The Lay Off

Flashback to six weeks ago…

In mid-July, I was gearing up to go on vacation; we were headed to Tallahassee to visit relatives. (vacation? visiting family?  No, it wasn’t one of those obligatory family visits that chew up valuable vacation days. We visited my wife’s sister and her family – very cool people.  I am lucky to have them as part of my family).  The plan was for me, my wife and our 5 kids to fly out on a Thursday night after my workday was over.

The day before we left, I received a company-wide announcement that three colleagues in the HR department were laid off.  Two of them I had had working relationships with at one time or another so I knew they were good people.   I told my wife that if people of their caliber are being laid off then no one’s job is safe…and it is no time to be over-confident about my performance.  (I also had said the same thing 3 months earlier when one of the best managers I have known, the head of my department, was let go when his peer was promoted to the then vacant CIO position).

So we flew out Thursday night, got in late to Tallahassee and were greeted by my sister-in-law her daughter and a wall of humidity.  The next morning I got “the call”.  It was the CIO apologizing for bothering me “at home” and not knowing my vacation had started on that day instead of the upcoming Monday.  So, I’m thinking that my manger is getting canned and he doesn’t want me to find out through the grapevine.  Wishful thinking, huh?   I was fed the line about the economic downturn, department reorganization, blah blah blah.  He was surprised when I turned down his offer to transfer my call to the HR rep handling my “transition”.  I was too sleep deprived and sweaty to realize what was going on let alone discuss details of my package.  I did give in and talk to her and give her my “home” address in Tallahassee so she could overnight my severance package.  I spent the rest of the day in a daze, in counseling with my incredible wife, talking to former coworkers and trying to pretend to have fun for my kids’ sakes.

I am a firm believer in things happen for a reason and that I will look back on this and be grateful that my former employer set me free.   I did a lot of brainstorming that week (and since then) about what to do next – finding a business/systems analyst opening at another company and doing part-time spreadsheet development while looking for work.   Or something more drastic like voice-over, print ads, commercials (my wife and friends are in the entertainment and advertising business and from time to time I have been encouraged by them to join them in the entertainment world).

I spent the rest of the vacation having a blast with my family, learning about World of Warcraft (or at least pretending to), learning how to play Farm Town (instead of WOW) and jumping off a two story diving platform into the Fountain of Youth.  It turned out that valuable vacation days were not chewed up visiting relatives since my relatives are fun and since i now had an indefinite supply of vacation days for the foreseeable future – a future of many possibilities that made my head spin for the next six weeks.