8:14 and the bosses are meeting...
It's 8:14, a scant forty-five minutes before the three-star deadline (steam)rolls around. Two out of the three big bosses are having a pow-wow in the conference room. They've been in there for a fly's age.
There are rumors of a few "cutbacks." In all honesty, I doubt this will ever happen. We've just hit full staff for the first time in two years. Cutting staff is not an option.
Except, the little voice in the back of my head says, except that my job is expendible. It wouldn't take more than a week or so to fill my vacant desk.
This would happen, the voice goes on to say, this would happen a scant month after I bought my car, after we moved into the new apartment, after I burned my professional bridges and decided to stay here.
The voice, I discover, hates Albuquerque.
So, for the rest of the evening I will worry. Part of me wants to be the cutback-ee, but that same part wants to dissolve the marriage, sell the cats and move somewhere else. The other 88% of me wants to keep low, keep off the radar, keep my job, keep my life. It's all about keeping for most of me.
I'm not in conflict, just insecure.