feeling pain for others

Today was not a good day for the morale of my office.

It started as a typical day, but as soon as one of my co-workers (the one who had started back in August) got in, she was called away by our boss. A little later, my boss, her boss (a very large, imposing man), and the human resources manager were in our room, and we were told that because of the economy, this co-worker's position had been eliminated. She was allowed to come back to collect her things and say goodbye, so at least we could have that.

This cast a gloom over us for the rest of the day. For one thing, she was one of the nicest people I have worked with in a long time. And although her start was a little bit rocky, she was finally starting to hit her stride and do the job well. They say that she will be called back if the economy improves, but all you have to do is turn on CNBC for ten minutes during the day and you know that isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

Now we are down a full-timer. I would really like to know what will happen when vacations start. I know that I have put in for two weeks: one in April (my typical Easter week), and late July into early August (Justin's family reunion and the anniversary of Cathleen's passing). I don't know about the others' vacations.

And the fact is that if this had happened two years ago, it would have been me, since even after seven years, I was still the newest hire. So of course I think of that. But for now, I am thinking of my now-former co-worker.

This upset triggered my eating compulsion, but I am happy to report that I kept it at under 2000 calories. I was thinking about getting some California Roll from Safeway for dinner, but I realized that I would probably have gotten some of their cookies as well. So I resisted that, opting instead for a salad at McDonald's and some sugar-free chocolate pudding for dessert. My known calories are 1400. And if the small piece of banana bread and the small piece of cake I had during the day came to more than 600 calories, then you can color me thirty kinds of shocked.

I am off tomorrow. Justin is planning to be coming my way to have kabobs for dinner. I hope this happens. If not, it will be a solo kabob for me. We will see what happens tomorrow.

eric out.