The layoff

I guess I'm not done talking about the layoff.

You know what the most frustrating and irritating part of that lame duck/short timer/slow death (pick your metaphor) situation was? The ridiculous number of times I had to try and make other people feel better about the fact that I was losing my job. I don't know what I'm doing next and I decided to take a holiday break from looking for a job and/or digging into my soul for my life's purpose. Given the magnitude of trying to figure out what to do next, I don't understand why every joe at work thought it was a light, small talk, chatty conversation to ask me if I found a job yet. And these were people whose names I didn't even know, whose ID badges I was trying to sneak a quick glance at (side rant: always embarassing when you have to glance at someone's crotch region to try and glean their name from the plastic dangling from their waist. side rant #2: I really don't know an uncumbersome way to make the pronouns singular and gender-neutral in that last sentence). It's very weird that someone with whom I've shared no more than a "Mondays sure are hard" nudge at the coffee machine feels so comfortable probing me about my joblessness and life plans.

The first hundred times I tried to be honest, which required me to delve deeper into my "what am I doing with my life?" issues than felt appropriate or desirable for middle-of-the-hallway chats. I finally gave up and started offering a version of "I'm taking some time off". To a person, the response was always "Good for you!", a condescending little pat on the back. I was at least still being truthful and it was much more pleasant than starting a conversation that would lead a semi-stranger to ask "Well, what do you WANT to do?", like the fact that no one has ever asked me this question could be the reason I'm not fulfilling my dreams and desires.

Still working on what I WANT to do, but for now, I will continue to just take some time off.