Caterwauling

“Gritting your teeth, you hold onto me
It’s never enough, I’m never complete
Tell me to prove, expect me to lose
I push it away, I’m trying to move
Hoping for more, and wishing for less
When I didn’t care was when I did best
I’m desperate to run, I’m desperate to leave
If I lose it all, at least I’ll be free.”

— Broods, “Free”

When my bosses came to me with really, the worst idea ever, I said, “Over my dead body will I (insert what I was asked to do).”

For the girl who did everything asked of her, and then some, for the past six years (40 years, but who’s counting?), they were stunned.

I didn’t elaborate. But come on over to my desk (and everybody does because I’m hilarious), and I will HAPPILY fill you in.

We all had a good old time today when I did what I needed to do for a long time. Not what was asked of me. But what I should have done to prevent that even being an option in the first place.

I told the bosses about it. Like I’d said, over my dead body. Now that is no longer an option because there are literally no choices in the matter left. The one said, “OK” and we talked about that nitwit Trump’s nitwit “shithole” comment instead.

I mean, really, it’s their problem. It always was. I’m sorry I can’t help. And I’m grateful that I don’t have to explain why #timesup on this particular “thing.”

“I have lived my life so perfectly
Kept to all my lines so carefully
I’d lose everything so I can sing
Hallelujah, I’m free
I’m free, I’m free
I’m free, I’m free, I’m free
Hallelujah, I’m free.”

I asked my friend if I could be fired for this. She said who knows. But wouldn’t it be worth it to never, ever have to even think about it ever again?

It’s a good day to be me.

Despite knowing your industry, knowing everyone in it AND being remarkably capable at your corner of it, folks will still listen to unimpressive cads who suggest you’re not the right fit for new opportunities to do, be and know more in it.

Look. I’m not going to bang on doors that aren’t meant to open. But a lousy reference says more about the person giving it — and the person who heeds it — than the person who doesn’t get a chance to defend him or herself.

I love my Planned Parenthood app. No incriminating words needed.

“Leaving’s hard, trust me, it’s really bad
It’ll shake you, damn near break you, it always has
You don’t go until you’re praying to break even,
Until staying is worse than leaving.”

— Sunny Sweeney, “Staying’s Worse Than Leaving”

I prayed to keep this apartment. Now it drives me crazy again.

I prayed to keep this job somehow. They (sort of) gave it back to me. And when I approached after another fucked-up commute and saw smoke billowing out of a (nearby, damn) building, it was an “Office Space” moment. I thought, hmm, should I turn around?

Have to keep reminding myself that, yeah. Staying definitely feels worse than leaving. But no paychecks are MUCH worse than paychecks.

There’s a guy I write about here from time to time. Nicest guy ever. Also not the brightest.

I’ve probably referred to him as “soccer ball to the skull” more times than not. Dreaming out loud, sort of a modern-day Lucy to the good grief his Charlie Brown-ness creates in my life.

So, we’re all hitting the street, yes? He told me he had two great interviews. I gave him the DL on both, and when he said the one he really wanted, I immediately called my executive friend over there and raved.

Not only that, but I called a friend who knows the guy he interviewed with. And HE raved too.

Look, I did it to spread good karma. Not for any other reason. But …

I can’t help being hurt that he told everyone ELSE about getting … and accepting … an offer. An offer that I am pretty sure having two strong references helped him to get.

He’ll make more money, too. You’re welcome.

He got the offer around the same time a project I sent over got completely fucked up. Completely. His great talent is asking 1,000 questions and yet not reading/listening to most of the answers.

I’d normally have a shit fit. But hey, I get that both feet are out the door now. I say we push the rest out before I try to shoot a goal at his tonsils.

The way I think of it, I just made him someone else’s problem. Maybe he’ll excel. He’s never going to do that where he is now. Never had to. Never planned to.

My real fear? I don’t want to turn out average and checked-out like him. I’m afraid that’s my path if I don’t find a fork in the road that actually whets my appetite rather than ruins it at every turn.

“I got a feeling I, I can’t get over
Maybe all we had has always been right
Think of all the love you gain when you send it over
Think of all the wool I’ve spun to be here tonight.”

Nathaniel Rateliff, “Wasting Time”

My soul is tired.

One month ago, less a couple of days, I was told I was getting evicted from my house AND my job.

A Category 5 shitstorm washed away my plans for Thanksgiving dinner and, oh, being able to afford to move and pay for an emergency car repair that contained a comma.

Then grace found me. The landlord said stay put till you get a job. The company said stay till after Christmas … then till Jan. 5 … then till Feb. 1.

My friend Sue said buy a tree. It arrived today. So did my long-awaited shipment of PB2 chocolate peanut-butter powder. That was my Christmas. All downhill from there.

That’s OK. Every day I’ve thanked God for the same things — for Momma, for Kadie, for Stewie, for gas in Stewie’s tank, for wine for the holidays and a roof over my head during them.

Thankful to Dada for introducing me to Boneshaker, and to Crown Spirits in Fort Lauderdale for selling it.

