Thursday, January 29, 2015

Rough Day

My company is downsizing around 7000 positions worldwide (about 10% of our workforce), and today our little back-water office took its hits. Fortunately my job wasn’t one that was eliminated, but it kind of feels like it was a close call. The Director, my boss’s boss, told me that my position was staying but being reorganized into a different department and would take on some additional responsibilities. I was given the choice to accept the new position (same pay and benefits) or take a severance package. It was a pretty easy decision to make!

Two of my coworkers were given basically the same choice with their jobs, and they too decided to stay; I imagine it was a pretty easy choice for them as well. Unfortunately, six other coworkers weren’t so lucky and were terminated. It’s a tough loss, as all of them were good people and most of them were good workers.

I’ll especially miss Myna*, the lesbian who worked in the warehouse. (The other woman who works in the warehouse is probably a lesbian too, but I don’t have direct confirmation of that.) Myna and I got along pretty well, and especially in the past month as we’ve encouraged each other in our exercise and weight-loss efforts. She and I have a lot in common, though apparently only one of us is willing to suck a cock.

I’m going to take the wife to dinner tonight, and probably have a stiff drink or three when we get home.  

Friday, January 2, 2015

Happy New Year

Yes, I know, that's not a very original title right now. I want to write about a few minor things, but it's all so incredibly boring that I don't know if it's worthwhile. I guess I will, though, if for no other reason than to make sure I have at least one post in 2015. I mean, there may (or may not) be others, but if not at least there will be one. For what that's worth.

Anyway, between a combination of paid holidays and vacation, I worked two days Christmas week and one day New Years (this) week. And of course I'm dreading going back next week just because of having to get back into the swing of things. And I really have to concentrate on being productive and not wasting so much time on the internet.

The really big news from work is that my company is getting bought out by our rival company, which leads to a lot of uncertainty. Coupled with some economic factors, and some jobs could be in jeopardy either over the next few months or the end of the year when the hurdles have all been cleared for the buyout. Most people think our local office, with the specifics that we do, will be safe but we just don't know if either the current company or the new one will be able to afford keeping everyone on. And I'm just an office administrator who doesn't add anything directly to the bottom line.

But screw it; there's little I can do outside of just trying to be as indispensable as possible.

The wife and I went to my folks for Christmas as we always do, then later that evening went to a movie and to our favorite Asian restaurant for sushi. As both of our biggest gifts were already given earlier in the month, we didn't exchange many gifts between ourselves. In fact, other than money for the two nieces who are still under the cut-off age of 18 and restaurant gift cards for my parents, we didn't spend much money at all for Christmas. Personally I'd just as soon not exchange gifts with my parents; we give them gift cards and they give us cash (like they do for all their kids) and a small gift. For me the best part of the day is just going over there and eating too much while catching up with parts of the extended family I don't see the rest of the year. At almost 50, gifts I don't need are the last thing I want to get.

The best gift I got from the wife (outside the quickie we had Christmas morning before going to my parents) was permission to go to the Cowboys/Redskins game in Landover MD. (Yes, I'm an adult and could have gone without her permission, but I think any married man will admit that having the seal of approval from the wife to do something is infinitely better.)

Z and I wound up going (I'd originally wanted to take the wife, but she couldn't get Monday off from work) and had a pretty good time, but I'm not going to go into the details because it's just too boring. We drank a lot of beer, talked long into the night after the game, and headed back Monday morning not too badly hungover. I didn't blow Z, but I did offer to just to be polite, and we showed each other our junk. Like I said; boring stuff.

The wife and I tried going to a bar for NYE that was having a live band, but it turned out to be a heavy metal band so we left. We came back home and had some drinks while watching a football game, then went to bed around 11:45. I thought we'd make it to midnight, but apparently we both fell asleep a few minutes too early; I woke up around 1:30 a.m. with the TV still on and her snoring merrily away. We laughed about it the next morning.

Anyway, I hope you all had a good (or at least tolerable) Christmas, and that the New Year turns out better than the last.