That was more or less the acupuncturist's diagnosis - "...you're tensed up and exhausted at the same time, you're stuck and ready to move forward at the same time, you're detail has collapsed, your giving has collapsed..."
When I saw her two weeks ago, I mentioned that I felt like everything was in limbo, and I couldn't move or decide until something else moved to provide me with a choice, meaning things out of my control were paralyzing me. And damn if you ask the Universe a question, boy does it give you an answer. I keep forgetting that sometimes, the answer isn't what you would like, even though, perhaps, you expected it.
It started moving forward on Monday afternoon. The HR person called me into my boss' office and solemnly said, "due to the subsidiary's financial situation, the company can't support your position any longer." I think they expected some sort of reaction out of me, hysterics or tears or something, but all I did was blink and perhaps slightly raise an eyebrow. I wasn't surprised, you see, for two reasons - one, I'd been expecting it for awhile, as far back as my boss telling me more than a month ago that mine was a "luxury position," and that "there may come a time when you have to decide what you want, and that may mean taking another position in the company," (I updated my resume and put it out on the Internet after that conversation) and a little while after that, when talking to my old boss, who is in the same company, just in a different division of it, and who said out of the blue, "you know, we have some open positions over here that you might consider."
Two, I've been through lay-offs before. Twice. In a row. My last two jobs, in fact. So pattern recognition sets in, and all the markers were there, and it was just a matter of time. If I'm surprised at anything, it's that it took them so long to arrive at this conclusion and to get on with it.
Then they said, "we really don't want you to leave." Hmm, it seems to me that if they really meant that and really didn't want people leaving, they wouldn't have let the financial situation get so bad that it comes to telling people to leave, as that seems rather counterproductive, but that's just my logic. I won't go into how and why the financial situation is so bad - it's long and sordid, and at times hilariously ridiculous, so no matter.
My choices are as follows: take a position with the other subsidiary, which means officially applying, taking the writing assessment, and interviewing (never mind that I've been there for six years, and the position for which I'd be applying is the same one I had last year, and I went through this process already to get that position) or leave the company. The HR person won't tell me how long I'd have before leaving, nor what the severence package would be. She did, however, insist that I had to decide which I would do by yesterday morning, though she gave me no reason for the rush. My mom, who is also in HR, thinks this sounds very fishy.
I talked to my old boss again Tuesday afternoon, and she told me that the positions she had mentioned a month ago were still available, and she was puzzled as to why the HR person was in such a rush. She also told me that she was very angry about what was happening in my division, because she helped to set up that division, and when she left it, it was in good working order with no worries. I had no answers for her because all the leadership people in my division are making themselves scarce and throwing numbers at us when they do talk to us but not ever speaking plainly about will we all have jobs in six months, or even in one month. I hate it when people hide behind numbers. My old boss doesn't think the division will be shut down entirely, but she does think it will be "scaled back."
Oddly, I have equal reasons for staying and going. If I stay, I keep my tenure, my substantial vacation acrrual, and I get my old boss back, a handful of co-workers that I know, some new projects, as well as a bit more sanity and structure and not working into the evening and on the weekend so much, and I could do with a bit of all that (see acupuncturist's diagnosis above). The downside is leaving my current co-workers who have been in the trenches with me, especially during this last year - amazing how overwork and insane clients bring people together. Who's going to look after them?
I could leave too, and start over completely. Go someplace where no one knows me and doesn't expect too much from me yet, get into another branch of health care - genetics, or patient education, or support associations, or alternative therapies - or even get into an entirely new industry, maybe even just up and move somewhere and start completely from scratch. I've got little debt and a nice chunk of money in savings that I could live on for awhile, except I had marked that for master's degree and travel in the fall, so I don't want to have to use it for living expenses. The downside is giving up every shred of stability, and given my current diagnosis, that may be unwise.
The in-between choice is to take a position with the other division, which buys me time to look for something else at my leisure, and I guiltily leaned toward this option and nodded to the HR person about it, because it means I can let go of this work by degrees, and for once, it would be nice not to be forced and shoved into a career decision in a hurry.
So the acupuncturist put two sets of needles in the top and side of both feet and two in my chest and left me to simmer for 20 minutes, which is far more needles and twice as much time as I normally get, but she said it was necessary, and she praised me for taking a couple of days off from work, which she said was also necessary. Then I had some spicy tuna sushi to feed my brain and a huge mug of green tea to keep my spirits and my immunity up, and settled into a re-read of Neverwhere for the rest of the evening, and tomorrow I'm getting several inches of hair chopped off, and I may go buy some more books just for the hell of it, and the next three days are devoted to brushing up on scriptwriting skills and coming up with a story outline so that when June 1 comes around, I can dive into scriptfrenzy and happily write a bad play or movie. The plan is not to do anything work-related for the next three days.
And this is all happening right before my birthday. What the hell?
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