Kristabella: Full of Snark Since 1977

Posted By Kristabella on June 27, 2008

Look at me blogging on a Friday night! I normally spend every Friday night on the couch by myself because I have no life, but shy away from blogging because you don’t need to know that.

But today at work I got my 60 days notice. Come September 5 I will no longer be employed.

(pregnant pause)

Let me just tell you, I had no idea. When our VP (the one who just did this three months ago to the rest of the department and who is leaving herself on July 7) called me into her office, I assumed she was going to talk about something work related or have me write an announcement. So I marched my happy ass in there with my notepad ready to have something to do. Clueless, I has it.

She jumped right into the “we’re eliminating your position” and I think I actually heard the air escape from my chest.

I held back the tears as much as I could. Not completely because I’m a weepy mess these days. But it is hard because as much as I’m not surprised, I’m still surprised. And it sucks to get laid off. No matter whether you see it coming or not.

Here’s the thing, I have been bored silly for about a month. I have had nothing to do. There are still some other members of the department finishing up their 90 days, so I was optimistic that once they left, things would pick up. Apparently the new person in charge of our department thought differently. Apparently they just didn’t think it was viable to have two people in the Corporate Communications department, both with nothing to do. Once person can do nothing for a lot less than two people.

So because of that, I wasn’t terribly shocked. But again, I didn’t even see it coming.

The fact is that I haven’t ever felt safe since November when all these changes started. And I have until September to spend my bored days at work looking for a new job, getting paid to find a new job. And I will also receive a severance payment, which makes my stress level, right now at least, very low.

The worst part is that I have now been laid off three times in the last 3 1/2 years. I have had four jobs since college and have been laid off from three of them. Kind of depressing, no? I know this economy sucks and it is happening to a lot of people. I am beyond thankful at the package that I am getting and the fact that I have 60-plus days to start looking. But I still can’t help shake the failure feeling creeping into my mind because seriously, someone who loses their job this much has to have some fatal flaw, right? (Please do not point any of this out to me, especially right now. It does not make me feel any better.)

I’m doing rather well. I haven’t even drowned my sorrows in anything besides Sugar-free Kool-Aid and Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches today. I’m pretty sure it hasn’t completely hit me yet though.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about all this today. Everything happens for a reason. I know that for a fact, especially after getting laid off two times prior to this. I have always bounced back and moved on to something bigger and better. I have no doubts that I will be fine. I am resilient. I have been my whole life.

And also, it gives me that push to start working on things that I’ve been thinking about doing for some time but just haven’t had the motivation to do, namely writing my book. It is really what I want to do with my life. Thirty years and I’ve FINALLY figured out what I want to do with my life. And I think the way this has worked out may be my opportunity to put my nose to the grindstone and get going on my dream.

It’s about damn time I do something for me and not for anyone else.

Categories: A Day in the Life of Me, Worky Work
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