I'm Not A Feeb, I Just Get Sick A Lot

So I've had to take a couple of days of work this week. I'm not sure how, but I managed to catch a cold over the weekend. The weather's been pretty crummy with a steady amount of cold temperatures and rain -- I think that may have contributed to it. Also, there's been a healthy dose of stress at work since they laid off a bunch of people recently, one of which I will miss quite a bit as she was someone I worked closely with, on and off, for the last few years. She's a very bright and knowledgeable woman and I used to consult with her a lot whenever I was confused (which happens). It was quite a shock when I heard they let her go and I think the stress of that may have also brought me down. I was pretty upset the day she told me and really didn't feel like being at work.

I should probably give you a little backgound about the current layoffs and why they're happening. IT departments are always looked on as an expense that cuts into the bottom line and the corporation was trying to bring those perceived costs down. I guess people outside of the IT world have a hard time coming to grips with what things actually cost. So anyway, back in 2001 they hired a consulting agency to determine the feasibility of outsourcing the entire IT department and they handled it quite badly. The problem with outsourcing is that you just can't replace existing experience, especially when some things have been developed and maintained in-house for years. Our IT department is quite big and, personally, I think the cost to move everything to another company would've been huge. The IT service just wouldn't be as good either.

Anyway, I guess the consulting agency couldn't come up with the numbers they wanted or an answer the corporation wanted to hear so the outsourcing plans never came to pass. Or something like that. As I said, they handled the whole,e thing quite badly, particularly the communication aspect of it. Essentially they'd update us with non-information every couple of weeks about what they were doing and why. This pretty much amounted to them not actually telling us what was going on at all. I suspect they were originally trying to keep the whole outsourcing thing a secret and got caught with their pants down, but that's just a theory on my part. Ultimately they decided to lower the IT headcount and so the pruning continues to this day.

I remember when they told us what they were going to do next. We had this big department meeting and someone -- I can't remember who but I assume she was important -- told us, in corporate speak, that they were going to continue to laying people off but they couldn't say what their target headcount was or when they layoffs would stop. Comforting isn't it? That was the main reason why I was part-time for so long. It's a bit tricky asking for a full-time position when your employer is letting go of 15 people at a time. I figured it would be best to stay bellow the radar and gradually work my way up at an appropriate time. I'm crafty like that.

On a more positive note, I've recently lost over 15 pounds in the last 6 weeks since joining Weight Watchers. I feel pretty damn good about that since I've been trying to bring my weight down for the last 5 years. The next step, once I reach my goal, is to get some new pants. I just feel like a bloody hobo walking around with baggy pants and a cinched up belt.

Oh, and lets not forget killer abs, I definitely need to develop those. I'm shooting for a Calvin Klein underwear model look. I may post some pictures if I get that far.