Dreaming of Work. And Mayonnaise.

Laid Off-Day 8

So I've been feeling remarkably zen-ish about this whole layoff thing, especially now that I've got most of the paperwork out of the way.  Basically what happens is that your former employer agrees to give you some money (and my understanding is that it's generally an insultingly small amount) to go away.  Really go away.  Like, you have to sign something that says "I'll eff off and not bother you anymore, about anything, ever again.  And thanks for the minuscule amount of severance pay. I promise to tell nobody how much money you did or didn't give me to eff off."  And of course in our society it's ALWAYS personal when it comes to money. So even after what you think has to be the final insult - the actual layoff- you then have to deal with the "severance package". Another judgement, another blow to the fragile ego. And another reason to freak out about the fact that You. Don't. Have. A. Job.

But we're all sorted out now and, as promised,  I'm focusing my attention on properly effing off. Not physically, cause I've settled in fairly nicely here at home. But properly gone in my own head, which seems pretty good during the day about the whole "I don't work there anymore" thingy and the part where I threw all my in-progress projects (and hours, days, weeks of work) in the recycling as I walked out the door last Wednesday.  And the conscious me is cool with the half-jar of Hellman's Light I left in the lunchroom fridge.  And I'm only faintly irked (more puzzled actually) to learn that some random guy from some other random department is sitting at my former desk, and has assumed something vaguely resembling my former job.

But at night I've been having fever-dreams about my work. The work itself. Wanting to give it to people who refuse take it.  Being forced to hand it off and not wanting to give it up.  Trying to explain what needs to be done to people who don't understand or who won't listen. And people I only vaguely recognize are making sandwiches, filling my emptied file folders with assorted meats and cheeses, and generous dollops of reduced-fat mayonnaise (okay, I made that part up, although one particularly bizarre dream did feature tiny Scottish TV nutritionist, Gillian McKeith, in a cameo role).  Just frustration after frustration, all night long.