Archive for April, 2007
What’s been going on with me?
Well.
- No job! The entire Montreal office is being closed down. Some people were laid off in February (including a new employee who had just quit her previous job to join me in January), a very few people will continue on working from home, and the rest of us are expecting packages and a summer vacation sometime towards the end of this month. The date must apparently be kept secret because if we know when exactly we’re laid off than that constitutes notice, and thus we can’t legally be given severance packages; therefore keeping the actual termination date a secret lets them spring it on us as a complete surprise later this month with severance packages to ease the shocking blow.
They asked me to move down to the main office in California to start up the new SQA team that will replace the one I had here.
I said no.
I love California but this company tires me out… I want to be somewhere where dreams can be dreamed and goals can be achieved. Where that could be, who knows? Google has already turned me down (cry!), and I know I don’t want to go back to technical writing… there is some thought of seeing if I can afford to go after a B.A., the lack of which is the main hindrance to finding another job like the one I have now. It would have to be in Statistical Analysis, which is exciting and scary. I was good at math in high school - really good - but that was, gods, twenty years ago. I’ve picked up a 2+2-to-trigonometry book to see if numbers and myself can still get along; if I can get through the book without too much bleeding from the ears I’ll probably look into doing the year of pre-reqs I’ll need to pursue the B.A. if I can figure out a reliable way to feed myself while doing so. We’ll see.
One of the reasons I’m happy to leave my current company is that the constant struggle to Do The Right Thing in the face of insurmountable political obstacles has left me in an exceedingly negative reactionary mindset. I want to finish up the knowledge transfer to the (yet-to-be hired) replacement department and give myself a week or two to clear the air in my head so I can begin to imagine who I am and what I want, actually; not what I don’t want and don’t like and don’t want to be, which is all I am right now, just a big bundle of NOT and NO and DO NOT WANT.
- No money! A forgotten tax year and forgetting to take care of those polite letters from the government led to a lien on my salary; amusingly, I was informed of this by the office accountant while teleconferencing in to the meeting in which I was told that my office was being closed and my team collectively losing their jobs. So, good timing!
It’s totally my own fault so I’m sucking it up like a manly-type man. Luckily I’m paid enough that the cut isn’t crippling, and the government lady I’m dealing with is very nice, and this is definitely forcing me to take care of a few years of accumulated tax papers, so I should be seeing some nice refund checks once I’m unemployed. However, it does mean that I don’t have much spare cash just as my paychecks are about to stop forever, so… a little stressful.
- Exercising! It’s been a slack two months, between the two weeks where I was too stressed to sleep and didn’t work out to the two weeks I spent in Californa after the news hit us to a sinus infection and subsequent problems (you DON’T WANT TO KNOW about the side-effects of my antibiotics, but it’s finally started to heal up, thank god). But I went back this morning and Chiquita and I have our first trainer-trainee session on Wednesday morning. I’ve asked her to make me a 5-day/week schedule to make sure I get out of the house every day when I’m no longer working. The bike is getting tuned up so a nice bike ride every day and a little sweating should do me a world of good. Oh that this too solid flesh will melt! I can bring my laptop with me and jobsurf in the sun after - life could be worse.
Other than that? The cats continue cute (and very clingy after my two-week absence). The consort still brings me Tim Horton’s while I’m WoW’ing. Spring is springing. I have an excellent pair of furry zebra Doc Marten’s to sport about town. I still play WoW A LOT. I need a haircut. I need to vacuum more, and throw out more trash around the house. I need to stop buying shirts with skulls on them. And maybe also the skull underwear. Still loving the iPod.
Did I miss anything? Open season in the comments.