September, 2008:

It’s been close to two weeks of unemployment so far and I’ve been having such a good time that I’m already dreading the hypothetical future job I will be getting eventually. It’s been a real transitional time for me, though I’m not sure what I’m transitioning into other than a lazy ass welfare case. Plus I can’t think of any reason why that’s bad at the moment. I can feel the parents becoming unproud of me and the friends getting embarrassed.

I’ve taken the opportunity to do things I would have said no to had I been working. These things include:

• salsa dancing (for the first time)
• staying up until 3 am chatting with a friend at Tim Horton’s
• crashing on another friend’s couch
• going on a photowalk on a weekday with Dad
• baking lots of cookies
• going for breakfast/lunch/dinner with friends any time of day

I’ve become aware of how many things I gave up because I was too stressed or tired, but really I have no excuse now beyond the general biological need to sleep eventually, so I’ve been living it up a tad. I’m not sure I would have ever said yes to salsa due to personal shyness but I did and it was fun, though I sucked.

I’m also becoming more and more aware of just how burned out I am, because the stress is still coming out. I’ve been in talks to do a quick contract database job and it’s got me antsy. And I flipped out at Dad today: he was bitching about slow pedestrians at a crosswalk when driving me to his place and I screamed “STOP STRESSING ME OUT!” which is totally unlike me, who prefers the ulcer growing method of anger management. Methinks I should continue avoiding as many sources of angst as possible while my psyche recovers and my chi balances out or whatever chi does.

I wish I had anything else to talk about, so I’m sorry about the dull topic, but fun is a dull conversation topic.

It seems I freaked out a few people by taking down my blog last week, and I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to look melodramatic; I turned it off because I didn’t want to say anything stupid or incriminating in my shock over being let go from my job. Also because that damned computer is loud and I spent a good portion of the weekend sitting not too far from it (on the couch, watching videos) and I had a rather bad headache for a few days. Someday I’ll host this thing somewhere outside of my living room, really I will.

I meant to turn this back on a few days ago but then I was busy hanging out with friends and sort of forgot about it. But I got all these concerned emails so I’m putting this back on so people can stop worrying about me.

The thing is, I was really upset on Friday and Saturday, but I woke up Sunday morning and realized that I don’t really have any reason to be unhappy. So I stopped the self-hatred and started enjoying myself. As for why I can’t be unhappy: it had been on my mind lately that I really needed some time off. Really, really needed. I was burned out, have been for a very long time (well over a year) and I had meant to take a good chunk of time off from working when I quit my previous job in November. But then I started this one a week later. And in recent months I’ve been wishing in my head that there were some way I could get some real time off, as in, more than a week. The gods answered, not in quite the way I wanted, but the result is the same.

The official reason for my being let go was that it’s “departmental restructuring” of IT and they terminated my position. I don’t know what it is I do that makes employers decide they don’t need a DBA (the previous company doesn’t have a DBA anymore, despite having 3 at one point), but that’s not really my problem (it’s the systems administrators’, who are stuck doing the database work now). I was told that this was not a reflection on my performance and they thank me for my contributions to the company over the past 9 months. Which didn’t sound nearly as good as hearing my former coworkers say how upset and mad they were that I was sacked.

I was pretty unhappy there (partially from being burned out), so the Sunday morning happy feelings involved relief that I didn’t have to do that work anymore. The only thing that sucks (besides, well, not getting paid) is that I don’t get to see the workmates every day anymore, because they are awesome people who I want to freeze dry, shrink wrap and put in my pocket for safe keeping. I will miss them terribly, though luckily nobody’s died and I get to hang out with some of them outside of the office now; just less often.

Now, I have no idea where the next job’s going to come from, and I didn’t see many job ads for MySQL DBAs (with Java developing experience) when I was looking online last weekend, but I don’t really care right now. I’m getting severance and vacation pay, and I’d been saving up for a big vacation trip, so I won’t starve anytime soon. I’ve decided to give myself September to goof off, have fun and learn how to relax. I’ll be sending out resumes, sure, but meh. It’s all about the me-time now.

There’s a chance I’ll be freaking out eventually if I can’t find any work, but I don’t see any point in worrying now, do you? So thanks to those of you who sent your sympathy and condolences, but you can take it back and regift it to me at Christmas if I’m still unemployed then. In the meantime, let’s party.