Reorg Madness, Drama, and so on

And just when we thought it was over.........

This week has been hard to describe. On Monday, the known about layoffs were announced and people were told. In total about 70ish Disney employees were let go :( and some/most of them very good people that I'm sorry to see leave.

Then on Tuesday, I got wind of the rumor that Jason was also going to be leaving. Since I had talked to him that day (he was home sick) and he hadn't said anything I dismissed the rumor as just that and went about my day.

On Wednesday, Jason came back to the office and called me in to tell me that the rumors were indeed true and that he was going to be leaving D.com at an unknown end-date (his decision). He is very happy with the decision he's made, but it's a major bummer of course. It hadn't hit me yet....we'll get there. The problem came when Jason had spent the morning telling his leads the news individually. But in the afternoon he had to go to Studio and so hadn't finished telling everyone when Jimmy sent out the email announcement. And in that announcement was also them telling us they already had a new boss for us, another "Yahoo." Of course, everyone was upset, but Jason wasn't in the office for the rest of that day. So I got all the talking and sympathy peeps hanging around my cube. Like I said, it hadn't hit me yet...Jimmy and John (and not the sandwich place ;-p) did another organization wide call, but I and many people felt Jimmy feel down big time on even having a vision of where we're going much less being able to express it to anyone. John on the other hand shined but is unfortunately irrelevant to me and my team. This is a big problem, especially if he isn't able to communicate his vision by the All-Hands at the end of April either :-o

On Thursday Jason did a leads gathering first thing in the morning that I got to go too. And, when they asked Jason to tell them who of us was his favorite I was voted "every ones favorite" :-D We then talked, mostly about how the people were reacting and how Jason was feeling (he's still really satisfied with his decision. He said it was like a weight off his shoulders and I know that feeling.) HR spoke a little to the new boss guy, but mostly to say he doesn't know anything, no start date, no who he is reporting to, no nothing. Only that Yahoo is very mad at Disney right now because we are stealing all their people and so the announcement about this shift needed to be pushed up a few weeks :-/ As for the general mode of people, and my mood by this point, it's kindof like, "we thought this reorg from hell was f-i-n-a-l-l-y over and we could finally get to work again, then *wham*...with more to come..." :-( It's the way of the corp. world I suppose (and have been assured by daddy) but it's a crappy corporate world then. By this point, early in the morning, the slight anxiety was starting to hit me. Mostly cause I had absolutely no information and no one was able to provide me with any. Was I inheriting Mark (new guy)? Would I keep Maury and Kyle? Would I get all 3 or just 1 or what was going to happen? What if Mark came while I was on vacation and no one could set him up?....The anxiety built throughout the day as I was getting no good answers from anyone and then on my walk home I called to vent to daddy, but I must say he is a terrible person to try to vent too. Highly frustrating and his best advice is "forget about it." Really?!! It's my job to remember these things!!! All I wanted was someone to listen and say "I'm so sorry" not worthless advice. I told him so and he eventually went all "sooooooorrrrrrryyyyyyyyy" on me, but it was still frustrating. I did my best to relax that night, but was bad a stress ate an entire medium Dominos pizza :-( I had trouble sleeping last night as well which isn't doing me any favors today.

This morning (Friday) I really did NOT want to get up and work out at the Y, but I convinced myself that after yesterdays stress eat fest I needed to and besides it would wake me up and help my stress too. I am glad I did go, cause it did get my mind off things and made me feel good. Got in this morning and finally had one answer from my list, Mark would not be reporting to me but to Holly. So I don't have to worry about the guy at all, which is a relief but then a big confusion too as I had read the email (and I don't think I was alone in this) like Mark was basically the new Jason with the same org, title, and structure, etc. NOPE! That would be far to easy apparently :-/ I went in to ask Jason for what clarification I could get and he explained that Mark is the SVP that Jason should have been promoted to before he decided to leave. So Holly will get him, no one knows what's going to happen to Marketing, and Kyle and Maury will still be mine. I'm sure other changes will be coming as well once this new guy gets settled in and makes D.com what he envisions it to be (whatever the heck that will be) and it will go from there. I certainly feel much better and much more confident having some information now and partially knowing where I stand. I'll meet with HR on Monday to see if I can get any more clarification, but I am definitely breathing easier now and that is a good thing :-) I am soooooooooooooooo ready for my vacation again. I need to get away from this madness and just have fun again! My only fear now is that Jason will leave before I am back, which is not the plan at all, he says he'll be here a while, but I am going to miss working for my favorite boss :*(

And so life moves on. I can't really complain too badly considering the state of the world right now. 1 week ago today was the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent horrible tsunami in Japan that will take years to recover. The Middle East is continuing to implode on an epic scale. Our own fragile economy which was finally starting to run again is sputtering now with all the world drama. So far 2011 has not been kind to humans :-/ Here's hoping it turns around and gets better soon!

In RSP news, things are going FANTASTIC! Dad is selling snow to the Eskimos as always. Book sales are up. I wrote an epically good press release for the Stanley and Norman school visits that I hope generates a lot of buzz and sales and maybe writers. Lets focus on the good things in life, we need more of them!