You're Fired

This has been a weird last few days. Yesterday two employees were let go. One by his own choice--he had let on that he was considering other employment; the other one was completely surprised by the whole thing. I know he was unhappy working there, but it never feels good to be let go; you always want to leave on your own terms.

Anyways, I'm completely sympathetic to his situation. I too was "laid-off" at one point in my life. I wasn't happy either. I had watched most of my colleagues leave or get laid-off over about 3 months. We went from a company with 60 employees down to 18 when the "last wave" hit. Looking back on it, it was probably a good thing because I wasn't happy there. At the same time I was more-or-less forced to take the first job that came a long instead of being choosy like I would have liked to have been.

The work at "the job" wasn't bad. It was somewhat enjoyable. My official job title was "knowledge developer"...which is a hybrid way of saying technical writer/instructional designer. I wrote all sorts of courses that were delivered over the web. I didn't mind the actual work. My educational experience made this sort of work almost natural for me. You see I have an elementary education degree and an English minor. So basically, I understood learning principals and could write in complete sentences...or something like that. Anyways, the actual design and implementation of my courses was almost fun. I even liked QA'ing (proofreading) other people's work...it was like polishing a rough stone to make it shiny.

Some of my colleagues from this place, are still good friends of mine. But working with management, or should I say management working us over, was another story.

We were often asked to work on many courses at the same time never giving any ONE course its proper due. I was actually told that they would "push me to the breaking point" to see how much work I could handle. Pay...well, that wasn't so good either.

Needless to say that when I was let go, it was a blessing and a curse. I still haven't found work that I enjoy. I'm currently "trapped" in a profession that I really can't stand. I'm an administrative assistant at a CPA firm. A CPA firm that is also SUPER conservative.

So what should I do with my life. Some have suggested going back to school. But to be honest, I don't know that I want to. Some have suggested finding something I can do from home with my current skills. Some have even suggested having kids. What to do, what to do....

I do hope that my fellow employee finds something better. I know that scared feeling of having to pay the bills and having very little income(Unemployment in Cali wasn't enough to live off of). With that good luck LS.