Short Notice Short Timer

short-timer
noun, Informal.
1. a person, as a soldier, who has a short period of time left to serve on a tour of duty.

In three days (Monday), my boss' boss' boss will hold a meeting to describe the decisions that have been made to set "direction on project assignments per site based on the targets allocated." In other words, what groups will have work to do, and what groups won't. Speculation is pretty strong that my group won't. Thus we've all started looking for jobs. Been through this before but it feels different this time. With an alarming lack of panic, I am considering the possibilities of unemployment.

I've changed jobs five times since joining the company in 1995. Two of those moves were due to business decisions eliminating the work I was doing. The others were to pursue an opportunity. None of those opportunities were hard-sought and hard-won. They were all friends saying, hey, check this out, followed by me doing so. I've not shown a lot of ambition and career-oriented drive. And so I look at my resume and my prospects and feel just a wee bit philosophical about the possibilities.

The only bitch of it is the timing. Not in the sense that there's a good time and a bad time to be looking for a job. Just in the sense that once the hammer comes down, those of us in the affected groups will have very little time to secure a fresh billeting. There is a real prospect that I will be considered an attractive candidate for several positions, only to lose my employment status before they can be processed. Normally when one needs a new job, one is thrown in a redeployment pool and given a couple of months under salary to find it. This time, especially since I'm now by age eligible for "retirement", I may not have a couple months or even a couple weeks.

Not that it would be the end of the world. I'm not terrified as some people surely are who've never worked anywhere else. I can go outside. Might even be a net win if I do (apart from the loss of my four weeks of vacation). But it would complicate a lot of things I'd rather not see complicated. Looking for work is hard. Especially if you are an engineer in your late fifties without managerial experience. I'd rather put an end to that, and try doing something else. Make the post career move. Immerse myself in history and write about it. Produce a serialized thriller that's somehow surprisingly popular (I still consider myself in position to dream). But people do that because they can afford to. Children grown, house paid off, etc. I took a different path and prefer to continue housing a family. Therefore, whatever I do, I will work full-time at as high a rate as possible.

There is great urgency, yet I don't feel urgent. I am relaxed, as if envisioning a good new job is most of what I need to do to get one. I know people who operate this way and maybe they've secretly influenced me. The reality of course could be very difficult. But somehow, notwithstanding founder Andy Grove's dictum that "Only the Paranoid Survive", I don't feel anything good can come of considering it. I have an odd confidence that whatever is hit my way, I can field it and get it back into the infield. I guess we'll be finding out soon.