Layoffs Part 2

Seems it was #3. They eliminated 3 manager positions keeping only store director and operations manager. They've added 2 'new' assistant manager positions and some supervisor roles, and shunted a few managers and former senior associates into those positions. Everyone who didn't get shunted into a new job got fired. That means our entire technology department pretty much just got wiped out since they only kept people from entertainment. I'm still here, but I don't know for how much longer. Like I said the other day, at least I've already been struggling to find a job for the last 4 months. Probably the only silver lining.

Layoffs

Well some good at least has come from the past 4 months of scrambling to find a job. At least tomorrow if I come into work and find out I've been laid off I won't be completely behind the 8 ball. I don't really understand how its possible, but things at work have actually gotten worse. Business has slowed to a crawl, not surprising considering how bad gas has gotten, managers are freaked out, paranoid and desperate to show they're useful, and employees are getting burned out faster than spare tires. Whatever is going on, its culminating in a 'special' meeting tomorrow morning. The current rumors give three possibilities:

A) They'll be firing off all managers but Operations and Store Director, and moving all 'senior' level associates to a pseudo-supervisor role. This makes a bit of sense. It'd save the company money, and we've always had more managers then we actually needed. Problem with this is they've already fired 3500 of their best senior associates, why do this now? Also, it'd leave the store without someone able to make 'executive' level decisions for long periods during the week. On top of that they're hiring associates like crazy, why?



B) They'll be firing off all 'senior' level associates, and eliminating that position. A bad business move, but given their previous decision making choices its within the realm of possibility. It'd also explain why they're hiring so many new people.



C) They're going to do a complete reorg. Eliminate the senior position, eliminate a manager position or two, and eliminate a lot of sales people and replace them with fresh blood. I think this is the least likely of the two scenarios, but it would certainly explain the glut of hiring they've been doing. It'd would also explain why a lot of employees have been getting written up for just silly violations (I was written up for being early for work of all things).

At any rate it is pretty frusterating. I'm pretty sure I'll still have a job tomorrow, but its not guaranteed. Even if I do, many of my friends won't, or we'll be made to work even harder with even less pay. With everything else going on, this is just another kick in the ass I don't need, but like I said at least I was already trying to get out awhile ago.

My Shoes Are to Tight

My shoes are too tight. Something my father said. He was old, very old at the time. I went into his room, and he was sitting alone in the dark, crying. So I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "My shoes are too tight, but it doesn't matter, because I have forgotten how to dance." I never understood what that meant until now. My shoes are too tight, and I have forgotten how to dance.

- Londo Mollari

As I sat meditating in the forest this weekend that exchange was one of the first things that popped into my head, 'My shoes are to tight'. I, too, never really understood what this ment. I just assumed it was a warning about doing things before you got to old to do them. Do things now before its to late. As I lay in the forest thinking, though, for the first time I understood what he ment. My troubles are to great, but that doesn't matter because I've forgotten how to dream.

When I graduated college I was so full of hope, and had so many dreams. Over the last four years I've slowly watched each one of those dreams die. Its seems like no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I work, I just can't get anywhere. I keep comming back to the same crossroads, wondering how in the hell I walked in a circle until I ran out of paths to walk. If each one leads back to the same point, what's the point in walking them again? I'm tired, and my feet hurt, but more importantly I've run out of dreams to chase. Before I can fix anything I have to learn how to dream again. Otherwise I really will keep walking in circles with a pair of ill-fitting shoes.

Round Hole, Square Peg

There's a big round hole in my soul these days. The more I try and plug that hole with things the more I discover those things just don't fit. The more I try and make that round hole square, the more it hurts. Living with that hole is killing me. I can try and do what most of the world does and pretend that hole doesn't exist, but its all so hollow and fake. I'm tired, and I'm broken. Everytime I try and put myself back together I find I don't have enough pieces. I'm like the jigsaw puzzle you got when you were 5, perpetually one piece short. Over time you just stop pulling that puzzle out, you don't want to look at it.

People tell me I need to do things for myself, get me happy again. I try to, everyday I try to, but everytime I climb through all the pain and smile and laugh it only makes the hole that much more glaring. Unfortunatly, there's nothing I can do to fix it, I can't even go back to pretending that it wasn't there in the first place. All I can do is hope that eventually I learn to live with it.

