On January 17th, there was an all employee meeting at the building where I work at.  Speculation was that they were going to shut the building down.  I, personally, had a lot of evidence to that regards, and perhaps I should have passed it on to my fellow employees, but I had no desire to panic anyone.  Especially since there was also a logical explanation for every item.

Unfortunately, it was revealed that yes, we were to close doors.  All employees were to either take up new jobs in other units, or move on.  Counseling sessions were provided on a one on one basis to explore the options, but the fact of the matter was…it was all over.

These are people I had worked with for 8 years.  People I had mooched candy from, taught math and computers to, people that invited me over for dinner.  If ever I had a family, this was it.  It is a tremendous vote of confidence to hear that most of a shift of workers threatened to quit if I did not re-take several job duties I had before…which I was none to happy to lose, but since I had been promoted out of the area, what was I to do?  I took them back, happily.

This was a job that bent over backwards to make sure I could finish college.  They let me change jobs and schedules as needed.  They let me fiddle with the computer system, develop bakery recipes, drive vehicles, and irritate powerful people.  Even when I was officially moved out of the building (except in office), I worked here.

These were good people, too.  Some of them had been doing the same job for 40 years.  They were reliable, dependable, and very easy going provided you didn’t insult their teams.  You could trust them to do what was needed to be done, and if they finished early, they went looking for more to do.  They never, ever looked down on me because I’m a little strange…on the contrary, one of them went out and learned to read and write because I was always doing it and enjoying it.  These were people that had a job, and they did it very well.

And now, all gone.  I might see one or two at other units (my position, since I don’t actually work here, didn’t change) but for the most of them, no more.

So perhaps, I might have put a little more thought then to wear my new dress trench coat to work the next day…