It has been a long time since I’ve written about my work. I maintain a level of ambiguity, so as not to jeopardize my professional life. Last spring we underwent a massive restructuring, and the announcement came like a sucker punch to the gut. Unexpected.
A year later, doubled over and trying to catch our breath from the first sucker punch, we took another jab.
So there we were, in the ring, so to speak, engaged in a fight that we didn’t ask for and didn’t want. I wasn’t (yet) personally affected, but I could see the writing on the wall.
From my perspective, if I take a step back, it looks like corporate leadership behaves like a bunch of kids playing pick up sticks, only we are the sticks. Throw the lot up in the air, see where they land, and try to piece things back together. Who gets the most sticks before the stack collapses? Winner!!!! What about the remaining stack? Yep. That’s us. That’s where we are now. Discarded on a whim.
I don’t remember when they made the announcement, but they did. And lo it came to pass. The ax did fall. I don’t recall the exact date, but there is one (May or June 2015), and on that day, the lights will be shut off. We shall cease to be.
So it’s been a mad scramble. The ship is sinking and the rats are jumping.
I thought about looking for other work, but decided not to give in to fear and uncertainty, and not to desert my team. My specialized team consists of only three people, one of whom is new. Our young padawan, we call him. We are training him in the ways of the masters. Ha! Seriously, though. My partner IS the master. He is literally a world expert in his field. I am the other master, and I am most decidedly not a world expert in that field, but I bring to the table those proficiencies that make our team a complete, high power unit. We are a little tiny team of three, serving the entire company of thousands upon thousands. We could be considered a bottle neck, which in business is not a positive thing, or we could be considered a vital asset. Both are true. Single threadedness carries a lot of business risk. If the thread breaks, the business can be severely impacted. It brings to mind the saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Not that the company truly recognizes its vital assets. I’ve probably blathered on about that elsewhere in this blog.
Even with the leadership making these changes, we are still in business NOW, and we, individually, care about what we do and have a personal sense of responsibility to see things through. So we have been pressing along, trying to keep afloat amidst the flotsam and jetsam that we are immersed in, simultaneously working on marketing ourselves, making our little niche visible to the echelons so that they will recognize that it would behoove them to preserve our function. Miraculously, we have succeeded, and we have been given a life raft. We’ve climbed aboard, soaking wet, and are paddling our way against the current towards the safety of the big ship.
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I am grateful to have a job! Grateful that I didn’t actually have to hit the streets and look for something different. At the same time, these many months since the spring of 2013 have been so exhausting. It’s been like a long and drawn out sickness in which bits of pieces of life connections are dying, and with each loss there is mourning and sorrow. I’ve spent my life with these people. This relationship has been thriving for 28 years, and now it’s nearly over. The goodbyes are so hard. I walk down the hall and peer into the cubicles and see only a few scattered faces here and there. It’s empty. It’s sad. It’s like gazing upon a hospital ward during a war or a plague, with a few mangled hollow-eyed bedridden people holding on for dear life amidst rows and rows of empty beds left by those who have departed.
A job is a job, and I can do almost anything, really, so the trauma is not so much about the job itself, other than the huge expectations levied upon us when we are already loaded past most people’s breaking points. Even so, I’m a performer, and I will perform. I can do that. I will do that.
The trauma I am suffering is the loss of life, the life we have spent together for the last 28 years. There is a lot of life that takes place in that many years. It’s being forced to say goodbye. I’ve been dragging my feet, not wanting it to end. My new desk is thankfully in the next tower, rather than another city, so I’ve had the luxury of dragging my feet over the move. I’ve been making the transition last as long as possible. Everything besides my computer itself is moved, but I park my body stubbornly in the spot I’ve inhabited for the last twenty years, just so that I can see the occasional familiar face and hear the occasional familiar voice. These are my people. I love them. Even though we have little to no connection once we leave the office, we are connected in the depths of our selves, from the years upon years upon years of time that we’ve spent together. But it’s time to cut the cord and it’s time to leave. I think that next week I will have to occupy the new desk. I don’t even know how to express how this makes me feel. It’s the end of an era. I am a frazzled, emotional mess, and have been for quite some time now.
I’ve done all that I could. I need to make peace with this and let it go.
It’s been so hard for me, and I don’t really know HOW to make that peace and let it go. So I’m writing it out, hoping it will help. Maybe it’s only something that time will ease, the way a scar will ever so slowly fade as it heals.
I don’t know. But I have to move on and find new joys, rather than remain stuck under this cloud of sorrow.
I am so, so tired.
