The Devil I know

Part of the reason for the Dreamtime is because I stopped being good about telling people whom I loved what was happening. Mostly because I was tired of hearing myself. And perhaps I was tired of having to admit that things kept happening.

This entry is to meet that need, although this time I have informed immediate family members, other loved ones might still check here:

There are many aspects of my job that I can't talk about, and indeed very few people who read me here even know what I do to support my Poppet Habit.

Even if I had the type of job where I could talk about it, I'm not sure I would here. Because the internet is a web, but it is also like amber - it traps everything forever. The Dreamtime has some journal like qualities but there are limits, journals generally don't have an audience. They work well for processing and exploring ideas that you are still working on and maybe for venting, but the internet and (as I discovered earlier this week), emails are not necessarily the best "working documents" for processing thought.

However, there is one thing I'm relatively sure of, which is that no one from work reads this blog. Even the one friend from work who thinks about reading the blog frequently admits to not getting past the thought.

At work however, the one thing I should not talk about, is that I am about to be out of work.

I guess it's like what I heard about fight club, which I suppose I shouldn't have heard about.

So although I am about to join the statistical measure of the recession at the end of the month, ( For once I am on Trend! My advertising professor would be so proud . . . .) I find that one of the things that is happening is that everyone who has to tell me something about it, is deeply upset at having to talk to me about it at all.

Later I figured out that's because right now, for this minute, I am the only one they have to tell.

And universally they have said "I can't believe this is happening, who could have predicted this?"

Um . . . . me.

You know, the one you hired to analyze and manage things? The one who told you not only that this was going to happen, but should it happen, I'm the one that you should throw overboard first.

"I can't believe they're doing this to you during the Holidays"

You mean the month the contract ended? But honestly, I do understand that it is upsetting to my three bosses, my HR representative, and the people I can't mention because then I would be talking about work.

But I'm not sure why they were surprised at my acceptance. I wonder what they were expecting? Do people generally behave badly in this circumstance? I can't even imagine. It's just the end of funding. I did a great job, they made money, they'd hire me again, I'd work for them again. It's all good except for the I-have-no-income part.

I was upset sometime in October when I saw that the math would not work. And while my value is tangible, and perhaps even critical, the description of my work is devalued, no one would work to save me on a sinking ship, even if I'm the only one with an oar to move the flotsam. But when the promised miracles still stayed exactly as far away I predicted, it started being more about making sure that the ship could still float even if it was becalmed. Because that's a whole lot better than having the whole thing sink. So I've been working for that, knowing that there was very little chance of being invited on to the repaired vessel unless there was a me-shaped hole when everyone was ready to set sail again.

And if they kept me, I promise the sailors would have thought I was bad luck and thrown me overboard in a different direction.

So now I need to just be careful - I am elegible to work for that ship again or a similar ship. I don't see myself changing the nature of my web presence which is "present but discreet."

I will be looking for a job and I am old school. I work really hard and I take not working as a kind of personal failure. I have ended up in employment situations that were horrible and afraid to leave them for fear of unemployment, but I've been where I am five years, I have family and friends to back me up. I have a spark of life back that had hibernated for several years thanks to Lisa and the Poppets.

So with any luck I'll be able to make a living doing what I'm good at without working for the devil. Instead of what happened once before. Primary job criteria - don't be evil.

I think I'll be OK.

But I do admit I miss at least the idea of corporate cultures with a career path instead of a continually improvised trajectory. Of course those might be as mythological as the hydra.

If nothing else the Embassy will resume construction . . . .