I’ve told everyone I’m going to believe in Santa Claus this year. And I know I’ve been lucky …

Sue buried her sister-in-law. Cindy buried her aunt. Five of seven people who got walked out of the building got in their cars with no new job to go to. At least one felt like retirement is the only option at this point. Another went home to pack up to leave the state for a new opportunity.

I’ve tried to stay positive. We all have. It’s been emotionally exhausting for all of us.

Productivity is in a dead heat with morale in the limbo contest. Staying or going, doesn’t matter. Things change every day. You can find favor or lose it just as easily.

I give thanks for a safe, if not stupidly long, commute.

And then, Santa Claus came to my office today in the form of the owner’s nephew. Who took me to a meeting with the owner. Who said Santa is staying in town if you’re interested.

No, you don’t get to stay editorial director. Just keep doing all the work and assist the foo with the title. But you can get another title and another 40-hour load on top of it if you want it.

I mean, given that an offshoot of Fox News is calling me to lead their conservative, Trump-boot-licking production team, there are WORSE options.

Why me? Why save me, and why now? Because last week I said how much I loved the company … loved the work I’ve done … loved my boys … and how sad I was to see it all come to an end.

That stuck with him. You don’t let go of people like that.

Mom says I’m probably going to eat those words.

I have a lot to think about. Uncertainty is the name of the game whether I stay or go. I mean, at least getting the boot was the most amount of certainty I’ve had in a long time.

In any event, I just put up my tree and I’m parking my tired soul beside it tonight and watching “The Great Christmas Light Fight.” My tree is simple and a replacement of one I threw out in the last move. I’m just glad the lights work. (I bought the same tree last year and it didn’t light.)

So this is Christmas …

Much better …

Just happy to have a tree … a roof … a Christmas … and a happy-ish new year ahead.

It looks like my chance to leap isn’t going to look like I thought it would. I just hope this recommitment to a thousand-hour workweek doesn’t stop me from seeking … and taking … something I might love. But who can say no, really, to a very unexpected personal invitation like this one?

“I don’t need to talk about the world, all right?
I just want to sleep with a smile tonight.”

— Portugal, “Smile”

Got a good sleep, for a change. Maybe it was recovery from the 2.5 hours I got Friday and the maybe-three I got Thursday night. Maybe it was having a good Saturday too.

Today I updated my resume. The latest version hasn’t done shit for me. Maybe this one will help me find my next home faster.

A good friend from an old job reminded me that I don’t have to believe in me. Enough of them are doing that on my behalf, and I’ll be fine because of it.

Bless her. She was always a treasure. I imagine she had to have heard about this godawful situation somehow, because I haven’t been reaching out to the people I need most, lest the person who drove us into the Titanic gets into another of his screaming fits that someone else heard about the iceberg somehow.

She knew what I needed to hear, when I heard it. Because I didn’t know and God my heart swells with joy now that I do.

I wonder if I’m going to live through this after all …

Well, the latest Layoff Day was as miserable as I thought it would be.

I should be used to saying goodbye to my friends by now. But it never really gets easier.

I spent the day working on a project for some jag who should have been working on it but probably would have screwed it up. I see the previous two issues his team published and the complete lack of punctuation in the sentences. And the owner added literally 97 special requests to this process. All of which I handled and had to tap no fewer than four people to help me handle.

It all came together, thank God. And surprisingly, the only tears I shed where when my friends came to hug me and goodbye.

However, there was a wonderful rage-filled moment when the jag sent an email to all my boys with the SL: “Greetings from your new editorial director.” Fuck you, jagoff. Let the body get cold, OK? I’m still here, doing YOUR work and not my own. So thank God I still had a full (read: already reduced, and about to be reduced AGAIN) team through yesterday.

One of my boys emailed me to say, wow, holy power trip up there. Yeah, no shit. Good luck with that. No more Goddess for you when my own Layoff Day arrives.

“I might be more a man if I stopped this in its tracks
And said come on, let’s go home.
But she’s got the wheel,
And I’ve got nothing except what I have on.”

— Del Amitri, “Driving With the Brakes On”

I heard this song on Pirate Radio and thought of my earliest days with the company. Back when I was brought in before my start date to attend a copywriting class with the owner.

I met a boy that day. He was videotaping the whole ordeal. The tapes got lost somewhere. Probably because another attendee challenged the owner on something. They made that person disappear fast. The footage soon followed.

That boy asked me out at some point. And I probably dedicated a million words on this blog to the ensuing thrills and aches.

He didn’t survive a major layoff, and I did. Said relationship, whatever was left at that point, didn’t survive either. All I have left of him is a Drive-By Truckers CD and a Facebook friendship with two of his friends who live in my neighborhood.

He would love Del Amitri. Maybe he does love them. I almost wanted to send him this song but for what, really? Do I tell him I am meeting the same career fate he did? That I feel just as emasculated that my livelihood that I love now has an end date and there’s no new beginning in sight?

He’d probably say the right thing about it. The man was never at a loss for words or an intelligent observation. He’d probably look damn cute saying it. And then he’d retreat, like he was so good at.

