I've had plenty of time to write an update to this here blog since I last wrote, but I didn't feel like writing. There isn't a lot of happy news coming down the pike these days (I actually just spent about half an hour looking up the origins of the term, "down the pike." I couldn't decide whether "down the pipe" or "down the pike" is correct. They're actually both correct. "Down the pike" is the original idiom, with the word "pike" being short for "turnpike." Since we don't really do turnpikes these days, "down the pipe" makes a lot more sense to us. I chose to go with the archaic phrase because that's how I roll: olde school. Take a look at this discussion if you are at all interested in the origins of this phrase)
Anyway, the point is that Megan isn't having a tonne of success finding a new job and strange things keep happening. I really should make an official list of things that have been piled on us since Megan lost her job. If you're scoring at home add, "Megan got a $180 photo radar ticket" to the list. Yeah, things like that keep happening. We even thought Megan might have been pregnant there for a while, but we were glad to find out that she isn't. Not that we don't want kids, it's just that we don't want to start having kids during a time when I might be losing my job and we don't know how we'll be paying our bills from month to month.
I have to admit that there have been times when Megan and I have just laughed as things are piled upon us. Then there are other times when we make comparisons to the story of Job, which is probably not a good idea because it only seems to lead to more stuff being heaped upon us. I'm sure we'll make it through to the other side one way or another, but there are days when things look particularly hopeless.
Today I seem to have convinced myself that I'll be losing my job for sure. I acknowledge the fact that losing this job might turn into one of the best things that could ever happen to me, but I wouldn't make the argument that it would be fun or enjoyable. As I consider what may or may not happen come January, there are only two outcomes that I would consider acceptable: 1) The boss man loses his job 2) I lose mine. If it turns out that nobody loses their job, I'll be more than a little upset. If I lose my job I get three months of paid leave to look for a new job. If the boss man loses his job, ever day would feel like a vacation. If nothing happens, things will be as miserable as ever. If my coworker loses his job, I'll be doing more than twice the work for the same pay. Neither of those situations are appealing at all.
Sometimes I feel like I would have to get laid off to leave this place. At the end of the day, it's a really cushy job. Yes, I work for someone who hates me and actively tries to make things miserable for me, but there's only so much he can do. I still work in a library, so it's not like if I worked in sales where every day would stink even if I had a good boss. It's a sliding scale of misery and certainly when evaluating the pros and cons, you find that the cushiness of this job is what makes it tolerable. If I lost the cushiness of having a coworker in whom I can confide and share a loathing for the people we have to put up with, I'm fairly certain I would go insane. On the other hand, I am clearly reaching my limit as to what I will put up with from the boss man and what he will put up with from me. It's all coming to a head.
On the one hand, I would love to be pushed out of this job so I would be forced to do something else with my life. The only reason I wouldn't want to lose this job is because I don't want to give the boss man the satisfaction of knowing that he has anything over me. It would be awesome to see the boss man lose his job because it would renew the faith in God, humanity, karma, and every just, divine, and good principle or person if he got his comeuppance. On the other hand, if he goes and I stay, I would be tempted to stay forever because of the new levels of cushiness that would be added by his absence. I don't want to be doing this when I'm his age, so I don't know what to think.
I'm not certain of when exactly we'll find out about who goes and stays (if the layoffs affect anyone in this library at all, that is). A staff member who used to work here sent us an email telling us not to worry because most of the cuts will be coming to people who don't actually interact with patrons, and that most of the layoffs will be people from technical services and one of the other libraries. That being the case, there is still a possibility that someone might be going from this library. So I don't know what to expect. I do know that from day to day my feelings on the matter tend to vary wildly. I convinced myself that I was getting laid off for sure at least twice today, only to calm myself back down. At the moment, I think I might get laid off, but I'm thinking of how nice it would be to get paid to not work here for a few months. That would be sweet.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Okay, now I'm back from a 2 hour break. That just flew by for you, didn't it? It was pretty quick for me, too. I just got an early Christmas present. The head honcho let us know that the boss man will be gone for the next couple weeks. I will celebrate the entire Christmas season without seeing the grizzled visage of the boss man. The only thing that could be better than this would be: him getting laid off. A fella can dream, can't he? I do find it funny that we found out about his 2 week vacation less than half an hour before he left. My coworker and I had to submit our requests for holiday leave in early October. So clearly the rules that apply to us don't apply to him, but who cares? He's not going to be here and life will be grand. The way I see it, his vacation might be a result of one of the following things 1) The head honcho being sick of him complaining about how he never gets time off and how he loses his hours because he never uses them and they don't roll over. He seriously complains about this all the time, but he never does anything about it. 2) He knows he'll be getting laid off, so he's using up the hours that won't roll over so he can get paid for those that do. When you get laid off, you get paid for whatever vacation or sick hours you've accumulated. Only a certain number of hours will roll over. I'm hoping that he'll be getting laid off and that this sudden vacation is an indicator, but I really think this is wishful thinking. It would be nice if he got laid off, but there really isn't any reason for me to think that he will. 3) None of the above. He could have just done it on an impulse, which is a luxury only afforded to those in supervisory positions. Anyway, I need to stop analyzing this and start being grateful.
There were other things I was going to write about, but something tells me I might have time to do it tomorrow. So I'll just end this thing abruptly in such a way that it will leave you with a sort of, "Uh, I guess" kind of feeling. So there.