Well, That Was Awkward

A couple of days after achieving my six-year work anniversary at AOL, I got laid off.
With that in mind, having just hit the same milestone at my current job two days ago, I was a bit unnerved this morning when I received an invitation to a mandatory meeting with my SVP in the afternoon, particularly given that there were several HR representatives included among the invitees.
Fortunately, while the meeting did concern a major reorganization, I was not directly impacted by it, nor was anyone on my team.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for many of my colleagues.
Added to the general “that sucks” vibe of it was some serious awkwardness.  During the meeting, they put up a color-coded org chart showing who was and was not impacted by the reorg.
Along with a handful of others, my team kind of stood out as being and island of the unaffected color in a sea of the blue that represented the people who were affected.
(My team not being affected was also specifically mentioned several times.)
Obviously my sympathy for the others wins out over my feelings of personal discomfort, but as my team and I walked out while the others were being handed pamphlets that outlined the details of their potential severance packages – they have the option to re-apply for the limited number of positions that will be available, or to try to find another job somewhere else in the company – I have to say that I felt like we were getting some pointed – and pointy – stares in our direction.
Still, while it definitely is a shame for all those affected, and they have my sympathies…well, I’ve been through this kind of thing so many times that I’m kind of inured to it.  It’s pretty much the nature of the beast, and it’s a potential reality that those of us who work in the industry face every single day.  (And will continue to face.)

Blargh

Tuesday evening found me flying out of Dulles to Austin, Texas.
Wednesday morning found me doing a presentation – along with my VP and other members of his organization – about what it is that I and my team do to members of the Regional leadership.
(The boss is on vacation, so I had to go in her stead.)
Afterwards, I split from the group and skipped out on the planned dinner, as I was meeting up with my brother Brad, who drove up to Austin to hang out with me.
Thursday morning found me flying out of Austin and back to Dulles.
In theory, at least.  Weather caused a delay, so it was the early afternoon by the time we left.
The cruel part was that even though I was back at Dulles, I wasn’t going home, as we were continuing on to Syracuse to make the presentation all over again to the leadership there on Friday.
We weren’t certain that we were going to make our connecting flight to Syracuse, as the delayed departure had us landing at Dulles about 20 minutes before our flight – which was on the concourse at the exact opposite end of where we’d landed – was scheduled to take off.  We’d gotten added to the standby list on a later flight – which another member of the team was taking to get to Syracuse for the meeting – but we weren’t really expecting that to pan out.
Luckily – I guess – our connecting flight was also delayed, and so we had time to spare, and landed in Syracuse sometime around 7:30 PM.
Friday morning we had the meeting, which ran into the late afternoon, and then we headed to the airport to make our way home.
That flight was delayed, too, despite the insistence of the woman at the counter that it was “on time.”  Seriously, she didn’t stop saying that it was on time, despite the fact that the plane had yet to arrive, until about five minutes before we were supposed to be leaving.
Regardless, we got on the (packed) flight out of Syracuse, landed at Dulles, I eventually found my car – I wrote down what lot and row it was in, but failed to account for just how long the row was – and made my way home.
So the past four days have been:  Virginia>Texas>Virginia>New York>Virginia.
Blargh.

The Best Choice

This morning I found that sometime after I’d gone to bed I’d gotten two texts from the boss:

Boss:  Remember, you are the man tomorrow.  I put you on my out of office.  (Which is to say that in her Outlook “out of office” auto-response, she listed me as the point of contact for any urgent requests.)
Boss:  Thank you.

Setting aside the fact that I actually need to have known something in the first place in order to remember it, I opted to respond once the morning had progressed to a more reasonable hour:

Me:  No, thank you.  It’s an honor to be selected in recognition of my dedication and leadership abilities.
Me:  …and the fact that I’m THE ONLY ONE HERE.
Me:  My new dating site profile:  “Jon:  The best choice when you have no other options.”

In response, she admitted that she LOLed, but stated that I “know that isn’t the case.”  I don’t know anything of the sort, but chose not to argue the point.
Later, she requested that at some point during the day I ping our VP to see if he needs anything:

Boss:  He’ll say no, but it’s good exposure.
Me:  So is flashing people on the metro.
Me:  And it does about as much good.

****

The group I work in recently migrated our collective SharePoint sites, which were scattered all over the place due to previous organizational structures, from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010.
I am the admin for the overall site collection, and have been overseeing the migration and have been the one who decided on the organization of the collection.  After confirming that all of the data had been migrated successfully, and that it was all organized in the correct hierarchical structure, I sent out the official e-mail to the group that outlines where everything is, mapping the old URLs to the new URLs, and explaining what actions need to be taken.
As soon as I hit “send,” I said, aloud, “…3, 2, 1.”
No sooner had I finished counting when the wave of e-mails, IMs, and phone calls hit.
I have to admit that no matter what was being said or asked, in my mind, what I heard was a Cartman-style whine:  “But  Joooooonnnnn….”
(Also, Garth from Wayne’s World:  “We fear change.”)

****

The SharePoint change ended up dovetailing with my boss’s wish for me to get some exposure, as I ended up spending an hour in my VP’s office walking him through the new site and showing him some of the ways in which my team utilizes SharePoint.
While it went very well, and he very impressed with the work I’ve done, and the way that we use our site.
So impressed that he wants to hold our site up as an example for other teams, and, in fact, wants me, personally, to do a presentation about the site at one of our SVP’s all hands meetings, or, at a minimum, one of our SVP’s manager meetings, or both.
…
I have to admit that I might have preferred flashing people on the metro.

It's Hard Out There For A Geek

Arthur C. Clarke has died at the age of 90.
There's been a rash of Geek Icon deaths in the past month or so; I hope it stops soon.
As Dave Campbell pointed out after the death of Dave Stevens, it's been a bad month for geeks.
First Steve Gerber, then D&D creator Gary Gygax - not being into D&D, this one didn't affect me personally, but being a geek I can't help but sympathize - the aforementioned Dave Stevens, and now Arthur C. Clarke.
I've greatly enjoyed all of the works of Clarke that I've read, and he will be missed, though I have to say that, while even at 90 it's still too soon, unlike the others who were taken far, far too soon, Clarke did have a good long run.
As for what's been up in my life today, don't ask. Work stuff - that strictly speaking isn't even my work stuff - spilling over into my off the clock time = annoyance.
On a positive front, I had an eye appointment and things are going swimmingly. So much so that I don't have to go back for two months.
There was more I was going to write, but it's going to have to wait because I don't feel like writing it now.