Doesn't mean I'm still not busy working.Even as I was being told that I was being let go, my mind was wondering how I was going to complete my commitments to clients. Can't write a report if I'm not there anymore.
For that reason, I accepted the offer to continue on for a "limited time" on an hourly basis to wrap up some of my current projects. The irony is that December has turned out to be one of my busiest times in the last couple of years. I had been telling management this was coming for a while now, but I guess the message didn't get through.
Anyway, my hourly, part-time appointment has led to some almost surreal moments, such as flying last week back to Pascagoula, my second home for much of the summer before last, to assist that client. Today, I had a meeting in the morning with the state environmental agency to plead a case on behalf of another client, then returned to the office to oversee production and publication of a report for a third client, and then I addressed comments on a draft report for still yet another client. Busy day. Meanwhile, I'm still opening the zendo every Monday night and representing the neighborhood on the Atlanta Beltline project.
Who knew unemployment would be such hard work?
Regarding yesterday's post, I was asked, "Has your blogging activity contributed in some way to your present situation?"
I don't believe so. At least it was never mentioned to me, and I never blogged from the office (okay, once or twice over the past three years I might have cut and pasted something I was reading during the day into Blogger for later commentary, but I was always quick and discrete). Also, I've always been careful to never be specific about work, my employer, my clients, and so on. Tony Pierce, author of How to Blog, writes, "Don't write about your work unless you don't care about getting fired." I cared so I didn't, for all the good it wound up doing me.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is I'm keeping busy, I'm still making some money, and I've got some interviews scheduled for next week. Things aren't bad. I get to sleep late, work when I feel like it, and leave when I want. I'm also getting to practice humility and tolerance, and I'm getting to show others that one can still be gracious and grateful in the face of adversity.
3 comments:
lets face it, Shokai. Your are a failure at unemployment in that you have failed to actually be unemployed.
And its not like you got a job washing cars or picking fruit...you are doing what you did and, I hope, getting paid.
Seriously though, its gotta be stressful figuring out what to do about health insurance and wondering if/when the calls for help stop coming and you have to start rustling gigs. Time to write a few articles for the trade magazines so your consultant credentials bulk up a bit and your name stays in the minds of your potential customers. I am assuming you consult on environmental matters and provide forensic testimony...I'd hope our industries will need more rather than less such servcies now that Boxer replaces Inhofe.
-greensmile [who has not moved to beta and so has problems authenticating to blogger-beta while gmail sessions are running]
[and I just figured out why I had to email you the comment to your previous post]
And you used to write about sinchronicity?
I told you about me being in a similar situation yesterday.
Well, I was called and our ago to the directors office today.
You guess? Third prize!
Gassho
I could not send this comment from my office...
But I am so sick of my job I am passively courting a dismissal. I guess I am nuts since its highly paid work doing the boring pieces of some state of the art communication satellite. There was little in the job or the employer's whole way of doing the work that would engage the ego in the usual ways professional work does...I mean it is hard to invest yourself in this place. That ought to be ideal when you think about it from the stand point of being attached to self, extenstions of self and ego-props but after two years, the reaction is one of low-grade toxicity and professional stagnation. The sick thing is how little I respect myself after realizing that if I worked even 10% harder, I could pass for a good worker here and live out the rest of my career in this comfortable obscurity.
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