Respite

I never imagined that taking a day off in order to visit the doctor would be a vacation. Granted, I am not the patient being seen, nor have I been relatively housebound for the past three weeks. Regardless, today is kind of a nice break for me.

See, Destrukto is going through some rather tough times. Many branches have closed outright, while others are laying people off in droves. My office happens to be one of the latter. Last year, my office had somewhere around 50 employees. Today, we have less than twenty. That's a fast track downhill, guys.

As a result, I am facing the very real possibility of being laid off myself. I am realistic about it, but it's still difficult. I have been employed by Destrukto for nine years now. Time to dust off and update the resume, I suppose.

Last Friday was the latest round of layoffs in my office, and we lost two people. One was an employee of mine, the other was one of my best friends in the world. It was a rather bad day for all of us. While my friend took it well, my employee did not.

They say that our true character shows through during times of stress. This was true on Friday. My friend quietly cleaned out her office, hugged me, and told me she'd see me over the weekend. My employee proceeded to verbally trash me - not just during the layoff - but over the phone to other co-workers and builders all weekend long. Suffice it to say, her RTW (*Return To Work) status has been revoked. As one of my co-workers observed, "This is what a burning bridge looks like".

I left the office Friday mentally exhausted - one hour and a half later than normal. I traveled home parallel to a tornado, briefly hoping that the twister would head eastward and just take me out of my misery. I arrived home at seven pm...

...And was greeted at the door by my Beloved. He had my dinner (freshly microwaved) on the table...and the house was CLEAN. Everything had been dusted, mopped, washed, straightened. Candles were lit throughout the house (power loss was a possibility, people). I exhaled, smiled, and hugged him. Thus began a rather nice weekend. For Me.

Chachi, on the other hand, physically paid for all of that cleaning. See, he's still recovering from the surgery, and isn't supposed to 'aggravate' his arms/back with repetitive motions. In order to make my awful day better, he really 'took one for the team'.

I went in to work yesterday expecting the worst. Many people both in my office AND among the builders are protective of my (former) employee; I expected much screaming, demanding, and yea, gnashing of teeth.

Instead, I was greeted quietly by all office and field personnel. They approached my office one by one, formally offering to be of assistance in any way possible. Spazz and I accomplished a lot yesterday, but there is more work to be done. A LOT more.

Hopefully enough to issue an RTW on the other person that was laid off.

Hopefully.