Spinning Wheels and Ticking Clocks

Wow, it's been a while, huh?

So, as anyone not living under a rock knows, we're in tough economic times. My company has been having rounds of layoffs every few weeks and that obviously sucks. Many other companies are having layoffs, too, and in fact, a friend of mine got laid off from her job a couple of hours ago. It's just a rough time to work in the financial industry...which the majority of metro-Boston does.

I was talking to my brother last week, and he actually AGREED (I know! I dind't see it coming either!) that the biggest positive of Obama being elected is that so many people feel POSITIVE about him. And a lot of us really need something to feel positive about.

I go to work pretty consistently with a knot in my stomach because I am fully aware that as an individual contributor with a flexible work arrangement, I'm vulnerable as hell. I mean, I'm also the most underpaid person in my group, so it would be rather a stupid move to cut me, but...that doesn't mean it won't happen.

After days like yesterday, I almost think it would be a blessing in disguise. Yesterday, we had a group meeting during which a woman I work with verbally attacked me (Y'all know I'm prone to dramatics, but I swear I'm not exaggerating) over something completely false. Luckily, my boss knew it was false, so after allowing her to publicly berate me for a minute or two, he told her to let it go. But, like I said, that was after a couple of minutes of her literally yelling at me and snickering under her breath when I spoke up to defend myself. The thing is, my former boss yelled at me daily. I've got a fairly thick skin about that. But when someone calls me out, in front of my colleagues, about something that isn't even true? Oh, HELL no. It was honestly the most unprofessional behavior I've ever seen and I say that as someone whose former boss routinely used the word motherf*$&er in the work place.

When things like that happen, it just makes me realize anew how much I would rather being doing something else. I want my career to be writing books. That's what I want. But between being overworked (I had to leave at 5:00 last night because B wasn't feeling well, and so ended up working at home until 9:00) and having B, and trying to fix up and sell our condo, etc etc, there isn't a lot of time left over to write. So, then I think to myself that maybe if I got laid off, I could focus more on writing. Maybe I'm just rationalizing, preparing myself in case I get cut. Maybe it wouldn't work at all, since obviously we would need to pull B out of daycare. But it's a nice thing to fantasize about when a coworker proves herself unable to treat me with common courtesy and professional respect, on top of an already stressy and miserable working environment.

Sigh...And I'd been having such a great couple weeks. My birthday was fantabulous, we had a fun trip up to VT this past weekend, lots of fun family time in general...