Job

I wish this post was about something more pleasant, but I figure the blog will have to show the good, bad and the ugly.

Due to slowdown in business for my department at work, I was laid off on Monday. I've never been laid off in my life and the whole experience was just not pleasant. Our group has known for a while that things in my department were shaky. You see, we have to bill out our time based off which groups we are working for, etc. Well with the recession and Cargill's initiative to reduce unnecessary travel & meeting spend, that hit our group pretty hard. There have been less meetings to work on - resulting in less billable time and less income for the department.

Although we all knew it was a possibility that job cuts could be coming soon, I honestly just did not think it would be - even though I was the most recent addition to the department. They assured me it had absolutely nothing to do with my performance and had nothing to say but good things about me and my work. (although it didn't really make me feel tons better at the time). They just said that it was strictly due to the fact that I was the newest person and I had the least amount of experience in the industry. Out of the 8 people in my group, they laid off me and another guy. I am technically employed through April 21 - they told me it was up to me if I wanted to keep working during that time or not. They said regardless of whether I was working I would get paid through the end of the 30 days. So hmmm, let me think about that one. ??

My boss is contacting some different groups both within Cargill and outside of Cargill that may have possible opportunities. So, I will follow up on those once I get the information. Otherwise, I'm just going to take a few days to let everything sink in and hopefully lose some of the bitterness I feel.

We have decided it was definitely time for a vacation. We are looking at going the end of April down to Miami and then to Key West for a few days - so hopefully that will work out because I think this is something we could both use right now! In the meantime, I will just explore my options for my next job and also take advantage of some time at home to get things done.