Typhoid Mary

Some years ago I worked as a contractor for a company that did telecommunications software. Every year they'd ask me to convert to full-time employee, and every year I'd decline. After four years I decided that I liked the place, that the work was interesting and varied enough that I wouldn't die of boredom.

I converted to full-time.

A year later I was laid off.

As it turns out, this was not a bad thing since (a) the job I then got was way more interesting, and I worked with far brighter and more like-minded people, and (b) some time later my beau from the telecommunications place and I broke up, which would have been awkward had I still been there, to say the least, since our dissolution was not without bitterness.

The Way More Interesting Job was not without its downside. I watched endless rounds of what seemed like ill-considered layoffs, while I remained immune. 

It was disconcerting. 

Then TWMIJ got interesting in a Chinese curse kinda way ("May you live in interesting times") as business picked up its downhill rate of spiral and we were regularly frightened at impromptu company meetings where they warned us of doom and gloom. 

Layoffs became more random and frequent.

I watched and freaked out.

After a while I stopped freaking out, since it was clearly not personal, and there was nothing to do which would either forestall or hasten one's own layoff.

Mine was in January this year, and as you may recall, met with some amount of glee, sloth and indolence being much underrated.

Foolish I am not, since I took the new job when it was offered back in April.

On Friday I watched as twenty percent of the workforce was laid off, people with more history at the company, more and higher (in the hierarchy) personal connections, and probably more work experience.

And I know, assurances to the contrary, that this won't be the last. 

Immune, I'll watch more fall like flies until I too am overcome.

I hope not though.

I beaded another sample for a class proposal which I don't actually know was accepted, only that they wanted to see a bigger picture in a lighter colour.

I had given them black/hematite.

I hope this fits their criteria (yes, I sent them a humungous picture).

I'm still knitting hexagons, and I guess my taste in knitted skirts was vindicated when my daughter said "I can't wait for you to be finished with that so I can borrow it". Her version of borrowing involves a longer absence than I like, and sometimes necessitates my retrieval of borrowed item, so I'm not altogether delighted with her interest in my skirt.

All the same (no picture, but trust me) I'm one round and three hexagons away from The End Of All Hexagons (and on to edging and finishing, which have their own charm).

Probably not in time for Thanksgiving dinner though.