(no subject)

[kittydesade]

Heute ist Montag und ich bin wieder im Büro. Wie immer, wenn ich weg war, liegen Berge von Post auf meinem Scheibtisch. Letzte Woche war ich auf einer Geschäftsreise in San Francisco. Jetzt muss ich erst einmal alles durcharbeiten. Dazwischen klingelt immer wieder das Telefon. Wie soll ich denn da den Postberg nur vom Tisch kriegen? Diesmal ist es das Büro des Personalchefs. Seine Assistentin fragt: "Herr Gartner, hätten Sie in einer halben Stunde Zeit? Herr Sundmann möchte Sie sprechen." "Ja, kein Problem, wenn's nicht zu lange dauert," antworte ich und merke, dass ich blass werde. Schließlich weiß ich ja, was das heißt. Jetzt bin ich dran. Ich vesuche, klar zu denken und nicht in Panik zu geraten.

Today is Monday and I am again in the office. How always, when I was away, lies junk mail on my desk. Last week I was on a business trip to San Francisco. Now must I first work through everything again. Between [this?] the phone always ringing. How should I then get the post off the table? This time it is the office of the personnel manager. His assistant asked "Mr. Gartner, do do you have time in half an hour? Mr. Sundman wants to talk with you." "Yes, no problem, if it won't take long," I replied and noted that I turned pale (?). Finally I knew what that is. Now it is my turn. I tried to think clearly and not panic.

Herr Sundmann ist unser Personalchef. Wenn er anruft oder seine Assistentin, dann weiß jeder in der Firma, was das heißt. In drei Jahren haben dreihundertfünfzig Mitarbeiter ihre Stelle verloren. Die Büros links and rechts von mir sind eins nach dem anderen leer geworden. Die Krise betrifft natürlich nicht nur uns allein. Heute gibt es mehr Streiks als früher. Neue Technologie und Veränderungen auf dem Markt betreffen heute die ganze deutsche Wirtschaft. Wie die meisten deutschen Firmen, so lebt auch unsere vom Außenhandel. Deutschland muss viele Rohstoffe importieren. Früher hatte Deutschland eine niedrige Inflationsrate. Da konnten unsere Kunden mit stabilen Preisen rechnen. Heute wird jedoch alles immer teurer. Aber jetzt gibt es auch immer mehr Länder, die die gleichen Waren billiger herstellen. Mit ihnen kann Deutschland immer weniger konkurrieren. Das haben wir hier in unserer Firma gemerkt. Also weiß ich, dass der Besuch beim Personalchef in diesen Tagen Kündigung bedeutet. Beim Gespräch mit ihm wird es auch vor allem um Geld gehen. Ich muss mich gut darauf vorbereiten. Susanna, meine Exkollegin, hat dies alles vor einem halben Jahr durchgemacht. Sie ist immer noch arbeitslos und meist zu Hause wenn ich sie anrufe.

Mr. Sundmann is our personnel manager. When he or his assistant calls then anyone in the company knows what it is. In three years 350 workers have lost their positions. The offices left and right of me became one after the other empty. The crisis naturally concerns not only us alone. Today there are more strikes than (in) the past. New technology and changes in the market concern today the entire German economy. How most German companies, [[lives also our of the fuck?]] foreign trade. Germany must import many raw materials. In the past Germany had a low rate of inflation. Thus we could give (calculate) our customers stable prices.Today everything is more expensive. But now there are also always more countries making equal goods cheaper. Germany can't always compete with them. We have noticed this here in our company. Well I know that the call from the personnel manager today means dismissal. In the conversation with him it is always about the money. I must be well prepared. Susanna, my ex-colleague, had to go through all this half a year ago. She is still unemployed and mostly at home when I call.

Oh je! Warum muss mir das jetzt passieren? Wenn ich etwas jünger wäre, dann fände ich sicher leichter eine neue Stelle. Aber mit fünfundvierzig? Es würde mir auch nichts ausmachen, weniger zu verdienen. Wer weiß, vielleicht bin ich am Ende der Glücklichere? Vielleicht finde ich schnell eine neue Stelle, und ich bekomme ja auch mein Abfindung von der Firma. Da ich zwölf Jahre lang hier gearbeitet habe, müsste meine Abfindung ein Jahregehlt sein. Aber mein jetziges hohes Gehalt ist bei der Bewerbung sicher ein Problem. Und wenn ich in einem Jahr keine neue Stelle finden kann, muss ich vielleicht meine Wohnung verkaufen. Aber Moment mal! Wäre es denn wirklich das Ende der Welt? Ich hätte doch auch mehr Zeit für die Kinder und meine Hobbys! Ich könnte endlich Bücher lesen oder die Wohnung renovieren. Alles Dinge, die ich immer schon machen wollte, für die ich aber früher nie Zeit hatte. Aber würde ich diese Dinge wirklich alle tun? Hätte ich wirklich Freude daran? Ich glaube nicht, denn ich mache mir jetzt schon große Sorgen um meine berufliche Zukunft. Unsichere Zeiten zur Zeit!

