The Servant's Quarters

Well, that was pretty unexpected.

I was sittting at my desk watching a webcast of Alan Mullaly addressing Ford employees all over the world. He was discussing our $5.9 billion (That's "billion" with a "b".) loss last year. Suddenly, the instant messenger popped up on my computer screen. It was Gail, my boss' boss.

"Can you come to my office?"

"Be right there," I replied.

Nothing to worry about. No one's getting fired right now. We just cut a bunch of people, and I'm sure they'll give us a little time before the next round of firings. I grabbed my PDA and headed to Gail's office.

I was within sight of her door when I stopped and turned on the voice recorder on my PDA. Hey, you never know. I haven't had a sit down will Gail for months. Who knows what we were going to talk about?

First sign of trouble - My boss, Robin, was already in the office. This is not a good thing. Both of my bosses want to talk to me. Either I'm going to be asked to do something really difficult or I am about to get the shaft.

I'll take the shaft for $500, Wink.

Second sign of trouble - Robin is holding, in his sweaty little hands, a single piece of paper with a lot of highlighting. I don't know what's on it. Gail is likewise holding a copy of the same piece of paper.

"What can I do for you guys?" I ask cheerily.

I sit down. And somewhere behind a 5 mile wide desk, Gail begins reading from a canned speech that she's no doubt delivered to other hapless employees who have occupied this chair.

"Tim, as part of the Way Forward Plan," (Way Forward is the wonderful plan which has resulted in a lot of cost savings for Ford and a lot of unemployment for Michigan.) "your position has been eliminated in our department. I need to stress that you are not being fired. However, I have been required to give up some positions, and yours is one of them."

Gail goes on to tell me about the job I am being forced to move to. I will still be under her boss and in the same department. But Gail will no longer be my boss' boss. She hands me her copy of the paper she's been holding. It's the job description of my new position. She and Robin begin to describe how this new job is actually a great fit for me and a wonderful opportunity. I try to read the piece of paper, but it's apparently written in another language. I can't understand it.

Obviously, this will be a good fit for me.

While Robin and Gail drone on and on, I feverishly scan the description for the one sentence that I am dreading - "This position requires 80 hour weeks and is a lot harder than your current job." I don't see it anywhere. Ok. Maybe it won't be so bad.

"Tim, I think that this job is going to be a good challenge for you."

Great. That means it'll be a 120 hours a week and a set up for failure.

I listened to more positive spin about this great new direction for my life, all the while praying that I could just leave. Finally, after commenting that she didn't know about the timing my move and whether or not the company was going to spend the money necessary to move my work space to the building where my new team sits, Gail ended our conversation.

I left, called my wife, and then sat at my desk trying to wrap my brain around this new turn of events. To be fair, I was forced to move the last time I switched jobs, too. And that had turned out pretty well. So well, in fact, that I'm not happy to be forced to make another move.

But, I am still gainfully employed. That's a good thing. I just hope I stay that way. I've got 20 years here. (Happy Anniversary to me!) I'm getting a little too old to break in a new company.

$5.9 billion????? With a "b"???????

OK. Over the past 8 or 9 months one or two people have asked me why I am not blogging anymore. I don't know what's wrong with them, but they miss reading the sick, twisted details of my boring, sad life!

Well, here are two bits of news that anyone who may still visit this barren, lonely corner of cyberspace may want to hear:

#1 - I am back. I'm going to make another go of this because I truly do miss it. I've always like writing, but I've never had the ambition to sit down and try to concoct my attempt at the great American novel. Blogging gives me a fun outlet where I can creatively share news and tidbits about my life without too many people paying attention to me. (That way, if it really stinks, no one knows.)

#2 - I'm going to divulge the real, no holds barred reason why I temporarily gave up on my blog last year. Here it is - the unvarnished truth. (Well, it's a little varnished with some holds barred. For one thing, I'm withholding names to protect the guilty. This is my blog, and in this entry at least, I'm going to write about my perspective on things. I'm not going to descend to name calling or talking badly about other people.)

The truth of the matter is that last Spring, I was hurt really, really badly by someone close to me. This was (I thought) a deep, lasting friendship to which I invested a lot of my time, energy, emotion, etc. And then, one day, it very suddenly, very harshly ended in an unbelievable way at a time when I was going through some very difficult stress and turned to my friend for support. The response that I got was a request to go away and never come back.

I won't share any more than that. I'm sure my friend thought that there were valid reasons to suddenly say, "Never talk to me again. We are through." I don't know what they were. I probably will never know. I can't even imagine anything that would justify such behavior.

To say that I was hurt would be an understatement. I was crushed. Never in my life had I been so disposable in a relationship. Of course, friendships have come and gone, but nothing like this. This was pretty vicious and pretty shocking.

So, I haven't felt like blogging cute little funny stories about my family, my job, and my life. I've been dealing with my wound. Fighting infection. Changing the dressing. Struggling to heal. Doing a lot of thinking. Visiting the Great Physician. (Thank you, Lord. Thank you that You love me forever and will never reject me.) I've learned a lot about myself. About God. About my family and my (real) friends. There are days when I still hurt over what happened. I just can't fathom the type of rejection that I was dealt. But I think I'll come out of this a whole lot wiser than I was going in. I've hated the journey, but God always works things out to our benefit. He always walks with us through the bad times.

Bottom line - Don't worry about it. I am doing ok. Really. Stuff happens and we adapt, heal and move on. In fact, even the last few days have been good in terms of me coming to terms with this. I guess it takes me a while to get over things. But I made two resolutions going into 2009 that I intend to keep to the best of my ability: 1) Draw closer to God than I have ever in my life and 2) Don't let my former friend or anyone else associated with that sorry, hurtful episode steal any more of my joy. I've wasted enough time being hung up on a situation that I'm helpless to change.

Time to move on to a better place.