{"id":148,"date":"2002-11-13T10:34:47","date_gmt":"2002-11-13T15:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/wordpress\/riffed"},"modified":"2002-11-13T10:34:47","modified_gmt":"2002-11-13T15:34:47","slug":"riffed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/2002\/11\/riffed.html","title":{"rendered":"RIFFed!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ordinarily I don’t talk much about work here. (I consider it unprofessional.) However, this<\/em> particular news is worth a mention — I’ve been laid off at Sun. Or in company parliance, “RIFFed” (RIF = Reduction In Force).<\/p>\n

I’m actually feeling pretty good about the whole thing. First, I’m young and resilient. I hate to say it, but I’m glad it was me and not some 48-year-old guy with a mortgage and kids in school.1<\/a><\/sup> Second, none of this was a big surprise to me — my group got hit hard (as I figured), and they basically just kept core, veteran engineers (as I also figured). Third, the severance package and my savings will tide me over for a reasonable length of time.2<\/a><\/sup> Finally, and most importantly, this is a good “kick in the seat” to go do something new and interesting. I think I need<\/em> such kicks every once in a while — without them, I tend to get stuck in a rut.<\/p>\n

Anyway, yesterday really wasn’t so bad. My director (who had to break the news to each of us) seemed like he was having a much<\/em> worse day than anyone else. I was actually quite cheerful, and all my colleagues came by to chat and wish me good luck, which was nice. Well, okay, there was one low point. I was joking around with two longtime engineers, Carlos and Benoit, when a cute young systems engineer poked her head in my office. (She was attached to Benoit’s project, I think.) After a few minutes of banter, the conversation went like this:3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n

Cute Young SE: Wow, I’ve never seen such a neat, clean office.<\/p>\n

Benoit: That’s our webmaster! He’s very neat and organized.4<\/a><\/sup> Someday he’s going to make a great husband for someone.<\/p>\n

Carlos: Husband?? No, he’s not ready to go out and get married… he should just go out and have fun!<\/p>\n

Benoit: No, it’s time for him to find a nice girl and settle down.<\/p>\n

[they argue]<\/p>\n

Cute Young SE (noticing me rolling my eyes): C’mon, guys. You can’t just assume<\/em> he’s interested in girls… <\/p>\n

[Carlos and Benoit stop arguing. Cute Young SE turns bright red.]<\/p>\n

Me: Well, I think we’ve now hit the high point of my day. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s hard enough to ask a cute girl out when you’re an unemployed loser, but when you’re an unemployed possibly gay<\/em> loser, it’s pretty much a no-go.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

1. Not that I think 48-year-olds with mortgages have more right<\/em> to keep their job than a young punk such as myself. That line of thinking leads directly to the 1950s office (back when they paid unmarried men less than married men). It’s just that… I feel better about it being me rather than them, that’s all.<\/small><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

2. That is, if I can keep my insanely expensive appetites in check. No more Prada underwear, damnit<\/em>. <\/small><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

3. Paraphrasing, of course.<\/small><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

4. Friends and family will guffaw at this. But actually my office was usually quite neat and organized, mostly because I didn’t keep a lot of stuff in it.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s hard enough to ask a girl out when you’re an unemployed loser, but when you’re a an unemployed possibly gay<\/em> loser, it’s pretty much a no-go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}