Brian Fields

I’m a bad news first kinda guy.  Lucky for me the news could be much, much worse, but it’s not.  We had to go through another round of layoffs at work and our department wasn’t as lucky as it was last time.  I wasn’t part of the layoffs, but nonetheless they left a sour taste in my mouth about my future, the future of the company, and my opinions of some individuals at the company.  Don’t get me wrong, I like it here and I hope the place is around longer than I am, but it’s hard to NOT have doubts about these things when you have to watch your friends walk out the door and stand there wondering all sorts of things.  Like I said, it could have been much worse for me personally, but it’s hard to keep a positive attitude amidst all that’s going on.

I avoided going out people from work because I didn’t want to spend the money at a bar. So after “Black Friday” I went home and mulled some things over all by my lonesome.  Mike was out of town for a wedding and Joe was tied up, so I had a few beers, bored myself with some games and found myself in a staredown with the clock… just waiting for a reasonable time to go to bed.

Saturday was more or less the same.  Kristen called me around 10am and invited me over to have waffles with her and Joe and I hung around there until noon or so.  I loafed around until dinner, went and had a burrito, then went to the Apple store to buy Quicken for Mac.  (FYI: It sucks.)  I really just wanted to get out for a little bit.  Later on Kristen called me and invited me to Don Pablo’s for dinner… I just had desert since I have alredy eaten.  Then we went over to Stephanie’s for a few beers but nobody wanted to do anything but sit around and be tired.

The next morning I went to church and almost immediately went up to Mom and Dad’s place for the day.  I got to see Yahtzee again.  She’s getting so big!  I think mom said she’s up to a whopping 16/17 pounds.  Dad taught me how to drive a stick shift.  I was getting pretty good at it, I think.  I stalled more times than I could count, and still need some practice, but I could do it by myself if I had to.  After a nice delicious dinner and a little bit of television I went back home.

Here it is Wednesday and I suppose I’ve cheered up a bit since Friday, but it’s really just a matter of my thoughts being shoved to the back of my mind so I can do my job.  Monday was a pretty confusing day as the layoffs left pretty much all the teams missing people.  I’ve had work but it’s been pretty stale around here.  We’ve been told that the company is at a “sustainable” point with our current business level, but I think it’s best to prepare for the possibility of the worst, regardless.  Hopefully things start shaping up soon to lift the cloud over us.
See ya.