Ok, so it’s been a month sinse I got ‘downzized’.

What have I done?

Well, I hit Toronto MotorSport Speedway for the annual ‘weekend at Cayuga’ with my BF, Penny and Mr. B, et al. (Pictures pending.) Then, I spent a few days getting caught up on the house and all and took off with my BF to my brother’s near Pembroke, Ontario, and swung down to see my mother in Belleville for the first time in 10 yrs.

Since then, I’ve been tackling cleaning and maintenance jobs around the house that were let go too long, touching base with people I hadn’t seen in too long, and found out that my stepfather passed away. (RIP Deckle) Unfortunately, though, time’s getting away on me and I’ve got to make some choices and get my back end in gear. Mortgages don’t pay themselves you know <|: )

Well, this is it.

Went to work, tried to take it like any other day, but it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. Guess when you’ve worked as long as I have in one place you make connections and form attachments. I always joked about doing my ‘I quit’ dance and all, but I didn’t. No sense burning bridges and all.

Heck, I even tried to thank our site manager… not something I’d normally do but this one was extraordinary… but he brushed me off. I tried telling him that he was the only one of the half dozen I’d dealt with during my tenure that actually learned my name and practised the ‘open door’ policy that so many only pay lip service to. Unfortunately, he brushed me off, saying it was ‘hard’.

Hard? I wanted to ask. Well, how hard do you think it’s been for me (and my co-workers) working for a company that froze my wages, ripped me off on health benefits, or kept me on the job when I should have been on bereivement leave? How hard has it been being refurred to as a ‘body’ they’ve forced to… ARGH!

No! I can’t go there!

What’s done is done and I should focus on posiitive things like staying in touch with the people I care about and finding a job that let’s me feel like I’ve done something constructive or useful.

Yes, I wish my friends and co-workers luck and love. I pray the company and it’s minions… I mean ‘managers’… luck in finding their humanity. Now I need to let it go… be done : )

Odd.

I always thought leaving this place would be easy. I figured I’d exchange numbers with a couple of friends, do my “I QUIT!” dance, and laugh my butt out the door, but it seems like it’s more complicated than that. Not that the company would make it ‘hard’. No! Asked the Big guy today and it looks like Thursday will be my last day. Hard to believe!

Well, today started out like any other…

I got to work on time. The boss dropped by to say he’d ‘run the numbers’ and get back to us, and I joked about ‘not holding my breath’. A friend, sure something was ‘wrong’, scolded me for it but the 6 month ‘pilot project’ we were on was well into it’s 3^rd year and I’d long since tired of my teammates’ Chicken Little outlook.

‘This is it! They’re pulling the campaign!’ she hissed, (which in call centre lingo means ‘we’re getting fired!’) just as the boss stuck his head out and started calling people into his office one at a time.

‘You’re always saying that,’ I teased, and asked why today would be different from all the others, but I wasn’t laughing long because, with little preamble, the boss openned by using the ‘C’ word.

You see, one of the first rules of call centre life I’d learned was that ‘change is the only constant’, the second was that it seldom favoured the employee, and the third was that the company’d stop at nothing to coerce people into doing what was good for the company. So, as soon as the Big Guy mentioned ‘change’ I started weighing my need to pay my mortgage against my distaste for ‘screwing’ people.

‘We’re losing 40% of our business,’ he announced., and then told methe team would be cut in half and that the remaining reps would have their hours cut and all work and holliday schedules scrapped. He finnished by glancing at a chart on his desk and telling me I’d likely end up working evenings and weekends.

Still convinced it was all a ‘ploy’, I asked about ‘options’, expecting to to be offered a slot on one of the hard-core collections teams that ‘just happenned’ to be open, but he shocked me again by saying I could hold out hold out in hopes the contract’d get picked up again at summer’s end or take my severence and leave.

‘Sev…er…ence…?!?’ I stuttered, because like ‘union’, ‘raise’, and ‘thank you’, I’d herd the word so seldom it felt alien to my tongue. When he gave me a number, though, I almost fainted. ‘How long do I have to decide?’ I asked, and while he didn’t say anything, his expression made clear that it was a ‘take it NOW or lose it’ situation.

Grabbing my cell phone, I told him I’d be back, and left to make some calls. Hours later, having failed to reach anyone for advice and dizzy from trying to ‘reason’ things out on my own, I asked myself how I ‘felt’ about leaving and was shocked yet again to learn I was excited.

‘Excited?!?’ I thought, sure my gut was ‘off’ because of stress, but when I cleared my head and asked again, my gut was ‘thrilled’…! ‘WTF’ I thought. ‘Really?!’ But then I realized that ,as traumatic as they’d been, some of the biggest risks and changes I’d been through in the past few years had lead to some of the biggest bennefits.

Later, while breaking the news to my BF, I admitted I’d probably end up melting down when the reality of the situation set in, but I’d deal with it when the time came. For now, I’m just hoping that I can put my money where my mouth is and find or make a job I can actually feel good about instead of wasting the oportunity I’m being given.

