Never Again A Time Like This

There were more tears and questions today as Carl (the VP) came out--initally to hand out year of service awards--yet ended up fielding question after question regardingn the process of this move and what that entails for Covina staff. He seemed somewhat more upbeat than our clinic manager when detailing the effects of the cutbacks, stating that, the children's sites would not be affected as much as the adults." That is until a friend of mine asked how that would affect administrative staff. Then the mood turned a bit more grim. 25 clinical staff and 20 administrative to lose their jobs. Unless the job sharing program works...then some positions woold be saved. A majority of staff would prefer to cut thier own hours if it meant that some jobs could be salvaged. How that works is that an employee would work 32 hours and collect unemployment for the remaining 8, all the while retaining their insurance benefits. He went over plans in the works...and there are many plans they are attempting to work out. Carl did say that this is the most difficult thing to have to do. And that it's not easy having to let good people go. There were tears. Later that day, a clinical friend of mine was sitting in our department and we were laughing and joking with each other in spite of our (perhaps premature) feeling of loss. I said, "You know, it's good we can laugh because there may never be another time like this with each one of us here in this place."

None of us will know who gets to move on to eithe rthe El Monte site of the La Puente site and who is being let go until July 31st when each of us will receive a letter. After that, we work (all of us) until August 28th. Some of us will pack up our boxes and go on to work with both current co-workers and new co-workers already at the La Puente site--or the El Monte site. And some of us will just be packing our boxes and going home. Either way...we will all be hugely impacted by this.

Goodbyes are never easy for me. And sometimes take me years to 'get over'.

I pray for the peace of all involved--from the top to the bottom.