Scary times

Last Friday, I couldn't go to work. I woke up in a daze, and wasn't able to shake it. This has happened to me before.

After spending the day moping, crying and sleeping, a headache hit that Tylenol wouldn't touch. My son was also having some issues dealing with disappointment (not my job to go into that here), and we wound up just hanging around trying to figure out what would help.

I said we ought to get out of the house; take a drive or something. He said, "I've never been to the Grand Canyon." I'd forgotten that was the case. I said, "Okay, let's go to the Grand Canyon," and got online to make a hotel reservation.

Even though the headache persisted into Saturday, I had obligations to attend two birthday parties. It sounds silly, but I'd promised to bring food to one, and the other was for a friend who was turning 50 and having difficulty dealing with it. So I pulled myself together and went to both. While there, I was okay, if still feeling the pain, but left the second one early. My buddy was surrounded by friends and having a good time. I wasn't needed, so went home.

The next morning, I took care of getting Grandma Lee her clean laundry and spent an hour with her before heading home to make sure the car was packed and ready to go. I was a little tense and shaky, as I am whenever going somewhere (even the grocery store). Don't know what causes that, but would like to get to the bottom of it.

Off we went, and had a wonderful two days. My son loved being able to challenge himself on the the trails, and I walked a few miles along the rim trail and treated myself to lunch.

Tuesday, I went into the office and felt okay until I got to my desk and found the envelope my younger son had used to send the extra keys to the shed (I left mine in there while checking the mail last week, and asked him to mail his). He'd wrapped them in paper, but not sealed the wrapping, nor taped them to the paper. The envelope had torn at the bottom corner and the keys fell out somewhere along the way.

I don't know why, but I started to cry and couldn't stop. It wasn't that the keys were lost; the dissapointment triggered something else inside me that welled up and took over. I was helpless to stop the crying. The realization also hit that I was supposed to talk to a man in the business office where Grandma Lee stays and had forgotten my cell phone with his contact information on it.

Crying all the while, I told the admin assistant I had to go home to get my cell phone, and left. I cried in the car, I cried when I went in the house, I cried and cried and couldn't stop. Finally, I called her and said I couldn't come back because I couldn't stop crying. It went on for a while longer, and then would start again on and off during the day. Crying is exhausting. I've heard that it's good to get it out, but I just felt tired and numb.

Yesterday, I showered, got ready for work, and headed in. Started to work through the papers on my desk, but it was difficult to focus. I was signed up for a conference call about and electronic learning system that has been instituted ineptly at our company, and it didn't make any sense to me. It was like they were speaking a foreign language.

My boss came by my desk and I told him about the  ELM call, and how I couldn't make heads or tails of it, and didn't know how I was going to manage implementation in our group if we couldn't get help. He told me not to worry about it; he'd already spoken to "them" (whoever "them" is) and we were going to get help with it.

I could sense the overwhelmed feeling coming back, so I hung up the conference call and started to go through the invoices on my desk. He said, "How are you?" I started to cry again. He said he wanted me to go talk to the company nurse and the EAP counselor. They had discussed me the day before, and he "strongly encouraged" me to go see her. I didn't see I had much choice.

I went over to the clinic to talk to her (I know her, and felt comfortable), and she put together paperwork that I could (should) take to my doctor (psychiatrist) to fill out to get me set up for FLM (to protect me from discipline should I have to take time off to deal with this problem) and short term disability (in case the doctor thought I would need extensive time off for meds readjustment or something like that). Then I spoke to the EAP counselor about the stress and fear caused by the unsettled atmosphere in my company, added to the responsibilities and obligations of my personal life.

I don't kid myself. This guy works for the company. If push comes to shove, any decisions or opinions he comes up with will be for the company's well-being rather than mine if there's any question of balance.

I love my job, and I love the people I work with. My boss is the best I've ever had, and his job is threatened because the powers that be decided there should be yet ANOTHER layer of management above him. So, we'll get a new director. Will my boss be needed anymore? Who knows...yet another question mark. Who will be directing me as I try to do too much, now?

We are like a family, and the family has lost members over the past couple of years because of layoffs and retirement. We are shrinking, and each of us is being asked to do more. I'm not alone. I suffer the curse of competence. Whenever they don't know who to assign a task to, I wind up with it because I can do it. Well, I can't do any more, and I may not be able to do what I already have on my plate anymore. Apparently, my mind has reached the tipping point.

In a company that has gone from a family and community-oriented business (and has been that way for more than 100 years), new people in the executive suite are turning us into a corporation like any other. We are no longer employees, we are "workforce". Our officers used to be able to greet many of us by name, and asked about our families. Not these new guys. They don't want to know us, because then they'd have to see us as people, not cogs in the wheel. Cogs are easily rearranged or disposed of.

Why do I live in fear of losing my job? I'm workforce. I've watched two of my friends leave--one laid off, and the other jumping ship before the blame for this ELM fiasco was dumped on her. The third was relieved to be able to retire a couple of weeks ago. I wish I was in that position. I'd been gone in a heartbeat.

The reality is that I have to work another 13 years before I can retire. It's a tough job market out there, and I can't find anything in the want ads that remotely matches my skill set and offers much more than half what I make now. I have  no partner who can help carry the load if I'm unemployed for a while. And, if I go off my rocker, who's going to want me anyway?

Why am I afraid? Oh, I don't know...how would you feel?