Today is my 45th birthday. I’m in relatively good shape and health. I’ve raised two amazing kids and been blessed with a granddaughter I adore. I’ve got the best friends and I’m dating a man I love and respect. I’ve got a lovely home and own my car out-right, have a decent job, and live in one of the most beautiful places in Canada… no … the world!

Of course I could always use more time and money and there are some things in life and the world as a whole that I’d change if I could, but here in my own little world life if good. In fact, I’d even say I’m ‘blessed’.

Happy birthday to me, indeed!

‘All it takes is one phone call from (her) and that’s it…?’ he said.
‘No, baby,’ I wanted to say. It wasn’t ONE call… it was one MORE…
One more call, one more avoidance, one more chance to make a choice… but when the chance came up, what did he choose…?
He chose to be a ‘nice guy’… to think of himself and what was comfortable for him rather than what was good for ‘us’… and when the shit hit the fan he chose to blame it on me – to avoid and hide instead of owning what he’d done and giving us the chance to deal with it as a couple.
Guess that wasn’t as important to him as protecting her… or his ego…
Well… ‘if that’s what it takes to sleep at night, baby,’ I thought… and I left.
I left because I can’t take anymore ‘buts’…
‘But, baby! I wasn’t serious then!’ ‘But, baby! She’s psycho!’ ‘But, baby! You’re making me uncomfortable!’ ‘Can’t we just avoid…?’
No. WE can’t. Or at least I can’t.
I can’t take wondering who or what he’s doing… wondering when he’ll choose himself or his ex or the next over me… or when…
It doesn’t matter.
All that matters now… all that’s EVER mattered… is choice.
All it’d take is a phone call… just pick up the hand set… dial the number… and call…
The question’s whether he’ll choose to make it or not though…?
If he did, I’d figure it out. I’d do everything in my power to make ‘us’ work. I’d love him… God! Help me! I love him even now!… but it’s his choice.

Haven’t posted much about it but working on my house and want to consider this… http://www.dezignwithaz.com/?gclid=CMG86fzsjKgCFZFoKgodzU0CDw

For weeks, I’ve wanted to tell my boyfriend how great he is, and how grateful I am, but talking about the present risks touching on the past which he could hear as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and my ‘point’ could get lost in translation. Take how happy he made me by taking me to a bar, recently, for example…
 
Now, bars aren’t ‘my thing’, really,  but my BF thinks they’re essential and has taken me to more in our few months together than I’ve seen in all my years past. Yet another wouldn’t have fazed me, then, if he hadn’t insisted on frequenting a particular bar, where a particular bar hag hangs, and putting his ego before his choices and my welfare.
Of course, most chicks would have dropped him (the first time), but I’m not ‘most chicks’, and it didn’t take much to see that my BF was possessed of a ginormous and untamed ego, while the hag was the type that’s so caught up in her own drama she didn’t care who she did it with. That meant neither was willing or able to see me as a ‘person’ and would have done the same to anyone, making it my choice whether to take things ‘personal’ or not. Easy-going as I am, then, I could have let a lot slide if it weren’t for his knowing that she’d be there and apt to take shots. Heck! I might even have been ‘impressed’ if he’d backed me, barred her, and made sure that was it (!)
As you’ll probably guess, though, he didn’t.
Instead, he chalked it up to ‘jealousy’ and played games (for lack of a better term) while avoiding unwanted choices.
Don’t get me wrong, though, ’cause my BF’s the smartest, sweetest, sexiest guy going and we’ve had more fun together than anyone should! He also happens to be such a ‘nice guy’ that most folks don’t question his ego and, with no one to challenge it, it runs the show making him ‘gap’ on details… like ‘manners’… or the fact I don’t beak when he has dinners with his ex wife or meets his friend’s GFs for drinks time to time… because ignoring them’s easier than owning his choices and the responsibility that goes with them.
Thing is, though, I’m not ‘most folks’.
I did ‘question’. I pointed out ‘choices’. And, I waited. It wasn’t long before I was dreading spring, though, couldn’t pass that particular bar (or any, really) without my gut clenching, and had some choices to make of my own.
Just when ‘walking’ seemed the best choice, though, my BF apparently dropped the games and straightened his act out. ‘Course, I was pleased, but you don’t get over the kind of stress he’d caused without some kind of effort, and the best I could muster was ‘cautious enthusiasm’. Even when he ditched that particular bar for another, I knew all too well that it could simply mean the same drama played out by new players. When he invited me to join him there, though, it quickly became apparent that he was making a new kind of ‘choice’ that showed ‘we’ were a priority.

That’s why his taking me to the bar meant so much and why I’ve said less than I could.
My BF, after all, is a smart one, and wouldn’t take much to see that my happiness now is atleast partially related to the greif that he caused in the past. He’s sweet and quite apt to feel badly if he learned just how bad it all got. But, his ego could easily negate ‘who’ I am, hear ‘bad’ over ‘good’, and – loving the fact that he’s ‘sexy’ – use it to cause us more grief. And that, I coulldn’t take!
You see, jealousy’s no more ‘my thing’ than the bars, but no chick likes having to wonder who or what her man’s doing. Least of all, me. But, you can only hear the ‘but baby!’s so long before you know there’s an ‘issue’, and I just couldn’t take another ‘I wasn’t serious then’.