Hello there. Hope everything's going well with you. It's been pretty uneventful around here lately - kind of quiet really. You know, I've just been running errands, doing a little shopping, and that sort of thing, and, uh, oh yeah, getting laid off for Christmas.. Other than that though....
Well, technically speaking, I didn't get laid off. What happened is that I came into work last Thursday, poured a cup of coffee, sat down at my desk, had a good yawn and a belly scratch, and then found out that the company announced we were going to shut down.
"Hey, look, no big deal but I just thought you'd like to know that as of 5:00 o'clock tonight we're all going to out of job".
"Ok, thanks. I appreciate your mentioning it. Hey, did you see the game last night?"
Well, it was sort of like that. You see, prior to the announcement there wasn't even the slightest hint that anything was wrong. Maybe it was naivety on my part or maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but the offhandedness of the shutdown was really weird. It was like the bosses just got up that morning and decided "You know, instead of our usual 18 holes, why don't we just close down the company instead."
Ho-Ho-Ho and a Merry Christmas.
Not that I'm feeling sorry for myself, mind you. Actually, I'm pretty lucky in that I'm a pessimist by nature and forever preparing for the worst. That means I've got no debts and some money in the bank, and with no dependents to take care of I won't be going hungry anytime soon. Unfortunately, that's not true for everybody that lost their job last Thursday, especially the ones with mortgages to pay and young families to clothe and feed. I don't suppose anyone feels too good about that, but you gotta be prepared for the worst, you know? These days Christmas layoffs seem to have become almost an annual tradition in the corporate world, and, after all, what better way to reward your employees than with a great big lump of coal for the Yuletide.
Yeah, ho-ho-ho indeed
So, anyway, it was strange being unemployed. I started going over it in my mind and the nearest I can figure is that I've been employed continuously since I was 19 years old, and for all those years not a day has gone by that I didn't know that a next paycheck coming. Then just like that, I found myself hung out to dry and the next paycheck I always counted on and planned my future around wasn't there anymore. Let me tell you. It's a weird, disorientating feeling. I didn't know whether to panic or just pretend it was all a bad dream.
And if all that wasn't bad enough, someone, who apparently subscribes to the theory that it is best to kick people when they're down, decided to prowl my neighborhood last Friday night and break into my truck. As if I wasn't feeling bummed out enough already about being out of a job, I walked out to the truck on Saturday morning and found the doors wide open, the little change compartment completely emptied and the rest of the interior contents thrown into a big messy pile on the seats. Luckily it's an old truck and there wasn't that much change inside, and they probably would have done me a favor if they would have just stolen the entire truck, but it was just the sort of salt I didn't need rubbed into my wounds at that particular moment, you know what I mean?
So that was my uneventful week. I certainly hope yours was better. The good news is that I'm starting a new job in a few days and hopefully this next one will go a little better than the last. Being the pessimist I am, however, I'm not expecting all my troubles to be behind me. Not after the week I've just been through, and you can rest assured that I'll be squeezing my dollars pretty tight in the days ahead. I'm sorry to disappoint you Wall Street, but my contribution to the greater economic good this Christmas season is likely to be somewhat muted, to say the least.
Which means there must be some lesson in all this. Well yes, there is, and for that let us turn now to that great folk economist Bob Dylan who once reminded us "Don't follow leaders, and watch the parking meters."
And have a Happy Holiday .
No comments:
Post a Comment