So Matt got an email from his boss asking him to send in a weekly report saying what he spent his time on and what he plans to do the following week. The email ended with a disturbing paragraph that could’ve been interpreted as: you won’t be with us much longer. And the company is laying off 1/2 of their workforce as it is.

He emailed his boss back, saying “I’ll definitely start sending you those reports, and should I look for another job?” That’s not verbatim of course. 🙂 While we waited for his boss to answer, we discussed possible futures in a very unhappy way. We both felt the stress and the conversation wasn’t very helpful. His boss emailed back saying that everything was fine. They have plenty of work for him, but that he needs to send in these reports to keep the accountant-types of his boss’ back.

So the stress and worry immediately melted away and I was able to think clearly again. Two things came from this. The first was an interesting realization. Stress and worry seized up my mind and I was near useless. I wasn’t helpful in coming up with a solution to our possible problem. Hopefully, since I’m now aware of this, next time I’ll be a little more coherent.

The second thing I decided was that I’m not going to get a toy job. When we returned from England after the New Year, I was going to try to get a job at a comic book store or some other similar situation. The pay would be minimal with no benefits. I was trying to find something with little stress and that I found enjoyable. But now I’ve decided to get a real job.

I’ve been out of work for nearly six months now, and I’m ready to go back. I really needed the break. I worked for two start-ups in three years with no vacation. The stress broke me into little tiny pieces by the time we got laid off last June. But after my six-month break, I’m ready to go back. But not to another high-stress job. I’m done with that. I know I won’t get paid as much, but I can’t deal with all the bullshit and the inane hours they expect you to work. The money isn’t worth it to me.

I talked to Carla about my idea of her moving in with either me or Mom if Steve gets that job in Alaska. She and Steve had already been talking about that and she had already discussed the possibility with Mom. We’ll have to see what happens. I think her and Steve really want Steve to get that job because that would get them out of debt. And Steve suggested that she spend that year going back to school full time. One more year and she would have her associates degree from ACC in business management.

Plans plans plans. We always seem to have about five different plans in the works at any one time. One plan doesn’t work out, you just smoothly shift tracks and try Plan B.

By the way, marriage isn’t as easy as I thought it was. I guess it seemed easy because we are newlyweds. The biggest problem that we have is that Matt is so far from his family. That makes me really sad, and we don’t really have a good solution for that one.

That’s all my thoughts for now. Sudden ending.