Oh, man, swampy!! That’s just the pits! I hope they gave you a decent severence package. We got that “at will” thing going on down here, too. Anyway, just think of this as the Lord’s way of bootin’ you in a new direction. {{{swampy}}}
Dang swampy that sucks.
Y’all know how often people say if they won the lottery they’d quit their jobs? I wouldn’t, but it would be ncie knowing I don’t really need one. Why is work stuff always so complicated?
Whoa. Swampus, I thought you were one of the head mofos in charge…
Good luck. Let me know if I can help. I can always lie for you and give you a good reference. 
Swampy, some serious advice, and in no particular order:
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Take the weekend, and have as much nerve tonic as you want and can handle, but get the self-pity out of the way as fast as you can. Come Monday, your full time job will be job hunting.
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Serious, clinical depression is a probability, but not inevitable. Be ready for it, and get antidepressants ASAP, because they take time to start working. I speak from experience on this especially.
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Don’t burn bridges. If your position was eliminated, then you’re going out in the best possible of involuntary manners. Ask those who are important to you for references.
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Take inventory of all your friends and professional acquaintances, and ask them for leads. This includes your doc, your congregation members, ACBG, and anyone else you’re on good term with.
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Take a personal inventory of your skills, liabilities, and professional desires, and take it seriously. If in the end you still want to do what you were doing, that’s fair enough; but if it turns out that you want to pass out beerverages and nightcrawlers to inebriated bass tournament contestants, then go for it.
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Don’t be bound by self-defeating, self-inflicted conditions, such as “I can’t answer that ad in Florida because I’ll never sell my house”, or “I can’t leave Albeeny because I’ll never find a doctor for my spattergroit anywhere else”.
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If you’re offered severance and/or outplacement, TAKE IT.
More as I think of them.
MBG you’d have the mother of all crazyass bus driver tales if I drove a school bus for even one day. The thought of that is almost as scary as BooFae’s cheese. 
All points well taken and much appreciated Bobbio. I’m sure I’ll find a job I like. I am going to take a little time to look and not just around here. Who knows I may even end up living next door to Snakes. Maybe that’ll give her nightmares.
((((swampy))))
Have a lot of nerve tonic. We love ya.
Dayum, Swamps, that just stinks. I hope they’re giving you a nice severance after all of your hard work and loyalty. It’s the least they could do for yanking the rug out from under you. When they downsized at my last place of employment they gave me 4 weeks, so I spent a week of that recovering from the hell that was the job. And it only took me 3 more weeks to find a job, so it all worked out.
Nerve tonic is a good idea 'bout now. And a hot bath. With or without ACBG.
(((((SWAMPY))))))
Just cause you need it. It’s all gonna work out. And what Bobbio said.
Damn that’s bad news Swampy. Good luck with finding a new position. Maybe you could post an idea of what kind of job you’d like to do and the Dopers can take a look in their area to see if anything might suit you?
{{{Swampy}}}
Was this as immediate as I am interpreting it? As in you get told today and you have no job on Monday? One of the most stressfull things about my job is that since I work in a federal building filled with classified information if I am fired, or my position is eliminated, I won’t find out until security arrives at my desk to escort me out of the building (I’m not sure if this is government policy or if its just here, but this is how my predecessor got the news). And I know that our CEO has considered eliminating my position in the past, so I always have that little fear in the back of my mind.
On a lighter note I am heading upstate after work today to join Meli at the house of an aunt of a friend of ours where she (the friend) is house-sitting this weekend. Our main reasons for going? The house has been overstocked with free food and, of course, the hot tub. It occured to me today that outside of a very occational relaxing bath I have not immersed myself in water in over four years.
{{{Swampy}}} That sucks, big time.
I donated blood this morning, and didn’t pass out. Yay me. I still spent an hour after donating, since I felt light-headed. I don’t need to do anything else today, they said so.
Thanks for all the hugs and nice stuff. Having folks like y’all that are supportive really helps. ACBG insisted that he was leaving work and coming right out here when I told him but I told him it was not necessary. Actually being alone for a bit this afternoon has been good for me. I need quiet to think and start making a plan. Tonight it’ll be great having him around cause who knows, I just might decide to have a little meltdown. Or not. Still I’ll get lots of petting, which is always a good thing.
I can and will find another job. This is not a fun thing at all but ya know, life happens and this is a part of life sometimes. We move on and do what we have to do.
Now, somebody say sump’n silly. I need some silly.
Wow, Swampy, sorry to hear about that. Sounds like you’ve got good support at home, and a good resume, so I’m sure it will work out ok for you.
Oh, yeah. Sumpin’ silly.
Underpants!
Ooohhh! I’ll say something silly in a moment. I just got here and heard the news. (((Hugs to Swampy!!!))) How distressing! How long had you been there?
