Andrea's Adventures in Binkyland

Job Loss

This has been a very messed up week.

Last week, I dealt with some very difficult issues around leaving Sasha for around four days, and trying to decide if the emotional damage this would do her is worth the paycheck I bring home a couple of times a month. I swear that this is not me being an overprotective, clingy mother. She is a very attached baby, and flips out if I come home late for dinner. Leaving her overnight would be one thing, but FOUR nights?

So I came down on the side of NO, and my wonderful and supportive husband was wonderful and supportive of me. Thankfully, he found a way to make it a family trip before it could come to that. This is a much better solution for everybody. But the topics of job loss and economic hardship are fresh on my mind.

So there is a certain cosmic irony when we learn that one of my co-workers was let go of today. It was due to a certain conflict of interest, and it's not my place to gossip and go into specifics. I'll just say that he's a good guy, and it's too bad that everything turned out this way, but it doesn't inherently reflect the financial state of my employer.

I am not responsible for this. I am nothing more than a witness to the Greek tragedy that has transpired, and not a close-up witness, either. But I feel... guilt.

We're living in a sucky economy, no question. Many good friends of mine have gone through lengthy periods of un- and under-employment. Unemployment rates are raising, median incomes are dropping, and a conservative winter is a-blowing through the nation and telling me it's not turning around tomorrow, and no, not the next day, either.

But here sits my happy family. We drive two new cars. We live in a decently large house, to which we make frequent improvements. We eat out more than in. In short, we live the good life. Why us? Why have we been spared the razor's edge, when so many good and deserving people are slogging through hardship after hardship?

Not because I work hard, that's for sure. Not because of our great spiritual faith, or even good management. We're just very lucky. It could be that our number is up right around the corner, and my salad days of spending $12 a pop on upscale haircare products will be gone forever.

But that's how life is, and that's how it's always been. You never know what to expect. You just have to scope out your fire exits and then hope you never, ever have to use them.

My kitchen is: clean but anty. Blasted ants. I'm about to get chemical on their collective butts.

Posted by andrea at September 30, 2003 10:46 PM