Fear of change

9:30 am ~ Thank you so much for your kind comments and your prayers! Salary and benefit cuts are in my future, but God is good and I still have a job as does everyone else. Everyone from the CEO on down will be taking a pay cut and we will try to do this by cutting out any expense that we can. Their goal is to not cut any additional staff though so that when the economy turns around, we will all still be in place to move forward. I honestly expected to find that we were going to be losing more people and I could do cartwheels right now because I'm so happy that this family gets to stay together. Thank you God for employers that truly do care about the welfare of their employees.



6:30 am ~ I am not a person that likes change. I rarely change my hair. I carry the same handbag until it falls apart. My furniture hasn't been rearranged in over ten years. I have no desire to find a new house and move. I like to know what's going to happen each day, each week, each month. The fact that my husband's work schedule changes each week makes me crazy. I am comforted by routine.

Armed with that information about me, you can only imagine what the current state of events in nation's economy are doing to me. Everything seems to be up in the air and nothing is certain. Kevin has already been through a series of jobs in the last 12 months due to the economy. Until yesterday, I had felt very secure in my job. On March 27th I will celebrate my 20th anniversary with the company. Yesterday though, I learned that we will be having a company wide conference call today. Actually, in about 2 hours I will be listening to our CEO discuss plans for our company's future. I have no idea what he plans to say. Keep in mind, our offices share a wall so it isn't like he is someone I never see or talk to. To put it mildly, I'm terrified. I know that we will have to find ways to spend less. I'm pretty certain that wages will be frozen. Maybe some benefits will be cut. Those are all things I can deal with. What I can't handle is people losing their jobs. There are people there that have seen me through getting engaged and married. They watched my tummy grow with a child inside and rejoiced when my son was born. They came to the funeral home when I lost my grandmothers and saw me through some very dark days with my husband's illness.

I realize that if someone I care about leaves the company it doesn't mean they have to leave my life. We can still see each other or talk on the phone. I just don't want them to go. None of us are wealthy and several are single women living on one income. Losing a job could mean losing a home. We all actually care about the company that we work for (family owned) and losing employees will be much like losing family members.

Then there is the fear of myself being someone that is part of the staff reduction. That thought had me sobbing in a bathroom stall yesterday. I think of the hardship it would cause because I'm the one that carries all of our insurance. I'm the main breadwinner at this time. I also think about the 'family' I could lose. I've been with many of them longer than Kevin and I have been together and I'm not ready to say goodbye.

If you should read this before 8:30am central, please say a quick prayer for the gang at SCCC. I think we could all use it.