Well, it’s been a while since I have put pen to paper. It is now August 3rd. I asked to have something to take my mind off of counting down the days for my chemo and radiation. Well, it happened and it happened big. I would have never imagined my entire department being laid off. I want to dedicate this blog to my team members and my team leaders. John 16:33 says, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” How do you rebound from this? You wake up and go to a job that you love and come home without a job. We have from July 17th to September 7th to continue working in a department. We have to continue providing good customer service to our customers, while working with a heavy volume of work, knowing that our security will soon be withdrawn. The team leaders and I were not given any guidance, there is not a manual or any training classes on holding your team together for 53 days performing their job duties as normal before their job expires. The first thing I did was send out an email. I remember sending this scripture in the email, “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.” Colossians 3:23. This was not the first time my team had received this scripture. We didn’t need a manual or training classes for our group of team members. I have worked for this company for over 31 years and I have not heard of a group of individuals that worked together as well as these individuals. When something is broken, our job is to fix it or at least make it better. We gathered information from Human Resources and shared the information. We gathered information concerning medical insurance and shared the information. We looked for job openings and shared the information. We made sure all our personal medical was taken care of. We were making sure our houses were in order as we continue to perform our daily job duties. We knew that the day would come when our “Work Family” would no longer be. Some of us have worked together for over 20 years. It was as if we were going through an unwanted divorce and we wanted to hold on to someone who no longer wanted us. I will miss each and every team member and I have had the pleasure of working with two awesome team leaders. As everyone performed their jobs in a professional manner, it helped me to deal with my chemo and radiation. Remember that plan I had? Well, it has changed. (Blog #13).
