Yesterday the company I worked for followed through on things that had been going on for a long time. From my perspective things started going down hill some months back, when we had two consultants come in to evaluate the organization. (Anyone else remember "The Bobs" from Office Space? Yes, it was something like that.) Others tell me strange things were going on before I even hired back in, but most didn't know or note them at the time.
In any case, yesterday I was let go. The technical term for this kind of job action is "Reduction In Force" (aka, a RIF). As I understand these things, there is a legal difference between a layoff and a RIF. In a layoff, the company is obligated to hire the employees back preferentially if their jobs become available. In a RIF the company has decided these jobs are being eliminated permanently, and as a result no one will be hired for a similar job for some period of time.
In my case, the company is clearly not going to be hiring more people like me for a long, long time. Probably never again, in fact. They're taking a hammer to the organization that was Concentric and sucking it into XO completely. Those of us who did Concentric specific things are on the chopping block, now and probably in the future, though (of course) no one in charge anywhere would say or admit that.
As a result of these events I begin a new part of my life today. A life once again without work, at least for now. I don't know how long that will last. I might have to (or even want to) go back again. I might do some contract work, or not. For the moment I am taking a wait and see attitude, and using the time to catch up on a lot of things that have been put off over the last year.
There will be some changes in this blog and more changes to my sculpture web site. There will be additional posts in the new art blog, and I think I'm going to start a third blog as a place to put my personal book reviews, since that'll be simpler than the way I am currently publishing them. I probably need to spend some serious time learning web design more than I now know it, and I have a web site to play with for my fencing club for that little effort.
On top of all of that there are lots of projects around the house that have been put off for months, and a lot of stone carving to do too. I want to do some fiction writing as well. Maybe some of that will make it's way onto the web if I like the results.
In all, I have no shortage of things to do, and now I have a lot more time to do them. I'll keep you updated on things here too, of course.
Many thanks to the support I have received from friends who already knew about the RIF. I am amazed at the support I get from all of you. It means a great deal to me.
And so, on with day one.
