freakout

11 people got laid off at work yesterday. we lost a major account, of which work was already dwindling. that fact plus the fact that they kept on not wanting to sign a contract for Q2 (even though we're already in the middle of Q2) should've been another indicator.

my major qualm is, well, they laid off an entire department. the project management department. which i worked closely with. which i was originally a member of when i went full-time at work. which i'm really good friends with both of the now former project managers. they are my friends. they are my confidantes. they were the people that kept me sane and grounded at work.

now ...

this all happened before 10 a.m. on friday. after i walked my friends to their cars, i went in to talk to my boss, who informed me he is resigning at the end of the month. he told me that the big boss was planning on having account services project manage their own jobs. i highly disagreed with that. because when i first went back to work there, well, there was no project management, and account services was project managing their own jobs, and it was fucking chaos. it didn't work. people were fighting over resources, people were staying at work every day until around 8 or 9 p.m.

so i volunteered to be the project manager. if work is really slowing down as much as it is, i can again be the project manager and proofer.

when i talked to h.r. about this, as well as my boss, they were concerned, because, well, i was overwhelmed the last time i had this dual role. and because they both know i want to move to copywriting. but you know what? that's a dream. there's no way in hell i'll ever be allowed to advance to being a copywriter with my current boss resigning. he was a big supporter of me being a writer. my "boss", who is the copywriter, only ever really gave me the more technical stuff. never gave me any actual creative things to do. so i was already pretty unhappy in my position, and as being a member of the creative department in general when i didn't do anything, well, creative.

but now i have to get back in the loop of project management. even though i moved back to creative, i was still peripherally aware of everything project management, often helping them out or covering for them when one of them was out. but the one thing i wasn't so in the loop on was this new project management system we implemented and have been using for months. yes, i knew the basics of it, but i had only opened a couple of jobs in it, and there are still so many things i don't know how to do in it that i now have to learn rather fast. i mean, it's a pretty simple software to use, but i'm still fairly new to the stuff i am going to have to do in it.

luckily (or not), one of the interactive guys that helped project management get this new software and train them on it (because he had it as his old job) has volunteered to also help me out with project management. where that worries me, though, is that two of the layoffs were interactives, which put us down to three. with this one helping me out, it technically puts us to 2.5. but with the senior interactive often in meetings and doing research and such, that technically puts us down to 1.5. so yeah, i'm a little worried. because also, the two we laid off were our leads on one account. the three left don't know that account all that well, which means they're going to need more time to do work.

to say it's a challenge is an understatement.

i think i handled myself the best i could on friday. although i did break down when i had to go talk to an AE, which started as a hug and quickly turned into a group hug with five AEs. but you know what? it actually helped. we were all feeling the same way. and we're all facing some of the same upcoming challenges.

i do see several challenges i don't know i'm ready for. one is, before they were laid off, project management was getting ready to also start project managing the analytics team. i wasn't in any of those meetings, so now i have to get up to speed on that, or push back and say we (meaning me) can't handle it right now. also, we laid off the data guy that was doing all the e-mail blasts. so now i know that's going to end up getting pushed on interactive and project management because historically at the company, we were the ones that have done it in the past. this means i have to get up to date on all our e-mail service providers, which i've been avoiding for, well, a year. there's also the personal challenge of having to work closely with the senior interactive, since he is the non-relationshiper i've mentioned in previous posts. we have been friendly at work of late, but we had the barrier of project management betwixt us. now we have to learn how to work closely on a day-to-day basis without my feelings and his lack of getting in the way.

ok, need to stop this before i give myself a panic attack. (i had two yesterday at work! between crying jags and meetings.)

i see much drinking in my future. and lack of eating. or maybe i won't drink or eat. this might be the best diet ever.

/freakoutfornow