dude...

i've had a busy weekend. but it's only monday night, you say...well, cork it.

saturday i got up, did a few things around the house, and took a nap until about 1. was up for a while and then my friend rene came down, and we sat around chit-chatting until heading over to the MOA for dinner and shopping. of course we ended up at a barnes and noble, because that is how we operate. (:

went to sleep at 1130. got up at 355 to deliver said friend to the airport, where i'll be picking her up next weekend. got home, went back to sleep for a few fitful hours, then got up and lazed around since my eyelids simply would not function correctly. worked on a story that's been brewing for a few days and then took ANOTHER nap, was up for a bit and back to bed.

monday dawned bright, early and icky. work was a mess when i arrived, which was compounded by the fact that i was there for an hour before i had a meeting. then another meeting.

the first meeting was run of the mill--reminders, updates, mainly administrative stuff.

meeting number two was totally different and entirely unexpected. my job is being eliminated.

by the end of the week.

i have four options, and i'm lucky to have those four, since apparently other offices around the country had to do the same thing with this position and they had no where else to put people...so they just got pink slipped.

behind door #1: i can discuss a severance package.
door #2: i can go back to client services, and answer phones from angry people.
door #3: i can go back to conversion, and set up payrolls.
door #4: i can go into a totally new position, in which i would deal only with accountants and actually leave the office to visit them half of the time.

guess which one i'm going for?

yes, #4.

as with any other announcement made in corporate america, i have one night to decide if i want to do this--they were going to talk to me friday but i had to leave early due to overtime. odd how that works, isn't it?

and also, again as with anything done in corporate america, i couldn't breathe a word to anyone else in the building, since this was between me, management, and the human resources lady on speakerphone.

so as soon as i got out of the meeting i called dan and hashed it out. he knows me often better than i know me--i got done babbling like an auctioneer selling off the world's remaining cattle and he said, "are you asking for my approval? because you've already made your decision."

of course i was still in panic mode so my response was, well, what is my decision?

so another new road. since i started at adp five years ago, i've made three job changes--one from client services to conversion, and then from conversion to part of the sales team. now i would be moving back to client services, but would be working more with the sales team.

in the end i hope that it all works out for the best. my only fear right now is who is going to take over all the various and sundry job duties that comprise my current position. just because you eliminate the title does not mean that the rest of the job just disintegrates. i'm not sure that management has considered everything quite yet. but tomorrow morning they're announcing it to the building at large, and i have another meeting to dice up the job i've had for the last year.

in fact, it hasn't even been a full year yet.

i don't mind change--usually i revel in it. i enjoy moving things and rearranging them, making them all new and shiny. i like pioneering, which is what this new job position would be, since it's brand spankin' new, and only 2 other people in the country are doing this, as of now. i'd get to define the job, as it were.

it's just the rug, slipping out from under your feet. the rung of the ladder, splintering as you ascend. the escalator, moving faster than you can keep up with it, each stair disappearing into the next, until you are really not sure where you are going: up? down? sideways?

heroditus said that you can never step into the same river twice--i think that life is handing me this lesson again, as if i have forgotten from the last time it was meted out.

and i suppose that the river itself is familiar--it's just the knowledge, the understanding, that it is no longer the same water it was moments ago.

dude. that's deep, for a monday.