I did pretty well last year, doing some regular posting about LEARNing and 30 Days of Lists...
But I fell off the blogging wagon a while back - life just got too busy. WORK got too busy. That's where I used to do most of my blogging, in the early hours before anyone else got there. My usual start time was 7:30am...
But then WORK changed... I got a new boss, my 5th since I was there, the 3rd in just over a year. New people were hired, I helped train them. My job changed. I took on another person's job when she quit. We reorganized yet again, and I made it through that restructuring unscathed.
But then the new year rolled around. You can see when something is going down because the Boys' Club, those 4 men with VP or Director after their names, started keeping their doors closed for meetings. That's always NOT a good sign.
On Wednesday, January 14, I got an email requesting I attend a Business Update meeting in the HR meeting room the next day. I knew I was being let go. There were two other people invited to the same meeting, none of whom was in the office that day, but with 5 minutes of receipt of the email, they had either IM'd me or called. We all knew our lucky streak was over. We knew we were being let go. People/my husband tried the ole "Maybe you're getting promoted" shtick but at publishing house W, you don't get promoted in the HR department. They just hand you a bunch of extra work and ask you if you want to take over some new responsibilities. And after about 4 years and almost 1000 people losing their jobs, you say yes and hope for a good raise the next fiscal year...
So the next day we all went downstairs and sure enough, we were laid off. My severance package precludes me from saying anything bad about my company, but in all honesty, I don't have anything bad to say. I've been very lucky in my career. I worked for a company that was successful but run a bit less than efficiently, and I worked with some of my best friends in the world there. Then I moved here and while one of my best friends followed me over for a while, I was "friendly" with my co-workers but none of them came even close to my SDC posse... But I've loved my ten years there, and always thought I'd retire (early) from this job, but I guess the consultants had other ideas. I learned a whole different side of books and publishing and the job was really fun and easy, without any stress or grief from the executives.
So I've applied for unemployment benefits, I'm going to email the HR person to make an appointment to go in and sign my severance contract so they can start sending me my checks, and I'm quite frankly going to hope that I learn to keep house well enough that hubby doesn't age overly quickly with me staying home... He plans to retire this June, and move on to another job of some kind, to keep busy (read: Energizer Bunny in lieu of "he"). I'd love to stay home and just find something to do, perhaps a part-time job or some volunteer work... We'll see what happens. Thanks to my severance and unemployment and the fact that we don't live beyond our means and couldn't care less about designer names or extravagant cars, restaurants or vacations, we can survive. It's just a matter of how bored I get or he gets...
Who knows? Perhaps I'll get back to blogging more regularly... Maybe I'll have the time to do some things that are a bit more creative and artistic and maybe I'll even share them here...
For now, I'm off to empty yet another box of all the stuff I've accumulated in ten years and sent home these past two weeks.