COULD IT MAYBE GET BETTER NOW??

My company laid off about 30 people today in my building alone, 3 of which were in my department.

I sat around all day just hoping that my phone wouldn't ring. We weren't warned and we didn't know how many they were cutting.

The girl in the cubicle across from me got the first phone call and when she came back into the office, crying, I helped her pack up her desk and carry her box out to the car. Neither of us knew that she was the first of a whole list of people being let go and we were indignant that she was being "fired" after eight years of service. No one in my group saw this coming. We didn't know that there were going to be layoffs.

For the rest of the day, people were walking around like someone had died. It was scary, upsetting and uncomfortable. Most of us stood around whispering about who we had just heard about being escorted out and who we were afraid was going to be next.

"Well, we KNEW that HE was going to be fired eventually," and "I can't believe they let her go. She was such a nice girl".

In the afternoon, the VP gathered everyone still left in the building to tell us that the horror was over and that we can all breathe deeply again. That we thank all of the people who left today for their time in the company and the work that they did, whatever their capacity. All of the changes that are going to be made now will be to our processes and not our personnel. Then he sent us home an hour and a half early.

But he didn't apologize.

In fact, it seemed like he was choosing his words so carefully as to not let an "I'm sorry" slip out that he was stammering a bit at times. I guess you're not supposed to apologize when you lay people off, but it seemed like we were owed one.

I am apprehensive about what is going to happen tomorrow, but I would like to wish the people who lost their jobs today good luck out there. As sorry as I am to see you go, i hope that i won't be joining you.

And for that, I feel ashamed.

Um.

Hi there.

It's been a few months.... uh. I meant to call. But i've been, you know, kind of embarrassed. Cause it's been so long. And i didn't really know how to come back and be all, "hey!" as if nothing happened. So i've been sitting here wondering how i'm supposed to be all, "hey," and then i figured that i'd just come right out and say it.

Hey.

I'm back.

To be honest, life has been kind of sliding down the shit mountain and i've been quiet because i know no one wants to hear 300 words of complaining every time you come here, so i figured i'd keep it to myself. Believe me, I've been doing YOU a favor. Because i'm a nice girl like that.

So here, in list format, since you've been asking, is what has been going on round these parts for the past 3 months:

1. Cousin G is still getting married, i am still a bridesmaid and at this point i have spent upwards of $1300 so that she can get married.
2. People keep asking me when I'M going to get married without really understanding that not only can we not afford to get married, we totally can't afford an engagement ring.
3. The Boy has been a mess lately with a herniated disk that has left him, at times, incapacitated. Without health insurance, he is pretty much fucked.
4. I had to take this semester off from school because i am teh poor.
5. I got an invitation to my 10-year high school reunion. 'Nuff said.
   
6. The Boy's 92 yr old grandmother fell in her house (and couldn't get up) and went from hospital to rehabilitation nursing center last week. Currently, this woman who had been so sarcastic and sharp is having a hard time keeping everything in her brain that was there last week.
7. My credit card debt is so high that my friends ask me how i sleep at night.
8. I have gone off the wagon with WeightWatchers and realize that i have probably gained back everything i had lost since last year.
9. Stepping in dog shit on Friday night made me cry.

TA-DA! Welcome to the Sunshine and Roses Webpage. Where everything is happy and bright until you step in an unsuspecting pile of dog-pie and you lose whatever semblance of control you had that was keeping you from sobbing into your low-fat chocolate milkshake.

And THAT, my friends, is why i have not been Sharon The Sharer these past couple of months.

I'm thinking i need to get this shit out somewhere, however, so i have a feeling i'll be back.