Dooms Day

In no particular order my day contained:

Bad Hair.
Bad Sleep.

Two blood blisters.
Putting a load of laundry and realizing I didn't have enough quarters to dry them.
Dropping a half full jar of tomato sauce on the marble tile; a glassy,saucy explosion.
Having to give up theatre tickets.
Oh and lay offs....

We were all expecting news that we could only speculate about. A day planned with meetings for musicians, staff, governing members ... must mean big, bad news. The storm clouds were scheduled to pass the Saint Paul area around 3:00pm.

Didn't expect the shit storm that starting around 10:00 this morning.

Didn't expect the e-mails from co-workers we had just seen smiling in the hallway to send a departmental e-mail informing us they were immediately going home for the day.

Didn't expect my own, overworked department to take the biggest hit on people.

Didn't expect to still have a job.

I'm still standing but at what cost, for how long and why the fuck me?

Amazing people were fired. People who worked hard their whole lives. Friends were fired. But their talents, their skills, their personalities, their everything went unheard to the screeching economy. And this is just Bad Day # 1 for them ... they are going to wrestling in this economic muck for ... who knows.

Am I more grateful than ever before to still have a job ... of course.

Am I terrified of what my job will become because of the vacant seats ... absolutely.

Do I feel secure at all with my employment ... not a lick.

Am I looking forward to the dreary, dismall work environment I have to trudge to each day ... fuck no.

I am tired of listing grey thoughts ... but no one will call me back.

on the lighter side

I hate to leave that last post lingering with it's negativity ... So I thought I would type up some ramblings I jotted down a few days ago.

Somewhere along my quest to meet new people I realized that new people don't exist in my awesome apartment. Weird, right? They don't come across my dirty dishes or sit down on my shrunken couch. My solitaire outdoor adventures are hardly promising either ... New people certainly don't have the same stride as me on the trails. People do things. We all exist, at least in part, in public.

I suppose I left the house to be seen. Why else would I choose to do the private, quiet act of reading in a busy, public space that provides anything but concentration. I can't read here. But I can pretend to read here. And I can definitely write with my brown Sharpe here. Best of all I can subconsciously, semi-intentionally ease drop here.

At first the group of three older, eccentric men (leopard print hats, leather bomber jackets, flannel and snow pants eccentric) and one young, attractive girl in her twenties intrigued me. What brought this unlikely group of beings together?? Now I have heard enough of their institutional banter and think I will return to pretending to read my over-priced books. Better yet... I'll move onto eating my apple.

economy hits home

The conversations have been circulating around my head for months but have mostly flown in one ear and out the other.

My 401B doesn't scare me. The price of groceries is a bummer but I can afford them. I work for a financially sound nonprofit. Relatively safe, right?

There's a hushed tone around the office these days. Days have been dismal since the last staff meeting where upper management wouldn't confirm or deny major cut backs. We know next season is significantly butchered but we are waiting to see if there will be any of our necks on the chopping block.

As the sound board operator for our board meetings I usually get a ticket to the inner workings of the organization. Tuesday was one meeting I got kicked out of. Next Tuesday the rest of us will find out what 'dismissals' the Board approved.

I'm nervous. Nervous that even a cut in pay will take away all the things I worked for these last two years. How far I've come could be erased.

A few years back there was a recession that forced five of our staff out the doors. Old timers are fearing a repeat. So... who goes? They survived without my position up until I invented it. There are other positions that could be combined or reduced, but that's a friend gone then.

For the first time... I'm nervous. I'm nervous that life is deceptive in its security. That a person can live their life nobly and have it taken away for reasons beyond their control. That the life I built could be undone.