In 3 months and 6 days, I will be living the blissful life of an unemployed citizen. In September 2008, we were told that our positions with the company would no longer be needed after October 1, 2009. During the time in between we would need to help transition our duties over to the new company. Oh, perhaps I should back up. Last summer, a competitor took over our company. They are a much larger operation with headquarters out of state. Ok, so back to the story...so, from September 2008 until now we have been helping merge the 2 catalog departments. And by merge, of course, I mean just letting the other company do everything and realizing that everything we had worked to build here meant absolutely nothing. That might sound like I am a little bitter over the situation, but the reality is that getting laid off is quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me - work or money wise.
I was jumping for joy (on the inside) when they told me that I no longer needed work here after Oct. 1st. The deal is that they continue paying my salary up until Oct 1st, give me a retention bonus for staying that long and then pay me severance for several weeks after I'm done. They are quite literally paying me to leave! And who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth. Even though I was so happy at the idea that I wanted to kiss that gift horse right on the mouth. Ew..ok...anyway...
Oh and did I mention that the past 9 months have been some of the easiest months ever? We have no work of our own anymore, so the other company has to give us stuff to do and well, they are less than attentive. We maybe get one, small project a week that is supposed to keep a team of 8 busy for 5 days. That project usually takes 1 person 3 hours to complete. Needless to say, we have A LOT of downtime on our hands. We've tried to fill it responsibly by holding professional development training sessions, playing around with different software, cleaning up data that no one will ever use and for some, attending a myriad of job search training classes. However, after months of this activity, it has grown stale and now we have become experts at filling 8 hours a day with mindless crap. It's wonderful. I go to work and get so much done for other aspects of my life - like theatre work and fun design stuff. I've also become the master at several online games...but I digress.
The underlying reason why I am so happy to be jobless in the future isn't the money for doing nothing (although that sure is nice!), it is the freedom and the sign that I needed to tell me it was time to move on. Time to do what I really want to do and follow the dreams that I've always wanted to follow. Being the uber practical person that I am, I have always struggled to find a balance between what I want most in life and being able to pay the bills. The thought of just quitting a job and running off to do something crazy was nearly impossible for me to fathom. Well, now that choice has been made for me and my life has never been so clearly laid out. You see, I am taking this opportunity to actually live the life I dreamt as a child. I would be lying if I was saying that I'm not completely and totally terrified at the idea, but the time has come and I'm ready to take that next step. I only hope that I don't fail miserably, but if I do, at least I can say that I tried to follow my dreams.
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