The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

So the past few weeks have been crazy. I was laid off from a job I hated, temporarily transferred to the Seattle office for two weeks to see if I would hate the job as intensely in a different location, and then shipped back here to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and how to support myself in the meantime. So here is the good, the bad, and the ugly of the whole experience.

The Good

• I drove to my parents’ home both weekends I was in Seattle and got to spend some quality time with them. Also, there is nothing like the ego boost of going back to a place where people think you are great.
• I realized that I hate my job regardless of location and really feel great about not ever going back to work for that company.
• Despite the stress of the whole experience, I’ve never been happier than I was today when I realized I would never again have to wake up to that job.
• Severance packages are like having paid vacations.

The Bad

• One should never have to live in a hotel for two weeks. I don’t care if it is a studio with a kitchen.
• Everyone was going on about the heat wave in Seattle. It was 75 degrees. I was wearing sweaters and shivering while everyone else was blasting the A/C. I even turned on the heat in my hotel room.
• Because of the short notice under which my flight arrangements were made my itinerary went something like this: Salt Lake – San Francisco – Seattle – Denver – Salt Lake
• Almost bursting into tears in the San Francisco airport after realizing that exactly seven years ago to the day I had been sitting in the same airport on the way to London.
• Salt Lake Int’l Airport experienced horrible weather and a major technological meltdown on the day I flew back, which delayed my flight from Denver for two hours, messed up the baggage claim system to the point that bags from multiple flights were on different carousels meaning that it took me an hour and a half to figure out my luggage wasn’t on any of them, and caused a 30 minute wait to pay for parking.
• My luggage was left in Denver and didn’t arrive until 12:30pm the next day.

The Ugly

• The branch manager of the Seattle branch suffers from short term memory loss due to a car accident earlier this summer. Which caused him to tell me the following stories on a daily basis:
• How he has short-term memory problems because of a car accident earlier this summer.
• How he is suing his contractor because the contractor didn’t weather-proof the foundation and he now has a virulent mold problem.
• How he teaches classes for his church and is “just trying to live by faith.

• Mr. Short-Term Memory, despite the above protestation of religiosity, had a tendencey to drop the F-bomb on a regular basis, especially when telling stories or really, really stupid jokes at which I was forced, out of politeness, to smile.
• Mr. Short-Term Memory also suffered from over-sharing. I know more about his past relationships, his musical preferences, his dog ownership, and his church-going than I knew about anyone I had worked with for 2+ years in the Salt Lake office.
• I got the eerie feeling, despite the inappropriateness of it, that I was being auditioned for not only the administrative assistant position, but for a dating possibility as well. Examples:
• His constant questioning about what I do in my spare time, what music I like, and my opinions on other pop culture things.
• His enthusiasm for playing Death Cab for Cutie over and over on a daily basis after I reluctantly admitted to liking them.
• The performance of what can only be described as a ‘butt shimmy’ while singing along to the Death Cab for Cutie song that was blaring from his iTunes in front of my desk on his way to the conference room.
• His repeatedly asking me if I had a boyfriend, which was confusing since he kept referring to my roommate as “your girlfrie – I mean roommate.” Either way, I wasn’t going to admit to being single.
• His semi-frequent assertion that he knew what I was going through because "I'm also a single person trying to live by faith."
  

So now you are all caught up on the happenings of the last few weeks I’ve been MIA. I’ll keep you updated on the job search front, but for now I think I’ll spend the week enjoying a paid vacation.