Friday, June 8, 2007

ack!

i was laid off! i was totally not expecting it ... and yet. i've been bitching about my job for months now, hating it, saying i wanted to quit. and i'm someone who needs a kick in the butt to get going sometimes, especially in situations where there are things that i still like about it. i loved my coworkers (and loved to bitch about them too), and certainly liked the money, and hadn't come up with a viable plan yet. so they let me go. it was weird. on monday night they called this meeting for tuesday at noon, and in the meeting they said they were doing some reorganizing and some people would be cut. i'd heard a rumor about cutbacks but nothing about our group, and thought we were safe. but after the meeting when we all went back to our desks, my coworkers got an email invite to a meeting at 5pm and i didn't get the invite. and then i knew.

i went to a program meeting after my "exit interview" and shared how i was actually excited because i could tell this was HP doing for me what i couldn't do for myself. and i do think that.

they gave us till the end of business the following day to get our stuff; they gave us memory sticks to get personal files off our laptops and whatnot. i went back in the next day and it started to hit me then. i felt lonely and somewhat alienated, and my laptop took forever to delete files and copy them and the process of cleaning up everything seemed like it would never end. i just wanted to get out of there, but my laptop wasn't cooperating. it was mighty frustrating. finally i got all my stuff together and adam walked me down to the car and helped me put my bike in. i'd kept my bike in the city to zip around after work, to errands and stuff, but there's no reason to keep it there now! and finally i cried in the elevator on the way down - i felt very sad saying goodbye - so suddenly, too - to people i've worked with for THREE YEARS. it was just abrupt. but that is probably the best way - like pulling off a band-aid.

yesterday was my first full day at home. adam stayed home from work, claiming he had "fuck-all" to do there, so it wasn't so jarring. it was great having him here. he played D&D all day and periodically i went into his study and sat in there with him. i needed the company.

today he got up and went to work, though, so i am on my own here for the first time. and i have to make a plan. that is my plan for the day - to make a plan. i wrote out a to-do list (including, housewife-like, "take adam's shirts to the cleaner's") and intend to cross some things off it by day's end.