Strange Days Indeed...

Two weeks ago, we were informed by our employer that forecasted business conditions necessitated another layoff. They asked for volunteers and laid out the package available. They said that people considering it would be allowed two weeks to make their decision. Questions about how many people they were looking to reduce the work force by went unanswered.

Taking the voluntary layoff was extremely tempting, but the more I learned about what the severance package really offered - as opposed to what we were told in the meeting; they were two different things - the more I decided that, if I was going, they were going to have to get their hands dirty to do so.

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how they were going to spin things. My department has had little-to-no work for at least six months or so, and truth be told, they could do away with most of what we do, by outsourcing. If they went by seniority, I had one person below me. If they went by skill level, I have, arguably, three people who'd go ahead of me. On the other hand, if they went by "politics" - which has happened during previous layoffs - I figured I might as well put my head on the chopping block. Since I've never developed a taste for Kool-Aid and have never masked my distaste for my two immediate supervisors well, I figured I had a target on my back.

I got ready. I consolidated my stuff into my three tool boxes and emptied my drawers and locker. I was ready to go in a matter of minutes.

The two weeks ticked by. Rumors flew hot and heavy. I spent eight hours a day in a building full of people on "death watch". Anger, bitterness and fear hung in the air like a heavy fog. Even the gallows humor didn't help much.

When all was said and done, it ended with a whimper, not a bang. Fifteen people took the voluntary layoff, and, as far as I know, only two people on first shift got canned. (Not sure about the other shifts).

That's it? You put people through two weeks of hell, for that? I think the ulterior motive was to make people worry about their jobs so they'd work harder and be more willing to swallow whatever shit is shoveled their way. I suppose in a few cases, it worked, but amongst the people I spoke with, it backfired. Most of them are angry about it and, when they faced up to losing their job realized that it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Both of you regular readers already know that I'm already looking for the exit, but this pushed me even further toward really facing up to it. My preparations were mental, as well as physical.

I thought about my job, and what I'd miss about it. There are a few elements of it that I'd miss, but mostly it was "well, I doubt my next job will only be a fifteen minute commute..." After thirty years, I'm tired of doing what I do.

I thought about the people I work with - some of whom I've worked with for almost 20 years - and who I might miss enough to want contact information from. I came up pretty much empty. How sad is that?

Oddly enough, I realized the thing I'd miss most would be my tools. Yeah, they're my tools, so they'd be going with me, but I'm pretty sure once I leave there, I'll never really use them again. They'll get put on a shelf in the basement, where they'll sit until my estate auction. Tools that I'd used every day. It almost seemed like I'd be abandoning old friends - friends who'd been with me in good times and not-so-good times. I'd thought about this before, when looking at tools at antique shows but it was always in the context of someone else's tools.

Scary and sad at the same time.

Once again, life insists on teaching me things when and where I least expect it,

Ah, The Simple Life

Throughout history, people have been "leaving it all behind and living simply".

There are numerous monastic orders where they own almost nothing and lead very simple, devout lives. The idea of living a life of quiet contemplation - on bread, cheese and kick-ass beers- has it's charm.

...but there's that "celibacy" thing...

Shit.

Never mind.

Then, of course there was that whole "back-to-the-land" hippie movement of the Sixties. While I do try to incorporate some of that - like gardening, canning and preserving- into my life, I just can't see myself learning to say "Oh wow, man....far out!" or wearing patchouli and Birkenstocks. (And, in some cases, not much else!)

But recently, I've been thinking about one of our forum members who pretty much did leave it all behind, move just about as far away as she could (from Canada to Australia!) and is living off the grid.

I'm not talking about some paranoid, anti-government whack job holed up in Montana in a cabin full of guns, I'm talking about someone who pretty much wiped the slate (or whiteboard, if you wish) clean and started over.

As I read her web postings and looked at the pictures, I had mixed feelings - a toss-up between "That is so COOL!" and "I could never do that...." This made got me thinking about why I couldn't and what it says about me and what's important in my life.

As a mental exercise, I asked myself "Well, what's stopping you?"

The first thing I realized was that to do that, I'd pretty much have to leave all my "stuff" behind... and I could do that very easily. I'm not one to develop an attachment to inanimate objects, so, yeah, I could leave all this stuff behind and only replace about 1/3 of it. A bike, a computer, a camera and an iPod full of music, and I'd be pretty much good-to-go. Not much of a surprise there, I've known this about myself for a long time.

The next thing was the people around me. Aside from my son and my sister, I could walk away from everyone else forever and not really think twice about it. Huh.... interesting.

So if "people and things" aren't what's keeping me here, what is? For one thing, my camp. Not only has it been in the family for 150 years - and I feel a certain obligation to retain that legacy - but I feel rooted to the place. That place is the one thing I would truly hate to leave behind. I sort of knew this, but the depth of it was a little surprising.

The rest of the roadblock to my doing something rash is ...me. We pretty much live off-the-grid when we're at camp and after two or three days of that, I'm ready to come home to my slightly more swank house where I'm surrounded with "things to do". (That's a double-edged blade - that means both the ones I WANT to do and the ones I HAVE to do). (This also has me thinking about what it would take to make the camp more "user-friendly" without violating the spirit of the place. It also has me thinking about why I need "something to do" all the damn time, like an ADD teen).

I am also very, very much a creature of habit. I don't want to have to think about which drawer the bottle opener is in, I just want a beer. Yeah, I can adjust, but in the meantime, it stresses me out. I don't want to have to think about the little things as well as the big things. It's just how I am. (Anal?)

That also applies on a larger scale. Have you ever seen how a cat knows every single nook and cranny of it's environment ? That'd be me. Having lived in this immediate area for 43 years, I know it intimately. Having spent 20+ years trying to wear out motorcycles, I also know the vast majority of the rest of the state pretty well too. Again, this is a mixed blessing. While I don't have to think about how to get somewhere or exactly where to find such-and-such, and I know all the "secret" places, it also means stagnation. Yeah, I like to travel and see new places (although with the homogenization of America, that's getting harder and harder to do) but I like to come home, too.

If you roll the last three together, I guess you could distill it down to one word: "comfort".

Wow.

I'm going to have to cogitate on that. (And think about it a lot, too).