Certainly Monday.

Well today has certainly been a Monday. While I am quite happy to be off-call (at least for the next two weeks), my glee of being off-call was deterred by what many of us are facing these days.

“Workforce Reduction”.

Many Americans (and people across the world, for the matter) are working for companies that are cutting back their workforce in these turbulent economic times. The company I work for is no different. There was hope that we could weather out the storm without layoffs but apparently those that make these decisions decided it couldn’t be helped, so today there were meetings with selected individuals, followed by empty boxes being filled, passwords being changed and a few tears flowing.

I did not get laid off. This was a bright spot in an otherwise bleak day.

Today I shook the hand of a man who had a technical prowess that I admired very much and then, along with my co-workers, wished him well as he made his way to exit the building. He was a good teacher. I hope I learned enough from him.

And the bumpy ride continues.