Krista and the Awful, Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day....

Okay, it wasn't quite that bad. But it was plenty bad enough.

I love my job. The people are great, the work is challenging (for the most part) and I get a lot of job satisfaction out of what I do. But we, like everyone else, are being affected by the economy, the state budget crisis and (for all I know) whether Mercury is in retrograde or not. ;-) The end result is a lot of nervous people who are stretched too thin, being asked to do even more with even less. Layoffs aren't imminent or even likely, but like one of my co-workers said this morning, she's not sure whether it's worse to be laid off or to be the last one left. I see her point some days.

So, yeah, things are tense. And when things get tense, goofy stuff tends to happen. In the last week, I've been honked at four times for things which wouldn't have been considered wrong, raised an eyebrow or rated a comment even six months ago. It's not that I'm a bad employee (I'm not---I've got the personnel ratings and the division awards to prove it, and I work damned hard at my job) but I think, as another co-worker said, management is under pressure to show they can Do Something Important---because they, like the rest of us, are nervous for what could happen if they come under the microscope.

So, for right now, I've got a target on my back. And I don't particularly enjoy it. But I'm an older and wiser employee now, and well, the only thing I can do is go to work tomorrow and hope things are better. And that Mercury stays out of retrograde. :-P