Sign of the times

Yet another business in a relatively new big box shopping area - one where we bought shirts and ties for Vincent after we bought him a suit that may or may not still fit - on the other side of St. Matthews went belly up (see above). Already - all part of national chains dying - Wild Oats, Linen and Things, and Circuit City has died - and - even as those stores stand empty- they continue to build new stores. I stopped by there earlier this week but nothing jumped out at me. Also this week we learned that Diane, our next-door neighbor, with whom we share a driveway, is getting laid off this week. (Her son, who had moved back in with her, also lost his job). Diane had been working as an office manager in a real estate-related firm for six years, and the slowdown in real estate finally got her laid off. She's going to take her severance and unemployment pay and take a little time off - and then go looking. At least she doesn't have rent or house payments. Although my manager informed us last week that there would apparently be no mass layoffs this fall, I'm still worried because - for the first time since I started working at the Presbyterian Center, as part of our annual review process - for just the second time, we're doing mid-year reviews - and I'm going to miss a bunch of the mid-year targets (June 30) he and I set for me - in some cases due to me not picking up the Panel skills and tasks that quickly, in other cases due to productivity issues, in some cases due to events beyond my control (like the February 2005 Panel data turning out to be in much worse shape than we thought), and in other cases due to me getting stuck with more work on other projects (like that Review of the PC(USA) as a Whole) that we had thought I would. We'll see how I shape my written mid-year review statement and then how the session later this month goes. He's been pushing me to finish various projects and finally set a line in the sand on two - before I go on vacation later this month - I should be able to make those but of course no one likes to be told in detail what to do. I've gone from working under the close supervision of one of my senior colleagues more to him (and really to both of them). Up to a point this is fine since I often don't really know what I'm doing. But it is still grating at times. I've always said no one pays attention to these reviews - but that's if they go well - you can still get laid off. We'll see if people pay attention if they do not go well. Of course, one of my worst moments at my current job was an hour-long conversation with our former manager in connection with an annual review 2 1/2 years ago - and formally the official written Review went fine - it's just he was tough on me during that hour (and sometimes not that coherent).

-- Perry