Hi all.
Been away a bit due to life hitting hard the past few months. Let's see...
The beginning of Nov., we found out that my work site was closing. (For those keeping track at home, that's two sites that have been closed under me.) We didn't find out until the beginning of January whether we were getting offers to go to the Boston area, the corporate site a few miles from my current site, or being let go (70%).
I made the cut somehow, and am going to be going to corporate. My group lost 2/5 document coordinators and both archivists, and the remaining 3 of us are now in a new group. We still do similar tasks, but will also be working with outsourcing and contracts. I'm also involved in the archiving, somehow. It's all very fuzzy. So, in the meantime, we're working to finish up the outstanding studies (with most of the personnel gone), working on boxing up and logging the stuff in the archive, putting out fires, and fitting in too many meetings. I'm hoping to learn a few more skills to throw on the resume.
But now my commute is a few miles longer than it was. *sigh* We're hearing rumors that this site will be only open a few more years as well, so I can put up with it for now and then find something new. I'm working on building my savings back up and getting the debt paid down as much as I can during this time. It's very hard to be motivated, though, because they keep changing things, like eliminating the pension plan. But my new manager will let me work from home one day a week, which is nice.
And the worst thing was that my grandmother had a medical problem that started before Thanksgiving. She went into the hospital for a few weeks with no improvement, and then went straight into home hospice care when it turned out she had some kind of myeloma. She passed away the day after Christmas. My daughter and I cut short our visit to my dad and made it home for the funeral. I'm so glad that my sister and I got to see her in the hospital in mid-December, when she was still lucid. My brothers made it in time as well soon after our trip. And I made it through reading the Memorare at the grave site at my mother's request. (Herald voice comes in handy.)
So I feel really behind now, after coping with all of the stress the past few months. At least I'm going to get some time back in the near future, after I hand over a regional office in the SCA to my successor. That's 20 hours a week I can use for other things, like running the local SCA fencing practice again. (I fought in a tournament a few weeks ago.
I hadn't done that in over 6 months.)Oh, and as of yesterday, I have a new niece.
