This is the world that we live in...

So I (Katy) have told this story to a few people but I am going to put it out there for everyone since it's a lot easier then telling people one-by-one. Now, we normally don't write personal blog entries here, but this is something I want to disseminate.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to an e-mail from the CEO of Clarity Media Group (the company that owns my paper) saying they were shutting down the operations of the Baltimore Examiner, one of the two papers I work for. As you can imagine, my mind starts churning and I start to panic. Without two papers to work on, there would be no need to keep the entire staff of my office of 24 designers and copy editors.

I do not work on Thursdays because I go to class, so every piece of information I received was from second-hand sources aka my co-workers on gchat and text. Through this I find out that 5-6 people are going to be losing their jobs. Those who are laid off would work til the close of the paper (Feb 15) then get paid until the end of March and our boss would let us know by Monday. As any rational person would do, I start to panic. It's a very uneasy feeling knowing your job is in limbo. This isn't a boy breaking up with you or a paper you are stressed out with - this is your job. Your livelihood. Also, for those of you who know (and some of you who don't), I am having surgery in the beginning of March and having health insurance is sorta a vital part of this.

I go about my day, go to class (which actually provided a good distraction), then came home to hear that my boss had to make her decisions last night and that I should know soon. I, thankfully, still have a job, but 6 people, 6 good hard-working people, a few of them my good friends, will be unemployed in two weeks time.

You go about your day listening to all this crap about how bad the economy is and how Home Depot and all these other companies are laying off thousands of people. The House is passing a stimulus package to try and get our economy working again. A lot of it feels really distant and like there is no way it could happen to you. But these are tough times and a lot of people are losing their jobs. It's a scary time and I am so grateful that I still have a job. But it won't make it any easier that in two weeks, my office is going to lose 6 great people.

So yea, that is all. Thanks to everyone (including my BFF Jess) for talking to me yesterday and helping me get thru this craziness somewhat sanely. Well, really not sanely at all actually.