Does anyone need a rodeo clown?

Ed lost his job yesterday, thanks to TEH RECESSION and the fact that AIG (that’s not a cute nickname; he really did work for AIG) sucks at pretty much everything. He worked for the side of the company that financed insurance premiums (I think – I’m a terrible wife because whenever he described his work I sort of glazed over and started to drool; it’s a thing I have against numbers and people who work with numbers and let’s face it insurance is not the most exciting thing in the universe and I am incredibly petulant when things don’t entertain me), and even though he and all his coworkers were told that things were awesome and great and rainbows would be shooting out of everyone’s asses any day now – well, they came in yesterday morning and said “AIG Credit Canada no longer exists, so .. see ya”. So not only did Ed lose his job yesterday, all his coworkers in three cities also lost THEIR jobs and it was sudden and unexpected and everyone is sad and sort of in shock. Today is the first day of the rest of their lives, and no one really knows what they’re going to do, especially Ed.

I feel badly for him, but things are going to be fine. They were given severance (and a REAL severance, not just the minimum mandatory two weeks and a pat on the back), he’s got a lot of contacts in the industry, he’s really good at whatever it is that he does, and people really like him. He was feeling a little better last night (all the strange lovey-dovey text messages from his former office wife must have helped, but that is all I will say about that), and hopefully he gets to the point where he sees that this is a fantastic opportunity for change because AIG treated them pretty badly as employees and maybe now he can find something that is awesome.

It’s strange, but I’m somewhat jealous of the whole situation. Not that he lost his job – I’ve been there too many times to count – but the fact that his entire office is really quite devastated that they’ll no longer be working together because they .. like each other.

I’m friendly with people I work with, but I’ve never had anyone cry at my departure. I’ve always thought there was something off about me – something that keeps people from getting too close for fear I might attack in the shadows and drink their blood or something – but I don’t tend to make close friends at my places of work. If I left the Lab tomorrow, no one would cry to see me go – they’d shrug, say “man she had a lot of toys at her desk”, and life would go on. People don’t dislike me; they just don’t seem to know what to do with me. I’m really quite harmless, if a little – okay, a lot – strange. LOVE ME! WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME?

I’m almost positive it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I just donated a big box of books about murder, serial killers, crimes and punishments, and outrageous scandals to our book sale.

Anyway. Ed needs a job sometime soon so we can use his severance for an entirely different kind of evil rather than paying bills and keeping a leaky roof over our heads for the next few months. I am still determined to get to Alcatraz sometime this year, so things should clearly maneuver themselves so that things go my way. The universe shouldn’t mess with me; I’ve read way too many books on crime and forensics to NOT know the proper way to dispose of an unwieldy corpse.

boom