You know how stuff just sucks sometimes?

Sure you do! I'm feeling it today. I suppose the one good thing is that yesterday, when I went to work, I thought to myself, "Damn, I wish the weekend wasn't over!"

Be careful what you wish for, kiddies!

I was dumb as hell, doing my job as normal and having no idea what was going on. Then, about 2:30 in the afternoon, I got asked to join M in the conference room. I figured it was another meeting and wrapped up what I was doing, then went on in.

Well . . . turns out that after all their planning meetings last week, they have decided that the best course of action is to dissolve my position. That's right - dissolve my position. Just add water and watch it go "poof".

The man who never made any sales calls on time is now going to be in charge of all sales. They're not doing any marketing whatsoever for the rest of the year. Therefore, sales and marketing manager (or whatever the hell I was)? Pah - not needed! Position dissolved.

I got this information at 2:30 in the afternoon. They asked if I had any questions. I told them I didn't think so, and thanked them for the experience. Then, very unlike those two gentlemen, I didn't even get a handshake as we all stood around the table. Not even a handshake.

By 4:30 yesterday afternoon, my desk was cleared, I said goodbye to my pretty, pretty computer, and I walked out the door.

Well, all THAT stuff's the negative. Now for the positive.

- I got out while the gettin's good. If they're not planning on marketing at all, that place is about to go down like the Titanic. This one ain't on board. As a matter of fact, I got two weeks' severance plus my unused vacation time. That's a helluva lot more than people will get if they have to close their doors.
- I was getting restless anyway.
- I'm so damn loyal I may not have left if they didn't fire me . . .

So there are plenty of reasons here why this is a positive issue - but yes, I'll be locking myself in a hole for a bit. And if I'm not online (at least until we can get connected at home so I can job search in my underwear), this is why.

Wooooooot! Kinda.

Song of Patience

For a lovely instant I thought she would grow mad
and end the reason's fever.
But in her hand she held Christ's splinter,
so I could only laugh and press a warm coin
across her seasoned breasts:
but I remembered clearly then your insane letters
and how you wove initials in my throat.

My friends warn me
that you have read the ocean's old skeleton;
they say you stitch the water sounds
in different mouths, in other monuments.
"Journey with a silver bullet," they caution.
"Conceal a stake inside your pocket."
And I must smile as they misconstrue your insane letters
and my embroidered throat.

O I will tell him to love you carefully;
to honour you with shells and coloured bottles;
to keep from your face the falling sand
and from your human arm the time-charred beetle;
to teach you new stories about lightning
and to let you run sometimes barefoot on the shore.
And when the needle grins bloodlessly in his cheek
he will come to know how beautiful it is
to be loved by a madwoman.

And I do not gladly wait the years
for the ocean to discover and rust your face
as it has all of history's beacons
that have turned their gold and stone to water's onslaught,
for then your letters too rot with ocean's logic
and my fingernails are long enough
to tear the stitches from my throat.

~Leonard Cohen