One difference that I realized with this event - different from literally any other event in my life - is that this is the first one that TB The Elder is not present for. I realized this today as I was randomly thinking about something associated with talking to people - "What would Dad have said?" suddenly popped into my mind.
I am pretty sure I know, of course: Sorry to hear it, you will be fine, your mother and I are here if you need anything. It was just strange that literally, for the first time, he was not one of the first people I reached out to with such news.
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The casualties slowly continue to mount on Linked Out. Everyone is getting the same recommendations from one or more of the same people: The initially phrasing of the posts (or the supportive posts) is pretty much a carbon copy. The cross linking for others is thoughtful.
It does still make me sad though. Every posting has a face (and possibly faces) behind it. Certainly we are not talking end of the world devastation, but we are are meaningfully talking some element of life devastation. I know the work these people put in, the long nights, the weekends, the supreme efforts in hope of achieving a better end - after all, we were making medications to help people - all to come suddenly to an end one Thursday afternoon. All that efforts - lost sleep, lost time with family and friends, high levels of stress - gone as if it never mattered.
Dear Industry: If you are looking for a reason people become loathe to give you more than minimal effort, start here.
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One of the activities I performed to help me get perspective on all of this is to make a list of the good things that this job helped me to do:
- Allowed two of three children to finish their school at a Christian school.
- Allowed all three children to start and finish high school at the same place.
- Allowed us to fully help the two older ones complete their college education and put the third one in a strong cash position for her school.
- Allowed us to travel to Iceland, Costa Rica, and the upcoming vacation in June.
- Allowed us to largely pay cash/completely pay off two cars.
- Allowed me to travel to Japan 3 times to train (would have been more, but The Plague) and supported the same number of training sessions with the head of our school traveling here.
- Allowed me to take up hiking, going to the Grand Canyon and Mt. Whitney and other smaller hikes.
- Allowed me to get the equipment I needed for Iaijutsu, including two more formal sets of gi/hakama, a 3 shaku iaito, and fitting out my 3.2 shaku shinken.
- Allowed me to get training programs and use a gym for weight training.
- Allowed me to change careers and keep my then current company.
- Allowed me to get a certification for my new job role.
- Allowed me, as part of that job change, to be able to go back to Old Home to see my parents once a month and then, once both of them had to go into retirement homes, continue to travel back and see them once a month.
- Allowed me to support my family better than likely I deserved.
Any two of those things would be amazing. The fact that all of them happened is even more amazing. Even if things are a little harder from here on out, there are memories embedded there that will well outlast my life time.
It is okay to be bitter about how things ended, but I should not let that remove all the good things that happened for 6.5 years until that last moment.
A healthy way to look at life in general friend.
ReplyDeleteThere was a bird that lived in Canada. One winter he announced to the other birds, “I’m not flying south for the winter. I’m staying right here!”
All the other birds said he was crazy, but he answered, “You’re the ones that are crazy. You’ll get down south, turn around and fly right back up here again next year. What’s the point?!”
The other birds took to flight and left him behind.
Wondering what winter in Canada would be like, the lone bird was pleasantly surprised at the stretch of Indian Summer that lingered long into the fall. “Aha!” he said to himself, “I was right to stay. This is wonderful!”
But then, winter hit full force in the middle of December. Shuddering in the cold the silly bird finally realized, “I must hurry and leave before I freeze to death!”
He took to flight and made it as far as Montana. There, in mid-air, he froze up and tumbled to the ground; landing in a farmer’s barnyard. “Oh, what a stupid bird I am,” he moaned to himself. “I should’ve flown south with all the other birds, but now I am about to die.”
Just then a cow in the barnyard strolled past the fallen bird and without realizing it dropped a big cow-plop right on top of him! “Oh, this is just great,” mumbled the buried bird. “It’s not bad enough that I’m about to die; now I’m covered with cow manure!”
But then he noticed something he had not expected. The warmth of the plop actually began to thaw him out and restore him to life. “Why, what do you know about that?” said the bird. “This ain’t so bad after all!” Then he began chirping and singing under the pile of cow plop.
