Working from home

I've been laid off before. It was scary as T-mortal hell. No idea how I was going to pay the bills, pay the rent, feed my kid(s) [quantity depending on which time we're talking about]. So if you're there and you're scared, I know how that feels. Please don't take what follows as instructions for how you're supposed to respond. Although if you can find some truth or a little bit of a deep breath in it somewhere, that's a good thing.

The point I want to make is that taking a deep breath helps. Whether you know what you're going to do next or not - whether you have time to think about it or not. Stopping and breathing deeply is good. It helps you calm down.

It also helps - when your workplace in those last few weeks is a nest of disgruntled people, some because they're about to be out of work and others because they're not happy about being left behind, stuck in the mire - to have a manager who believes in you in spite of it all. One you can go to and say, "May I please work from home a couple days a week? I have to get out of here..." and who responds, "Sure - you work wherever you want. I know it's going to get done, and the finished product will be good, wherever you do it."

(On the other hand, it does once again beg the niggling little question, "How did they decide who was getting let go and who was staying?" And then, sometimes there's no answer, and you just have to move on.)

So for the duration - middle of May-ish, until the agency they've hired to take over for us is ready to take over - I'm home two days a week. Maybe more, by the time it's all said and done. Mondays and Fridays, I can sit in my kitchen in the sunshine, or in my home office once I get it moved back upstairs, and work in peace. No one complaining about having to be there, no one in a panic about what they're going to do when 2/3 of the staff is gone, just me and my assignments and my e-mail account and in-house IM, if I decide to turn it on. If people use it too much for what they perceive as emergencies - things that consume their whole being for the moment but actually fall much lower on the scale of "Grander Scheme of Things" - I'll turn the IM off.

The company will still get its 40 hours out of me each week. As always, it will in fact probably get a little more most weeks, simply because I still love what I do, and I'm notoriously NOT a clock-watcher. But two days a week, I will have the freedom to break when I want, to play with the dogs for a few minutes, to walk outside to the garden for a stretch. I will be able to walk away for a whole hour or more and ride my bike as far as I want, then come back with my brain untangled and be able to focus better, longer. I'll be able to play my music as loudly as I want, sing out loud and dance in the kitchen and not look foolish, and walk around in my bare feet without raising eyebrows. (Let's face it, some of us think better if our feet aren't cooped up. A couple managers back, one of them caught me dashing to the printer - about 4 yards - in my stocking feet and asked where my shoes were. I told her they were under my desk where they belonged.)

And if I work from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., then 3 to 5, then break to cook dinner and eat and then come back and work from 7 p.m. to 9 - or 10 if I feel like it - there won't be anyone walking out the door at 6:30 or so, calling back over her shoulder, "Why are you still here? Time to go home!" I won't have to explain I'm still at it because I'm having fun, doing it right, and I'll leave when I get good and ready.

Inedibility

My friend Kirk (of PedalAround) said the other day that "change is inedible." After a little good-natured ribbing, I forgot about looking for a snappy comeback and moved on. But not until after I laughed - and that's good.

It's been a trying week. Last Wednesday, several hundred of us - me and my husband included - got the news that our positions were being eliminated. Nothing personal, of course, but it smarted. Still does, a bit.

Nevertheless, it comes to me over and over again that this is a gift from the Universe. This is a gift. From the Universe. Really.

How often does one get the chance - at the age of 55 - to step back and, with the cushion of a few months' severance pay, evaluate where one is, where one wants to be, and how to get from here to there? How often is that restless sense that there's something more one should be doing met with the chance to find it?

One of my friends is collecting cliches. I'm totally with her; if one more person says to me, "God never gives us more than we can bear," or "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade," I'm gonna have to snatch 'em bald-headed. Not because of the attitude (although I don't think God had a whole lot to do with any of this), but because they're clearly unoriginal, unimaginative people who live in boxes and couldn't "think outside" if their lives depended on it. (Although I have to confess to using "waiting for the other shoe to drop" more than once lately.)

My outlook has nothing to do with lemonade. I don't believe God has a plan. I do believe God has a purpose, but that's the difference between being process-oriented and goal-oriented. The Universe has a rhythm, a rightness, that will always find itself. It doesn't matter what we do to gum up the works or "throw a spanner in the hole" (as in "Industrial Disease," one of my favorite Dire Straits songs) - whatever we do will fit into the purpose.

Be that as it may, I do see something cosmic in this. For both of us - Ed and me - to be laid off on the same day, getting the news within 30 minutes of each other, sounds to me like Reveille. It sounds to me like the Universe dropping a book on the floor, like Mr. Clark used to do in Algebra class to wake up the nappers. It sounds to me like The Great Favog saying, "Right. So how's that workin' for ya?" (Don't remember the Great Favog? Google it. Saturday Night Live, first season. I'm dating myself, and I love it!)

Yes, change is inevitable.And - as Kirk said - inedible. Can't digest it sometimes. Leaves a knot in your stomach. But sooner or later, you have to decide how you're going to deal with it. Do you take more antacids and hope it will go away? Do you cry and fight and rail against the decision-makers? They've already decided, and you're not going to change their minds. Do you snipe and complain and vent, thinking maybe you can at least take someone down with you?

I choose to use it. I'll digest what I can, when I can. I'll have my moments of wanting to fight or snipe or vent, but I hope for the most part I can let those impulses go. And I'll be eternally grateful for the friends who let me vent in private and don't repeat anything I say, because they know it's just venting and I'll get over it. And then I'll go back to being the dogged Pollyanna I am, and looking for something in this mess we call "life" that might work for me.

No, the world's not perfect. No, there's not always a "bright side." But it's possible to find a positive lesson in even the worst that happens. And the worst hasn't happened. My family is well. The dogs are alright. There are possibilities waiting out there. I just have to go find them.