March 24, 2009

A little of Reid...

I posted this on my Facebook but forgot to put this out on my blog. We had pictures of Reid taken where she got to wear a tutu and she was the only one to wear it. The photographer had a thing called Tutus for Wishes where the session fees were donated to the local Make-a-wish foundation. It was too funny.

Evidence here:

March 05, 2009

The reality of the economy

I know that what is going on in the economy is nothing new for anyone but the reality of staffing reductions (AKA layoffs) is really killing me.

I work for a large global energy company that recently announced in the news that they are going to reduce staffing by 4% globally. So I thought, OK, globally that is not a large number out of 36,000 employees.

Suddenly, the game changed and now my company is laying off 4% in Bartlesville and one of my close friends was in that 4% and this will go on through March. That brought this layoff thing roaring back into our lives. We survived my wife's layoff in 2006 6 weeks after moving into a new home and came out of it fine, but the emotions of potentially losing a job are just alive and raw today for her. Just before her layoff, things in our lives were starting to really click along; new house, reducing debt, etc. And now here we are. After Heather's dad died, we have been able to pay off all of our debt other than my car and put a large amount of money towards the principal of the house. Again, things finally seemed to get into place for us again. Then yesterday happened. And here we are looking over our backs.

This is a new arena for me because I have never worked anywhere before where this was a ever a possibility. In my department, one employee asked to be laid off and she was granted her wish. There was another who I believe was blindsided.

So I has a sit down with my boss to just talk this out. She understands what has happened to us before and sees my perspective. What she could do was say was to think about 2008 and how my review went and go from there. I did have a very high score last year so that relieved me somewhat.

But, the potential is always there and the "what ifs" and "maybes" are just going to to make for the longest and possibly one of the most stressful of my life. Good thing I don't have high blood pressure issues cause this could kill me if I did.