Remember That Paranoia?

You may recall that I posted a couple of days ago about paranoia, sort of chiding myself for being so paranoid. After all, I had never had a bad review (or any review, actually), got fan mail every day from happy customers, and kept being told what a valuable employee I was. Until I was fired yesterday, anyway. Cause I am too expensive and things are "moving in another direction."

And the paranoia was spot on. This is a private blog--I only post it to email lists that are confidential or private, or I tell someone about it personally. I expect the contents to be kept confidential--this is not the New York Times. And I have a right to talk about my life here. But, apparently this blog's secret function is for people to read, then send the contents on to others--no doubt I slipped up and posted my private .sig on the wrong list or something--yes, of course, it is all my fault.

While pretty much every single person in the office where I will work for another 13 days is looking for alternative employment (unless waiting to retire after a conference next year), I am penalized because I mentioned it in my personal blog. And I mentioned it a long time ago, too. I had not stopped working, planning, encouraging volunteers, and doing whatever the people in charge would still let me do. If [whoever it is] had just allowed me to graciously quit, I had planned to save them money by not hanging on or anything, and had planned to volunteer to help out with some of my previous jobs in my spare time. I also would have only had to deal with some email saying how sorry they were to lose me but glad I have a better opportunity. Now I get severance and my vacation time, lots of it. But I also have to politely field dozens of phone calls and even more emails. And try to cheer up crying employees and encourage them to keep doing their work, for the greater good.

Perhaps they were just not looking forward to my letter of resignation, so they proactively dumped me. Hee hee. But, heck, those in charge edit resignation letters before sharing them with others, anyway.

I do hope whoever had it in for me so much that they felt justified in sharing my private postings feels satisfied to be rid of me. How nice it would have been if that person could have talked to me about it first, so I could explain the situation! And how helpful it might have been if I had been available to assist during the transition from our current way of doing things to the newer brighter, shinier thing I assume some new consultants will bring in! (My, what a nice job I could have done had I ever been given more than the bare mnimum in funding, real employees with programming skills, a graphic designer who got paid, and some training for me!)

On a similar note, here are the most common things said to fired people and what keeps running through my head:

• it wasn't personal= don't take it personally (it happened to a person)
• we are moving in another direction (got that one twice this year so far--never have heard what that direction IS)
• it wasn't my decision (what is it, decision makers are physically incapable of doling out their decisions and seeing the effect? why to they keep making my close personal friends dump me? CHICKENS)
• when one door closes, another one opens (the door to the poorhouse)
• I hope another wonderful opportunity for you opens up soon (me too, as I was never paid enough to accumulate any savings and I am the sole wage earner for my family)

And to readers who don't let me know you are here, if you have something to say to me, say it to me. Don't forward my posts to others or telephone people about me.

I'll post the image that goes with this post in a couple of weeks. It's a nice one.