OK, now for the silly. My children and I have, for years, played Make Me Laugh. My son (he of the genie studies = geneology fame) is a ridiculously easy touch; he laughs at practically anything. But one day he was proving a tough customer. So I let out with the mutha of all hee-hee-hees –
Porcupine Bottomwash
Say it a few times, out loud. It gets funnier the more you say it. And the more you visualize someone you don’t like, forced to take a bath and scrubbing away with a porcupine shaped … uh, implement … the funnier it gets.
And here’s another hug, just because. (( hug ))
I see London
I see France
I see Smitty’s underpants!
Now that’s silly.
Holy shit! But who will count and track the mopheads and haaaaaannnnngggggerrrrrss?
I am so sorry, DarlingBogUrsis --what a shitty thing. You have said your boss is also a friend of sorts–is there a reference there or at least a good-bye drink?
You can come up and work here–we’ve gots lots of mopheads and hangers and silver easter eggy type things that need you. But if you DO have spattergoit, could you not come? Um, thanks. 'Preciate it. (just kidding.)
Please keep us posted. And good on ABCG for offering to be there for you.
(on a lighter note, I had workmen in my house today. Sadly, neither of them was burly or eye candy–do you think I should complain to the company? I do.)
MBG --I don’t think I even understood your #1 and #1 stuff. My bus company is owned by a British firm? I’ll start #2 son queueing up correctly immediately!
BooFae --well, Wolverhampton, then!
Never mind the underpants.
Have an Ugly Wedgehead[sup]TM[/sup].
OK, before I finish reading last night’s and today’s post, I wanna get this in because I don’t know if I’ll be able to post later.
Talked with my one boss-person about my new assignment. He’s all psyched about it - I’m not so sure I have the correct skill set, as it requires a familiarity with psychology and statistics, neither of which I’ve ever studied. But he claims the process is largely logical, and I’m nothing if not mostly logical, so I’m going to give it a try. If it turns out the job isn’t a good fit, I’ll try something else. I think I’ll meet with my new team lead on Monday.
Soon-to-be-disbanded team met today to put together our “Executive Summary” of the recent fiasco. I submitted 7 pages of “lessons learned” and a project chronology with 12 attachments. I promise you I was very professional about it - nowhere did I use the term “Idiot Stupidhead” and for every problem I discussed, I suggested a solution, none of which involved dismemberment or ingesting fecal matter. We were all told yesterday that we had to be part of the big post-fiasco meeting on Monday, but the powers that be decided we really weren’t needed. So YAY! Not that I feared the meeting, but it was scheduled after my normal quitting time and I didn’t want to have to stay.
For some reason, they gave us 59 minutes today, so that was cool. I came home and took Scruffy to the vet to be de-stitched. No more Pampered pet - yay! Then I came home and rinsed the road salt residue off my van. It is now parked in its new home - beside the garage, not inside. 
But in about 2 hours, I will be fondling the keys of my BRAND NEW CAR!!!
As I drove to work today, I had an inspiration. See, it’s been very very dry around here - I think relative humidity is hovering around 30% or so. That’s outside - indoors, the furnace sucks the remaining moisture out of the air. But we own a cool mist humidifier! Bought it last year when I was having serious coughing issues. It helped the cough a bit, then it was retired to the guest bedroom closet. Till today. It’s now sitting on a little table in the living room, just down the hall from the cold air return, pumping moisture into the house. We’ll see how effective it is.
**kai ** - may I laciviously echo an earlier *hubba hubba * with regards to your main squeeze? niiiiice Doggies are cute, too!
**FCD ** is on his way. We’ll leave within an hour. Once we conclude our business with Scion, we’re going to a steak house where we’ve never paid to eat. Really. First time we went there, the service sucked majorly, so they comped our meal and gave us a card for a free dinner. About a month later, we had our free meal, including dessert. That time, the service was fabbo, and the server got herself a $10 tip, which was probably about 30% - it’s not that fancy a restaurant. I think it’s a Lone Star. Or a Longhorn’s. One of those types of places. We eat cheap since we don’t drink, and I usually just have water. So anyway, we’re going to see if we end up paying this time.
But first, critters need to be fed and I need to put my shoes back on. Don’t look - I’ve got a hole in the toe of my left sock… :o
{{{{{swampy}}}}} - this, my dear, is a sign that you should become MAD! Yep, find yerself a job in Merrylande! You know you want to!
swampy hang in there. Who knows - in a month or two you may be offered a job as a consultant, at higher pay, to do the things that you have been doing. They are going to see very quickly just how important you were to the smooth running of the whole shebang. It happened with my mom after she retired as an unassisted senior’s housing
manager. Now they send her all over the country and Canada to fix things that she used to do by phone.
And if you can repair and calibrate electronic equipment or gauges and thermometers, we’re hiring.