Day 15: With a Kiss

The severance situation was mayhem. Some good Samaritan had forgotten to carry a few decimal points and everyone got a huge check--which was immediately canceled by payroll. They called me at 9:30PM last week to let me know about the screw-up. This was before the check arrived and before I signed a letter saying that I would give away secrets or talk smack blah, blah, blah. They also sent letters out to everyone via overnight mail. They basically went all out to prevent a PR disaster.

The good news is that I got my check. The bad news is that's it's now accurate which makes it $4K less than the check I received before. It's accurate but it's still depressing to see the tax man bite about 40% of my severance check. That's what happens when you give out a big payroll check. It makes you look like a high roller to the bean counters. Hopefully I'll get a large chunk of it back thanks to my accountants skill with the tax code.

So the check is accurate. Which is a bummer. It's still a good amount but it's not the huge amount that I really wanted. Thinking about it further I think the error was that the payroll people counted weekends in their calculation. How much do you want to bet that they misread the law and are going to send us another check to make up the difference?

In the meantime I've got yet one more check coming. Not that I'm complaining. That's the hush money check. The check that says I won't write a tell all book about the shenanigans at my old company. I'm not disgruntled so I don't care. It's basically two weeks pay sent to me in a plain envelope and sealed with a kiss. So the money is rolling in slowly. I'll feel more comfortable once I start getting my unemployment checks. I don't like this, "I don't know when the next dollar is coming," feeling. Granted business owners and contractors live like this every day but I don't dig it. At all.

I have a big interview thing scheduled for today. I'm meeting with the recruiting team at one of the big media companies. It's a friend of a friend type of thing. See that's why personal connections are the best. It let's you do stuff like that. We'll see if there's anything out there for me. I already looked at their site and to be honest it's a little thin. Then again it's the start of the fiscal year for most big companies so hiring get's a little wacky. You either spend more towards the end to burn up the rest of your budget or wait until the calendar flips and then hire like mad. Either way it should be a good meeting. I don't think any job prospects will immediately come out of it but it's good to be meeting with somebody.

I'm trying not to complain too much but fuck it. It's my blog. I hate being unemployed. I've realized that a lot of how I think of myself is tied to my occupation. To being a cash producing member of society. It also keeps me occupied. I am definitely not the greatest at sitting around and watching the flowers grow. It makes me wonder how people deal with retirement. Retirement? What a horrible idea. Just sitting around and waiting to die. Screw that.

Anyway I need a gig. Not any gig but I do need to go back to work. I just can't relax. You can only take being nervous for so long. I have the hope that somethings coming but you always see the horror stories. The executive that's living under a bridge because he couldn't get a job. He showers at the "Y" and has a cardboard sign. I know that's an extreme case and there are a lot of other things that I would do before something like that happens, but I'm still uncomfortable.