I've slept better since they dropped the axe. There's a lot to be said for the relief afforded by resolution, regardless of what the actual results may be. And I've already said it to some who have asked how I felt about it: it could be worse -- I could still be working there. And the ultimate worst-case scenario, getting laid off, but deemed essential enough that they keep you around for another month before you officially lose you job. I don't know how they do it, on both sides of that particular equation.
So, I've been sleeping better. And waking up in the morning and realizing that I don't have to sit in a car for a half an hour to get to the northern reaches of the state to be at work has been nice, but it's a little weird filling the day. And it has been getting filled, certainly.
I cleaned up my desk. I paid the bills. I finally got around to raking the leaves in the yard*. Filed for unemployment**. Went running. Played piano. The SOOTTAD has been pleased that I've been around tidying the house and keeping the chaos in the kitchen in check. Busy. Busywork. But it's been tough trying to feel like I'm being productive, that I'm getting things done. It's tough wrestling with the whole idea that I need to be productive.
* I think my neighbor has been annoyed with me and has been waiting for me to get around to doing this. In past years, I've let it go until late in the season (hey, I get busy, these things happen), and invariably, sometime after he'd raked his yard, there'd be a really windy day and half the leaves that I'd left in my yard would blow into his. Last year he put in some hostas along the border of his yard and put up some low garden fencing, as much an aesthetic addition as a barrier against leaf intrusion. As I was raking yesterday, I noticed that my neighbor hadn't raked yet, or had left several sections unraked. I finished at dusk last night, and when I looked out the window this morning, the neighbor's yard, full of leaves the previous night, had already been cleared. Is he sending me a message? I'll admit that it was a pretty nice day to be outside doing yardwork (I think it hit 60°F, just a week after we got 4 inches of snow), but normally I would have expected him to do it sooner.
** So it looks like I won't be seeing any unemployment benefits anytime soon. It seems that severance pay disqualifies you because it's considered income, which I understand. I mean, they are effectively paying me to look for a new job. It just seems like it diminishes the "thanks for not suing us" goodwill that I thought they were trying to buy. Hey, I've said it before and I'll say it again: it could be worse.
One of the reasons I'm not terribly upset about getting laid off is that I've felt like I've needed a break for a while now. More than a weekend in Vermont, or a long weekend in Baltimore or Vegas. Or even a week-plus in and around L.A. Some real time off, just to shut down for a while.
And then there are also a bunch of projects that have been sitting on the sidelines for quite some time now. Things that would take more than a week or two to do properly. Learn Chinese, for real. Visit China with my parents. (That kind of follows the learn Chinese thing.) Work on an animated film, or three. Drive across the country. Maybe try a new career, something completely different.
But there's the fear. The fear that I won't get another job. The fear that taking any time off will reflect poorly on me and will make it even harder to get another job. The fear that I really will need unemployment.
There's also a strange sort of peer pressure, both internal and external. The external is obvious: there are a few people I've talked to already who are encouraging me to jump back into the engineering workforce ASAP. "[Y]ou can enjoy life and have time off in your vacation time while you have a job," one of them says. Which I suppose depends upon how much time you need, and how much vacation time a company is willing to give you. But that's in the minority. Most of my friends have been doing a pretty good job easing my concerns over taking some time off before jumping back in.
The internal, I admit, is a little weird, but I guess it's all about me and how my head is wired. I had a friend in high school (also American but ethnically Chinese) who would talk about how we were programmed: programmed to do well in school, to study, to work hard, to be competitive (academically), programmed to be geeks and nerds. We busted out in our own ways (he got a perm in 11th grade, I, uh, well... I think I just kinda burnt out in college at some point, met a girl), but a lot of that wiring is still in there. And I see my colleagues already posting job opening information, getting their resumés out, scheduling interviews, and I can feel the current trying to pull me along with them. I should be doing that. I need to get myself out there.
But I still feel like I need to take some time to get my shit together. Part of me loved what I was doing: design, understanding problems, finding solutions. It was like getting a new puzzle to play with and figure out. It was great. And yet, it's never just that -- there are usually other job responsibilities, and other factors, like company environment and social dynamic. So I wonder whether it's really what I want to do.
Jumping back in is certainly the path of least resistance -- I may worry about finding another job, but if I get it, it will at least be a familiar exercise, learning new environments and technologies, striving for understanding, proficiency, success. But I wonder whether I'd just be jumping back into the same situation I was in before, being miserable, wondering if I'm really doing the right thing. I feel like I'd be cheating myself if I didn't consider all my options, and regardless of where I end up, I'd like to make sure I take enough real time off to let me reset.
The starting point is what's hard right now. Do I hurry up and find a job or do I take some time off? I may not be working right now, but just this little decision point is keeping my stress levels at a point where it's distracting.
Bah.
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