Goodbye to the Day Job

On Friday I posted this to my Facebook status – Reorganizing and replanning needed for Operation 2011. The Day Job and I have parted company. It was a relatively amicable divorce. The biggest annoyance I’m feeling at the moment is that I just bought a case of Cup O Soups for lunches at work.

I got quite a few of my friends congratulating me on the event. Reading the note now I see that I could have been clearer about what happened.

I’ve been laid off. It’s nothing personal and if the work were there I still be there as well. Laying me off right now is just cold blooded economics. I was a
salaried employee at the previous incarnation of the Day Job and I kept most of that salary when I moved to the current version. The amount of work I’ve had in front of me has stayed as high as did in part because the many of the systems were pretty inefficient and needed a human being available to make sure folks got what they needed.

Over the last few months the company has been going through a lot of changes. We got a CEO whose focus has been on setting up effective systems, streamlining the day to day operations and making sure the company is in good shape going forward. One of the biggest steps lately was a complete redesign of the company’s website. The new website is set up in way that eliminates most of the problems that were predictable in the old systems and thus eliminates a lot of the hands on work that I did.

I’ve gotten a small severance and an exit letter that should make it easy for me to get unemployment. Looking for work is not something I’m looking forward to but I’m not going to start worrying about that until Monday. I’ve been working a few hours a day, seven days a week since the beginning of 2010. I didn’t have any company emails to answer yesterday. I won’t have any to answer today. I’m enjoying the peace.