Longest Week

I swear someone added a few extra days into this week when I wasn't looking.  Thursday was especially long.  The excruciating slowness was due to the fact that there were lay-offs at work this week.  Rumors had been flying for about a month.  The general consensus was that the cuts would occur on Thursday.  Management would avoid September 11 and Friday the 13th for psychological reasons. As soon as I got to my office Thursday morning I knew that this was the day.  There were empty boxes and a cart in the conference room next to my office.  They hadn't been there when I had gone home the night before.  Everyone sat at their desk waiting for the 'fun' to begin.  Since my office is along a hallway with three managers, I heard it start.  Promptly at 8:30 one manager called someone into his office and shut the door.  About 15 minutes later the door opened and I heard the manager say "Let me know if you need any boxes." Victim #1.  About 9:30 an upper level manager told my manager to come with him.  Everyone's IM communicator lit up as the two walked past the desks of the group.  20 minutes later the two came back into the area. My manager announced that he was just let go and went to his office to pack.  About an hour later, one of the guys on my team was let go.  By that point we had heard of 2 others in the department and countless others across the company.  After it was all said and done, 10% of the positions at the company were eliminated.

When something like this happens, I have very conflicting emotions.  I feel bad for everyone who lost their jobs.  But, in some cases, I feel that the company was justified eliminating those who did not add value.  I won't go into details about each, but for those cuts that directly affected me, some were horrible mistakes (someone else should have been eliminated instead) and some were necessary. I sincerely hope each and everyone of them is able to find employment in a place where they can be a valuable contributor.  

Enough of this now.  It is over and it is time to move on.  I have a new manager.  He and I seem to be philosophically aligned.  I'm hopeful that that the future holds good things.

My evenings this week were spent trying to participate in activities that kept me from brooding over the events at work. Knitting didn't happen, except at work when I had to pull out my carry-along project to calm my nerves on Thursday.

My current carry-along project is My Blue Loop.  

Somehow when I was knitting the third section of lace, I reversed the direction of that the stitches leaned.  This was not intentional.  I decided that instead of ripping out, I'll do the fourth section in the same direction as the third.  I think it adds symmetry to the piece.  It turns out it was a happy mistake.