Meanwhile, the barnyard cat was passing by and heard the sound of singing coming from the pile. Curious as a cat can be, he pawed around in the pile and uncovered the thawed bird. Their eyes met, there was a silent moment of suspense, and then the cat ate the bird.
The Moral of the Story
· First, not everyone who dumps on you is your enemy.
· Second, not everyone who cleans it off is your friend.
· Third, when you get dumped on, it is best to keep your mouth shut.
I'm not sure if Stoics are allowed to chuckle, but I hope this helps a little.
Michael - Thanks for the reminder! I have heard the story, but it is always good to hear again (and heaven knows we need as much good humor as we can get these days).
DeleteI would argue, at least from my own reading, that the Stoics had a pretty good sense of humor. It was largely directed at themselves most of all.
Perspective.
ReplyDeleteIf the looming problem was the size of your thumb, you can hold your hand out at arm's length and the problem does not seem that large.
But if you hold the same thumb directly in front of your eye, you cannot see anything past the problem.
Getting to where you have the correct perspective is not an easy task, and the same problem looms larger and smaller depending on a lot of factors.
As you mentioned in one of your replies, people are not quite the same after a layoff, and I know i wasn't.
Ever since the layoff in '95 I have given my employers good value for my salary, but I never again gave what I was truly capable of.
(Holds thumb out in front of eye....Hey, it works!)
DeleteI like that John - it is a very visual and clear description of perspective. The Stoics spent a great deal of time dealing with how we see events in life as they impact us, so they would 100% agree with this approach.
Impact - I know I was never the same even before my first layoff, when I realized that up to and including 20+ hour days meant almost nothing except "Thank you, can we get more?". And my first layoff - and it was well handled, sensitive affair - none the less made me hyper aware of how one can give their best effort and still be a number.
Like you, I have learned to give value but not the maximum effort. I have also learned never to fall in love with a company or its mission. They will take every single ounce they can get from you, and then drop you on a dime. It truly is a fee for service relationship - both ways.
It is amazing at how our parents come back into our minds at times like these. Just a couple days ago my oldest was at a track meet for the first time this season. She had spent winter training and I could see a remarkable performance increase. I was so happy and wondered what my mom would have said as we were congratulating her. Then I realized, my mom doesn't even know that my oldest even runs track. That thought caught me by surprise and saddened me a bit.
ReplyDeleteEd, it is. I was truly surprised that it only came to mind yesterday. I do wonder if part of that is the relative delay in talking to my father at all of such things in the recent past - I had not really talked to him about "current events" since December of 2020. That is two years and change past - and when we saw him after the stroke, such things never even entered my mind as conversation points.
DeleteIt does make me wonder if Heaven is as much of a catch up session as it is renewed meetings.
I think Heaven is when we see our people as the truly are. "I never again gave what I was truly capable of." Life does that to us too. I've been struggling with that after the end of my 40 year marriage.
ReplyDeleteI did the same thing after we went from salary to hourly. I became a very legalistic employee. I still supported my customers to the best of my ability, but the 24/7 part of it went away. It took me a long time to come to grips with that. The company changed, and I had to abide by their desires. It took a couple years before I was on board.
I don't want to live life like that. I want to be the same person here that I will be There. Being more or less self employed has been freeing in a way that is hard to describe. It has given me the ability to be freer with my time and attention.
STxAR - I remember the first time I realized that effort did not equal reward: I was standing by a stopper washer at 0230 in the morning (having arrived at 0700 the day before) running a validation. As I watched the stoppers bubble away in the hot water, I suddenly realized that I would finish this, go home and sleep for three hours, and then turn around and do it again. It was expected of me; there would be no significant notice of it. That changed how I perceived work.
DeleteI, too, do not wish to live my life like that. And I think a lot of corporate jobs tend that way. It is certainly a time to reassess everything - like you, a bit of an unexpected time to assess.
A long list of good things resulting from your current employment yet that last one..."better than I likely deserved". Don't feel bad about feeling good on accomplishments TB, you weren't bragging. And once a parent or both are gone that bedrock slips a bit........(sigh)
ReplyDeleteThanks Nylon12. Looked at it from that sense, I had a pretty magical 6.5 years. That is not to say the next 6.5 will not be magical, perhaps just in different ways.
