I HATE IT WHEN I'M RIGHT......

Life has been pretty good to me lately. Happily settled into a new apartment. My drive to work had been cut to 20 minutes by the streets. Finally starting to catch up on all my bills. Happily reached my one year anniversery. We are starting to get used to Homeschooling. As a once famous song says "the futures so bright.. I gotta wear shades"...

Or maybe not. We just found out our plant is closing sometime between August and Sept. This means I'll be out of a job sometime between Sept. and Jan. (somebody has to take the place apart). Just when I thought I was getting a handle on all the chaos, a new and potentially life altering wrench is thrown into the machine.

So what are my options.
1) I could transfer up to Madera. Wasn't quite ready to relocate the family since we just got settle here. And the corporation refuses to transfer anyone until after the shutdown cuz they need the people hear to shut down. If I wait, then I'm thrown into a pool with anyone else who wants to transfer up there and may or may not get the transfer. I could go up there as a new hire, but then I would lose all the benefits I've earned up to this point. Transfering up there would also throw me back to the bottom of the barrel in terms of getting off rotating shift. I hate rotating shift.

2) Throw myself back on the market and hope I find something that can pay my bills and offer comparable benefits. That doesn't rotate :-)

Option one means I get out of LA, which I'm intend to do eventually, but that I'm stuck, at least for now in a job I really don't like.

Option two means I stay here longer, but how much longer is the question. 2 years, 5 years, 10 years? When I leave LA I want it to be a planned evolution, not a survival technique. Option two could also mean I'm unemployed for a while.


I knew this was coming, I just didn't want to believe it. I wanted to believe upper management guru's who knew we wouldn't close. I wanted to believe the guys that said, "oh they've been saying that for years". One guy even offered to bet me. Shoulda taken that bet. But the signs were there for all to see and I knew it was coming in spite of those trying to convince me otherwise.

But knowing something is going to happen and being a part of it actually happening are two different things. For about a week after the announcement I felt shell shocked. As if an anvil had been dropped on my world shaking the very foundation. I've been unemployed and homeless before in my life. My friends used to label me "The Nomad". This time it's different. This time, I'm actually anxious and worried. I know it's because this time I have two people who depend on me. The burden of being head of the household. The burden of responsibility.


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

...Robert Frost

But the question is... which is the road less travelled? When I figure that one out, dear reader, I'll let you know.