XBox360, Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3. And I realized that this holiday season, I wasn’t going to be buying any of the new consoles. (Granted I’m being pessimistic here… I should hope I’ll be working by then!) It was the first reality check that no longer could I buy things just because I wanted them.

On the other hand, I think there’s some good in that, too. In fact, there’s some good in all of this. This is an opportunity to spend…well in theory I could spend the rest of the summer…thinking about what I really want to do with my life.

So all in all, I think Day 2 was ok….

I was laid off from my job of, oh, eight years today. As a kind of geek social experiment, I’ve decided to chronicle the experience.

Day 1
Actually, it all started yesterday (well, actually it started about 18 months ago, but I’ll limit the discussion to the immediate events). In the afternoon an email came from the GM (general manger, and I’m not going to include names of individuals or companies involved), marked urgent, about a staff meeting at 9:30 this morning to discuss ‘restructuring’. And in addition, that the GM would be meeting with “smaller groups” before that meeting. If ever an email screamed layoffs, this was one. I spent an uneasy night, knowing I was in a very vulnerable position.

So this morning, my IM (immediate manager) came around at 9 am and said “Can I talk to you for a few minutes.” DEAD MAN WALKING. I knew this was it. She opened the door to a small, windowless meeting room and the head of HR was sitting there, like the headsman, smiling the most artificial (though I’m sure, well intentioned) smile you’ve ever seen. Continue reading “Anatomy of a Layoff: Day 1”

Friend at work sent me this article on cubicles in the workplace.

As a sad little Dilbert clone, I took some small comfort in the fact that the original inventer of the cubicle didn’t mean to make our lives hell…

I’m finally back at it, at least a little. I picked up my novel and started reading it again. I think there’s a story worth fixing in there somewhere. In a way, my procrastination might’ve worked in my favor. Early this month I was working on ‘world building’ and a creation myth for this world. And now that I have this myth in the back of my mind I can see where these characters tie into it.

Anyway, baby steps. But baby steps are better than no steps, right?

So things have really been slipping lately… no writing, hardly any reading, and let’s not talk about eating healthy or exercise! I sat down to catch up on the Sunday papers and realized the stack went back to December 4th!

I need to find a way to balance these activities with work and the need to blow off steam. I’ve just been toggling between work and steam blowing for quite some time now.

Anyway I just added a book to my Amazon Wishlist. It’s called Elsewhere and its a children’s book about a girl who is killed in a hit and run accident. The titular Elsewhere is the afterlife, and in it, she lives her life backwards.

That struck me as a reasonable reincarnation theory… you live your life, die and hit the afterlife at whatever age you were when you died, then age backwards in the afterlife until you reach zero, when you get born again to do it all over again. I like the symmetry! When you’re in the afterlife it doesn’t seem like the afterlife…it seems normal. Maybe you’d have theologians talking about the BeforeLife. 🙂