DeleteWhile my initial, human reaction is to offer condolences for your situation, reality imposes itself with the seemingly apparent:
ReplyDelete- You appear to be handling the situation with aplomb, having prepared for this or some similar eventuality well beforehand.
-- Even if such composure is a clever façade, you have a wellspring of support from your own circle of friends and acquaintances both analogue and digital, many of whom are likely older and surely wiser than myself.
--- Building on this, I have never suffered a proper hammerfall myself; an interminable wait during The Plague with Damocles' sword over one's head for three weeks seems to pale in comparison to the surety of "thank you for your service".
It makes the twin platitudes of "I'm sorry to hear your misfortune" and "I hope you are doing well" sound as hollow as a phone call from Human Resources, more so from some fool that got lost on his way to the gallery.
I've been told it's preferable to keep silent and let others think you are a fool than to open your mouth and prove them right. Still, I'd rather have the words out than swallow them back and have them fester in silence.
Passing Peanut - No worries. I think one can say both things and mean them both at the same time. The reality is that much of our existence is a dichotomy of good and bad. Part of that is beyond our control - for example, losing a job - but part of it is under our control, as in what we choose to do about it and how we choose to feel about it.
DeleteI sometimes feel your comment of "clever facade" to be not too far off the mark; I sometimes wonder if I am forcing myself to be cheerful about things simply because the alternative is rank depression. Still, I believe it to be at least partially true - and you are 100% correct in that my friends and acquaintances, digital and analogue, have been nothing be supportive and have perhaps a greater confidence in the overall outcome than I may myself.
I appreciate the Damocle's sword visual and am grateful you were not eventually caught under it. I am fortunate in that I have had it happen before and had some idea both how to prepare and what to expect.
Thanks for your kind words and for stopping by!
I have no wisdom here that you don't already possess, TB. Just a prayer for you and those in your predicament. God be with you...
ReplyDeleteThank you Pete! The most important thing of all!
DeleteThere is much to be said for a gratitude list. Yours is a good one.
ReplyDeleteAnd while you said earlier that you would not post more than three days of the Hammerfall, we do look forward to updates as events occur. Enjoy your spring; we're still waiting for ours to begin.
Thank Greg.
DeleteI do intend to post on things I am doing post Hammerfall for sure; it will help me keep myself honest as to my efforts moving forward (and who knows: there may be a good story or two in there).
Spring, sadly, is rapidly lurching to what feels like a long, hot Summer.
An old phrase has carried me many years. "No matter who writes the paycheck I am still self employed".
ReplyDeleteHard to give up giving your all if you care but I learned ways to not let it show. As far as I know when ever I left or was let go morale went down according to old coworker friends.
Anything I created to help me do my job better did not go onto the company server. I laughed as one of the best right hand men I ever had told me later the boss's wife asked him to try to get my password on the only file left on my computer, on purpose bwahahahaha. I removed all the internal links anyway.
A little schadenfrued, like revolution is a good thing don't you think.
BCCL - I confess I find myself conflicted. On the one hand, there are people remaining there that I do care about and do not want to have unnecessarily hurt due to my inaction. On the other hand, I feel highly unmotivated (at the moment, anyway) to do more than the bare minimum - after all, it will not matter at all.
DeleteI will leave my work in good condition - organized and labeled and categorized. What will be lacking, of course, is me and my ability to instantly find "that" e-mail from five years ago that quickly answers the question.
Two other thoughts - this wasn't personal. It has nothing to do with you.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the situation doesn't care, so you being mad at the situation changes nothing. Pick it up, and see where it goes.
But you knew both of those things. Go change the world.
(this was JW)
DeleteJohn - It was not personal and in that sense I am not taking it as such. I am perhaps a touch miffed that bad leadership brought us to this point, with things that (in my opinion) could have been avoided.
DeleteI am trying not to "rush" into anything at the moment - instead, building my list of things to do and starting work on them.
Yes, I suppose I did know it - but it never hurts to be reminded.
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ReplyDeleteGoood Working...Thanks for shairng keep it up
ReplyDelete