A Few Honest Words

Every so often you come across something so staggeringly new and exciting that you feel compelled to run into the streets and spread the news. Fortunately, a blog also will work.

There we were, enjoying a perfectly nice pajama day, watching PBS as we are wont to do, when On Canvas comes on and this young fellow appears, in Philadelphia’s First Unitarian Church, and he’s singing in the clearest of voices and not playing so much as exercising his cello in the most unconventional and pleasing manner. His music is a refreshing hodge podge of bluegrass, folk, and jazz. His name is Ben Sollee and he will be well known one day.

Reduction In Force

This morning, while enjoying a much-needed vacation, I learned of my company’s imminent RIF. I wish I could say that Corporate saw fit to sponsor a Reading Is Fundamental program, but the truth, as the title gives away, is closer to a disturbance in the energy field that surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.

I learned from the VP I report to that my direct report had been let go. Later, while depositing checks at the credit union whose software our company creates, I ran into my former manager. He, too, was gone.

Now, more than ever, I am grateful for this work which allows me to support my family, travel the world, and develop my ability to write stories worthy of the screen. It is no small thing.

While I was spared in this reduction in force, none of us is spared the uncertainty of these or any other times. It is a hard thing to see friends and colleagues, journeymen and veterans alike, face sudden challenges that were not of their own devising. To them, to the rest of my fellow workmates, and to those unknown brothers and sisters bravely facing the logic of the bottom line, my prayer is that each of you will come through this period a little stronger, a little wiser, and be the bearer and creator of new opportunities and meaningful work.