Nine to Five

The question I'm asked most often by my seven or so dedicated Bambi readers is why I don't post more often. Actually, that's not true. The questions I'm asked most often are in fact, a)When are you coming over? b)When you come over, can you bring wine? and c) You know it's not a good idea to keep seeing that guy...right? To be fair, that last one is really more of a statement, and definitely rhetorical in nature.

After all of that is said and done, I'm usually asked why in the hell it's taken me so long to post anything new. There is an explanation for this phenomenon, and I wish I could say it's because my time has been occupied by much better causes like my dedicated volunteer work with Pool Boys for Puppies or Women Against Bedazzled Vaginas, but I can't. I can't even say these charitable causes currently exist, but perhaps when I'm able to blog as often as I like I can start grassroots movements I'm passionate about.

Also, if you weren't aware there are women out there who bedazzle their vaginas, there are. I'm not certain which of the four horesmen of the Apocalypse bedazzled vaginas represents, but there you have it.

What usually prevents me from writing anything new is actually stress, and lately stress has been preventing me from a lot of activities I would normally perform on a regular basis. Important ones like breathing, and knowing when to stop shovelling dessert into my face.

I try very hard not to write about work, but to not say anything at all about it seems disingenuous at this point. It may be shocking for anybody who only knows me from my blog that I have a career. Long-time readers of this blog would probably be shocked to learn I manage to put my underpants on the right way on the first try, nearly half of the time.

Lately though, my career is in serious jeopardy. My company is being "streamlined." This is what the consultants who've been hired to escort former staff members from their offices to their cars and then off of the company property call the process.

There usually isn't any warning, but I have heard a few times that employees who were let go did receive some hints they should start looking for a cardboard box to pack up their belongings.

On at least one occasion, a staffer on the chopping block received an auto-generated email notice alerting him that his contact details had been removed from the internal distribution list, hours before he was actually called to the HR office and officially told his position had been eliminated.

So far, there hasn't been any way to predict who might be leaving. Purely by accident, I was standing nearby and overheard a discussion amongst key decision makers in the "streamlining" process. They had printed out the company phone list and were trailing their fingers down the alphabetized names asking, "Who is this person again?" and "What does she do?" followed by, "Is that important?"

Abject terror that the axe will swing my way, causing me to lose my home, much needed medical benefits and everything I've worked for to this point would be bad enough, given my rather limited options in this stunted economy. My voice would be much too snarky for either phone sex or fast food drive throughs, and I'm way too pudgy for porn. Basically, I'm totally screwed.

I'm used to random panic. I've written about my rather unique anxiety disorder on this blog, and I admit I'm the worst kind of hypochondriac. Just this morning I convinced myself that the sudden pain in my head and strong smell of toast were sure signs of an oncoming stroke, even though I was eating toast at the time.

The point is, I'm very good at freaking the fuck out for very little reason, but what happens when I have reason?

I spent an hour sitting opposite the vice-president of my company this morning, having a strip surgically removed from my side. The vice-president shared that the president of the company is not happy with me. Is in fact, "livid" with me. Has been for weeks.

Apparently the president thought I did a very poor job of planning a recent event. I made a point of asking how the president could be angry with my work on this recent event when the president hadn't bothered to attend.

This is the point where I begin to question my sanity in 5...4...3...2...

The vice-president said the president said he was there. For the record, the vice-president was also unable to attend, so had to rely on the president for feedback, and I swear on everything holy up to and including Bernard Callebaut chocolate drizzled on a hot naked firefighter that the goddamned president did not attend.

It was a small venue, with a crowd of less than 50 people. I was looking for the president the entire time, as I had several people wanting an introduction. Granted, I didn't look under the tables or check the mens bathroom, but if he was there I would have seen him. And so I reiterated. The president was not there. The VP reiterated that the president said he was. I said that can't be. Then my head exploded.

I'm concerned my company has grown tired of paying severance packages and is going a different route. Employees will now be fired for a combination of simple errors stemming from mind-numbing overwork (after all, the tasks associated with all those eliminated positions have to be picked up somewhere), and failing that, they'll just make shit up to get staff off the payroll.

Hours I could be spending writing are now used fruitlessly searching for job openings. The rest of my time is spent weeping in the fetal position and wondering how much money I can get if I sold one of my eggs. Maybe an ovary? It's not like I'm using any of them.