The State of Ben

*I'm reposting this from my Myspace*

To be short, I'm doing better. I'm still not great, but I'm functional again. I'm still increadibly hurt and confused. I'm also kind of upset at a few folks who think I should have 'just gotten over this'. I don't think love is just a switch you can flip on and off when its convient for you. Jen was someone I was completly in love with, expecting me to just stop on a dime is plain silly. Yes I understand she doesn't love me anymore, and I have to accept that. Doing that on your own with absolutely no closure to the relationship isn't some kind of easy task. Understand, that this is someone I figured I was going to marry in a couple of months (hell I had a ring designed and finally figured out how to propose), and someone I completly trusted. I really thought Jen was my soul mate. No things weren't always 100% perfect, we both made mistakes, but I seriously thought I had a commitment from her to work through them.

While I am feeling a bit better, I still feel fairly lost in the woods right now. While I was with Jen it felt like we were both working towards this really great future. I really thought we both had the same goal in mind. Get decent jobs, get married, have kids, do something with our lives together. Now I don't have that anymore. I'm back exactly where I was 6 months ago, and I hate it. I'm tired of getting bounced around from dead-end job, to dead-end job. I'm tired of putting in all this effort and realizing later that I haven't moved anywhere in my life. I'm tired of making the same mistakes over and over again, and honestly I don't have the first clue as to how to fix it. I know I have to get another job, but I just don't have the energy (or emotional reserves) to take another dead-end entry level job. I don't want to get another job, look up a year later and realize I'm in the same damn place just with a different job. Thats why I've been so careful in my job search to try and avoid anything that even remotly stank of dead-end. Thats the reason I didn't take the first available job opening in Michigan despite how badly I wanted too. The downside to this is of course that I've obviously cut out a lot of opportunities that I shouldn't have simply because I was afraid they'd lead nowhere. I needed to take more risks, but even than those risks probably aren't going to pay off. I've got the education, but none of the experience or contacts to land a really decent job. Honestly Jen was someone I was willing to risk everything on, and thats a decision I'd made just before she came down for the last time. At least if I ended up falling on my face again, I thought I'd have someone there to help pick me up for another try. Unfortunatly thats not the way things worked out, and I have to find another path through the forest on my own. I really feel like I'm at a crossroads at my life, but I can't see the paths and I don't know where they lead even if I could. All I can see is the sign post, and I know that I can't stay here looking at it much longer.

Jen and Me

*I'm reposting this from my Myspace blog *

To be honest, I don't really know what happened, and I probably never will. Jen was probably one of the best things that ever walked into my life ever, and without a doubt the single best thing thats happened to me in the last three years. I was happier with her than I've been in as long as I can remember, and before I could even blink it was over. One day she's telling me how completly in love with me she is, and promising that she was in this relationship for the long haul, the very next day she told me she can't do it anymore.

Like I said, I really don't know what happened. Jen can claim it was the distance if she'd like but she never once asked me to move out there in all our time together. She never told me the distance was getting to her despite all the time I spent talking to her until the very end, and than flat out refused my offer to move there the next day if the distance was the only problem. She can say 'we weren't communicating' if she wants, and perhaps it has some truth to it, but to be honest, you can not say that if you're unwilling to actually sit down and talk things through. I was willing to do whatever needed to be done to keep our relationship going, and she flat out refused on every count. As far as I'm concerened Jen's being selfish and taking the easy way out like she's done with everything else in her life. No relationship comes without its hard times, and the first difficult time we went through she up and bolted despite telling me she never would.

It hurts, and it hurts a lot. There's no other way to put it, I'm pretty well devastated. I have no idea why someone would walk out on every promise they've ever made me, but I'm done trying to guess. I've done everything I physically can to try and repair this, and its time now to give up and move on. I'd rather not, this is someone I loved with every ounce of my being, and this was a relationship I truly believed in, but I'm tired of throwing my love away and getting none back in return.

I wish I could somehow harden my heart towards her, but I honestly can't. I've tried more than once since this first began, and everytime it just rings hollow and fake. You can't love someone as much as I did, turn around one day and start hating them. I care far to much, so I'll just say this in closing. The door always open.