Eight more people were laid off today. I was one of them.
That leaves three people to do all of the work. I don’t think it can be done. My best friend at work says it takes her all day to work the data for one of the people who was laid off. (The person who she fills in for only worked Tuesday through Thrusday.) There’s one programmer int he department, but I write (er… “wrote”) the programs faster than he does. Plus, he doesn’t know the data as well as I do. Where I find things in the data that can be fixed, he won’t know what to look for. Nothing against him, of course; it’s just that I have more experience with the data.
We have a lot of portfolio scoring jobs. Portfolio scoring data must be processed and loaded into the database very quickly. With virtually everyone gone, these jobs will not be loaded in time and the customers are going to be angry. No doubt they’ll get priority, but that means that all of the other data will be pushed back. We’ve been told that the goal is “Data, data, data!” Well, good luck loading it now! And good luck remaining profitable. If they can’t load the data, then the product suffers. If the product suffers, customers will go to our competitors.
They say they have a “plan”. I’d sure like to know how they’re going to get the work done!
This could have been better timed. I wanted two more weeks to feel comfortable. (I wanted to make sure the house was closed.)
My best workfriend says she doesn’t want to stay. But after 24 years on the job, she’s not going to be “looking”. She wants to make them lay her off so that she can get her 24 weeks of severence pay.
One of the other people who is left has, I’ve heard, an interesting offer. She and her family can move into a house in TN. I’m not sure of the details, but there’s an elderly man involved. I don’t know if he’s living in the house, or if he just wants people in it. Anyway, if this woman moves into the house it will be given to her gratis. I think it would be hilarious if one of the people they didn’t lay off decides to quit! 
Yeah, I’m feeling a bit of schadenfreude. 
Anyway, here’s the plan: I’m going to call the bank to lock in my interest rate for a few more weeks. The work on the house will be done next week. All the bank needs is a clean dry rot and pest inspection, and then they can fund the loan. I’m going to try to sell my Willys CJ2A, or move it to my sister’s place to store it. I’ll give notice to my landlord that I’ll be moving out at the end of November, then move up to the house. Then I’ll go from there. One thing I’ll be doing soon is contacting the placement agency the company hired to see if they can find me a job in western Washington state. I’ll also apply for unemployment in the next week or so.
I pray every morning to my diety for protection. I’ve bought a lottery ticket. I think I’m doing okay karma-wise, so I’m hoping for things to even out.