Beat me at my own game, that one. I thought *I* was emotionally unavailable until I tried to pull him out from under the rock he loved hiding under.

“When you’re driving with the brakes on,
When you’re swimming with your boots on,
It’s hard to say you love someone
And it’s hard to say you don’t.”

Anyway. Hard to stay dead inside when so many emotion-invoking things keep happening. I look forward to returning to my status of being unavailable to jobs and heartache. But right now, I am more available than I ever wanted to be. And the fear of falling … fear of failing … is more than my cold little heart can take.

Well, to be fair, my team got shitcanned back in May. But then I moved to a NEW team, and let’s just say they’ve been thinning my new herd since August.

Then we got the word on Nov. 7 that the rest of us who hadn’t been laid off were going to be seeing the streets as soon as Dec. 1. That day is here.

The good news is, a lot of us were asked to stay for a few more weeks, another month, heck another two or three months. I am super, super blessed in that I am currently in the “will turn off the lights” category.

Unfortunately, the first real wave of departures begins today. And again, my team is first up on the cutting block.

I was asked to do a Sophie’s Choice between two people. (I mean, really, we are already down to nothing in the way of support staff.) I won’t lie — my choice was easy from a productivity and cooperation standpoint. But now that the day is here, it’s 4 a.m. and I am staring at the ceiling because, Jesus. I just had to ruin someone’s Christmas.

I mean, I know the blame isn’t on my shoulders. There’s not a single decision I made or COULD have made that could have reversed this ridiculousness.

But then there’s the guilt of outlasting the next person — the one who gave it all and then some. But, I mean, so did I. Maybe not 21 years but I gave up a whole lot of nights, weekends, (purchaseD) concert tickets, vacations and life events to keep the lights on this long.

Folks see and know that. They know they can’t reward me fully, but they can throw me a lifeline when I need it most. And you better believe I appreciate it.

It’s win-win for me. More time to job-hunt. More time to do what I love.

And that’s the thing. I love, love, love what I do. Even all the crazy characters who crossed my path and drove me to distraction sometimes. I don’t know anyone who loved their work … and the people for whom she did it … more than me.

A dear friend from Pittsburgh said, “How lucky for you that you’ve found your passion.” Indeed.

But it’s a small niche in the world. There are few roles like it anywhere else. And believe me, they are all filled and they are all filled with lesser versions of me.

How do you transition from goddess of your universe to … well … the rest of the universe?

And if by some snowball’s chance I can stay exactly where I am for longer than a minute, will I just find myself in the same situation down the road?

Or, what if I don’t find a way to make a leap now, I never will … and then after 21 years no one will want me because I haven’t achieved anything else?

It’s all so maddening. My soul is tired. If it’s even still in there somewhere.

I’m guessing my mind weighs 1.6 pounds. Because that’s what the scale at Weight Watchers says I’ve shed since last week.

Normally I stay the same. I do gain a few ounces here and there, or lose an ounce or two. So, for Thanksgiving week — and two vats of Mom’s wonderful stuffing balls — to come and go and still lose weight, dude. I’m pretty overjoyed.

We got to talking at our meeting about planning for the holidays. Not just Thanksgiving or Hanukkah or Christmas or Kwanzaa or whatever holidays those tiki torch Nazis celebrate or condemn. But what about the days leading up to it, and the recovery days afterward?

I do talk at meetings. (I waxed poetic about how I REGRET NOTHING after eating my weight in stuffing balls, while others boo-hooed that they drank too much wine or whatever. DUDE. Suck it up and move the hell on. I promise. You’ll lose those extra pounds when you’re meant to.)

But I was silent on the subject when Leslie asked what events we have to face this season.

Everyone else was yapping about office parties. Meanwhile my head was screaming MUST BE NICE TO HAVE A JOB AT CHRISTMAS. Or a company that hadn’t downsized so freaking much in the past few years that you know NOT to count on any kind of raise, bonus or holiday gift even though YOU BUSTED YOUR BUNNY ALL YEAR.

Ahem.

In any event, you know what events I have this year, other than not stress-eating every time someone else walks out the door for good? Happy hours and going-away lunches. Not company-sponsored of course. But drowning sorrows as another one bites the dust. Self included.

I always wished I were one of those people who lost weight from stress. Hoo boy, not me. Give me ALL THE LENTIL CHIPS. And I have three bags sitting two feet from me right now … and a half-empty one in front of me that I WILL polish off because GODDAMN IT my attention span is short these days and this, at least, I can finish.

If I can make it through this, I can make it through anything. But Jesus Christ, I love my job/field so much and yet EVERYONE ELSE has offers and interviews. Why don’t I? Is the universe just saving the best for last? Or does everyone expect that, because I know everyone and everything in the field, I’ll be fine and don’t need any help?

I know it can be — and has been — worse. I also know that believing in Santa Claus has kept me going this long. I’ve had some pretty good luck along the way too.

I just hope what’s left of my Christmas spirit … and it’s not even December yet … can sustain me for a lot longer. And that it can pay the bills and then some. And that I at least go dead inside if I must, so I can’t eat my feeling because I won’t have any of those anymore.