The Lingering Limbo

It's truly hard to know how to respond to what things are like at work right now. If you read this blog (and already we've reached the realm of fairy tales), you know our copy desk people at The Star were told in February that our jobs were going to be eliminated in May or June. For more than a month now we've been waiting for more news and Thursday we got some.

Or at least those of us who were there got it. News like this usually only comes when I'm off like I was on Thursday. But apparently, this was sort of an impromptu meeting. Those who were there were told -- I'm told -- that our jobs are now expected not to be ending until late July or early August.

In most ways, this is very good news; if you have to choose between being laid off and not being laid off, you'd pick not being laid off. But on the other hand, we're still not sure exactly when our jobs will end.

Not knowing is difficult. It's kind of like finding out a loved one is terminally ill. You're hit with sadness, maybe some denial, a few weeks of panic, but then realization there's no sense in panicking. What's going to happen is going to happen. You just don't know when it's going to happen.

So I guess what's happening now is like your loved one responding to chemotherapy -- at least for a while.

(My goodness, this is a depressing analogy, isn't it?)

There's definitely some relief. You feel like you've bought some time somehow and maybe you can even talk yourself into thinking you can cheat death.

OK, enough death analogy.

It's a strange existence we have at work these days. We're all, for the most part, still doing our jobs the same way we always have. I'm still writing my columns even though our primary -- and best -- columnist, David Lassen, has already been let go. I've got survivor's guilt even though I won't apparently survive forever.

Our routine is pretty much the same, although our work schedules have changed with only three of us in sports designing pages now. Consecutive days off still happen, but not as often.

Our sports editor, Jon Catalini, was also let go, so now our writers have been divvied up between two supervisors. However, we copy editors technically aren't anywhere in the organizational chart. We have no boss. We can do anything we want. Mm-hmm. Right.

At this meeting, our group was also told that if we reapplied for any of our jobs, which are being outsourced to Texas, we would make the same amount of money we do now. Unfortunately, we would still be in Texas.

One of the affected copy editors on the news side found out today he had won the annual chainwide headline-writing contest. Good for him. He won $1,500 for it. Apparently, he's good enough to be the best headline writer in our entire chain, but he isn't good enough to keep from being laid off.