Oh geez! (What?) Why must it now pass to/happen to me? When I was some younger, I certainly found a new position easily. But at forty five? It is become to me also nothing amount, less than deserved. I already make less than I deserve. [?] Who knows, perhaps in the end I am happier? Perhaps I find a new position quickly, and I also get my severance from the company. I have worked here for twelve years, they must give me a year's severance (my settlement would have to be a year's pay). But my current high salary is certainly a problem in application(s). And when I can find no new position in a year, perhaps I must sell my home. But one moment! Is that really the end of the world? I have then more time for my children and my hobbys. I can read finally read books or renovate the house. All the things that I have always wanted to do, but for which I never had the time. But would I really do all these things? Would I really be happy that way? (erk) I think not, for now I already have great worries about my professional future. (?) Uneasy times are here!


Wharrgble. Well, I did at least manage to get everything out today that could go out. It's just that everything else has kind of exploded. Oh look, that order that gave me such a headache is back to haunt me. Goddammit, stop calling and emailing five different times before you actually place your order. It makes your poor shipper confused and then she gets headaches right above her right eye.

I am not watching the debates tonight. I am ignoring the debates as hard as possible. Right now politics and nastiness on both sides is also making my eye twitch, I know who I'm going to vote for, and it would take one hell of a good argument to convince me to vote otherwise. I do think the two-party system fucking sucks, I would like there to be other viable options, but no. So I know which one of the two options I've picked, and I wish I could put up spam filters in my life so that all the politicking and the bullshit just faded out until the election was over. I do need to check into my local elections, though, come to that. But all this political mail crap, most of it from the Republicans, makes me want to stake it out on my front lawn. FUCK OFF ALL OF YOU.

Maybe spending time with the plants will help some. Ugh, and I need to email the contractor back and figure out what day I'm meeting him to do a check-in. Not that I don't want to, I just keep forgetting. Tonight, hopefully. Plants and writing and editing and watching Copper and knitting and going to fucking bed on time. Not that I didn't last night but this headache is trying to kill me.

I love how a list of 'some people like this' 'some people like that' almost invariably, at least in the circles I run in these days, leads to "some people juggle geese."

Right. Sitting my dumb ass down and doing line edits. I was doing good at this for a while there and then I'm not sure what happened. Back to good habits. Line edits, works in progress, things like that. After I get in from planting and things I don't think we have anything else we're really doing, so there's that. And it occurs to me I should also probably get some grow-lights for the plants when it gets more towards winter. But not just yet. After we finish moving in. I think I should be able to finish up a couple of stories tonight, and make some headway on some other works in progress. I hope. And some blogwork. Actually now that I think about that, if I finish all that crap it'll be a miracle, but maybe I can advance some things towards a finish, and finish a bunch of those this week. Oi, head reeling.

But on the plus side, we've been getting a lot packed up (the boy took a couple days off work to pack and clean, dear boy that he is) and shuffled over to the house. And apparently this weekend he's taken a wild hair to pulling down some of the water damaged drywall in the garage that no one at the bank has pointed out yet, so it's not on the list of the contractor's stuff to do. And I am not going to put it on there myself. We're going to pull it down, put up new, and probably put up some sheet plastic or something up in the garage loft where the water's coming from until we can move in and then replace the rotted beam then. That's clearly where the water's coming from that's dripping down on everything else, but I'm not sure where it's getting to that beam, so maybe attacking the gutters to clean them will help. Or maybe it was just that beam. Anyway, replacing that should help a fair bit, and I remain a bit boggled that it's not actually coming down from the skylight, because the history of houses in my family out here says it's the skylight that will leak, if anything. It's always the goddamn skylights, and the house has two of them.

A boy out at the front of the store pointed at a pack of wool for spinning or felting that we dye in house, that has our dragon logo on it and said "Mommy, it's made of DRAGONS." Maybe that's what I'll say the next time I'm at the wheel spinning something funky and colorful. "It's dragon fur. From luck dragons."

Peace.

Comments

[kikibug13]

... I like your approach to dragon fir-- I mean. >.>

Hi, Astrid.