The bad news

I just posted how great my vacation was and how happy I am. I was sitting here basking in my vacation afterglow, and my phone rings. I see it's a really good friend from work so I happily answer it. She's calling to deliver some really bad news.

First, she tells me my previous manager that I worked under for five years, from 2000 to 2005, has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. He doesn't smoke. The cancer has spread throughout his body and he's in horrible pain and they can't do anything for the pain and even though they're going to do chemo, he has little chance of survival. This man is the only manager in my 25 years with my company that I passionately hated. He was mean to me, said horrible things to me and made my life miserable. I almost quit several times because of him. I wished evil things would happen to him, seriously evil things. Finally upper management moved him to a different department, a critical department in our company. Five people in that department quit because of him, which was a huge loss to the company. They then moved him to be a manager of no one, just himself. He has no direct reports. It's been a joke for the last couple of years. Now he's dying, a horrible death. He has a wife and a 13-year old daughter, and he's only 50 years old. I feel absolutely awful.

Second piece of news, the 5% layoff of salaried employees is happening a day early, at 8am this Thursday. Between 8am and 9am management and HR will be tapping people on the shoulder and telling 15 people in my building (IT) to pack what they can and immediately exit the premises. There'll be another 65 people terminated throughout the other divisions. It'll be my first day back in the office after vacation. I feel sick. I think I'm safe, but you never really know if your head is on the chopping block or not. Even if I don't get "let go", I feel awful for the people that will be out of a job.

Suddenly my world has turned black. The sadness is like a blanket, swallowing me up. I want to eat, lots of bad stuff. I don't want to go back to work on Thursday.

I'm going to a Weight Watchers meeting right now and weigh in, but suddenly my weight problem isn't any longer the center of my universe. It's just not that important at the moment.