Recently, with the economy in full downswing; my place of employment has suffered (and passed along to the workforce) some cutbacks. The downshot of this is that one of my better friends, a most unlikely friend considering our initial meeting, is without a job at the moment, three other people at work are no longer *at work* and a couple more are living on extremely borrowed time.
I managed to come through the scrub, although not completely unscathed. They have moved me into another department, to replace an imminent retiree. He will be a hard person to replace, as he currently works in that department as their “lead analyst” or the “go-to” guy. He can run any instrument in the department, and he is generally respected and well-liked. Big shoes to fill, and my feet feel very small.
For my initial training, they’ve paired me with another ‘left-of-center’ individual, who I get along with remarkably well anyway. You may want to head over to Blogspot dot com and check out “The Odd Angle” to get a sample of him. Go on, I’ll wait …..
Anyway, this fellow and I have been working together this past week to see if I can get up to scratch on the instrument *he* is currently running; so that he can get some more training on the other instruments in the department, as I believe he is slated for the team lead position that is coming open very soon. I don’t know how well I’m doing, but he’s not threatened me with a hand-crafted bullwhip yet, so maybe I’ll just manage.
Still, my thoughts go out to the people who have been let go, especially my friend who is newly married, and really didn’t need this headache right now. Although I appreciate that the company held onto these employees as long as they did, hoping that the workload would pick back up and dissipate the need to let them go; it still rankles that they did have to be let go. Losing your job at any time is bad, losing it right before Yule is worse; and although I don’t know the situations with the others, I know that times are tight for my friend.
So, for this new new beginning, I am looking back a little; and hoping that looking forward doesn’t turn out too bleak.
Tioraidh
