Hammer time

First work day of the year, first day of the first week of the new year. Not much to do but answer a request from my manager, something that takes a little research and more than a few minutes. There's an email from our CEO announcing a company meeting in a few hours to discuss "organizational changes." This is not a good sign, but at least I got the email. Then the phone rings. It's my manager, and she lets me know that someone from Human Resources is in on the call. Clearly not a good sign, and I pay little or no attention as my manager reads the company-crafted message about "difficult times" and "hard choices." I've been down this road, and we might as well just get to the terms of my layoff.

That comes soon enough, as I learn that I am now an official casualty of the current recession, another pawn in the economic disaster unleashed by George W. Bush.

Day one of unemployment has come. Since I'm a "remote" -- someone who works outside the office, at home -- my first task is to pack up everything that belongs to my former employer and send it back. This is partly a good thing, since that laptop occupied most of my waking hours. Not having it set up leaves a hole in my day, but also creates the reinforcement that I need to do something else.

The house needs some work. I took up most of the baseboard molding when I put in the laminate flooring, and never got around to putting it back. I've painted every room in the house except for the master bedroom and bath, so there's that, as well. But first I have to get past the first day, then the second, the third, the first week... I've been down this road before. Strangely, it's not unlike the breakup of a relationship. First, you don't believe it happened. It was a mistake, you think. They'll call back any moment when they realize that they needed me and should have let what's-his-name go.

That won't happen, though. Then there are all those things you "need" for work. Papers, little notes on where things are or how to do things or who to call. You think about saving all those, just in case you need them, just in case things get better and they call and ask you to take your old job back. Which they won't.

In the end, none of it matters. Anything you worried about before logging on or punching in last week is nothing that need concern you now. That thing that you were in the middle of, that thing you were thinking of saving or sending to someone who still works there so it won't be lost... that doesn't matter now. They'll figure out how to do it; that's what they do. That's their job. It used to be yours, but it's not anymore. They certainly aren't going to help you wash the dishes or take out the trash or feed the animals or pay your bills; there is no obligation anymore. There is only today, tomorrow, and the rest of your life. Without them.