I Was Sitting in the Conference Room When the Bomb Went Off

The shockwaves were intense and immediate, rattling the whole building. People were dazed and numb and shaken to the core.

On Wednesday they shut down the phones and called us into the conference room for an emergency meeting, and the site manager announced that the decision had been made to close the call center on February 12. Our jobs were being relocated to a new site in Oak Harbor, Washington.

It's a scene that's being repeated around the country in ten thousand factories and offices: a tense announcement, shock and disbelief, and hundreds or thousands of lives and families have their worlds upended and blown to bits. A week ago the employees of Freightliner were notified their factory was being shut down. This week in Portland the students of Cascade College were told their school was closing its doors after Spring Semester. It happens everywhere.

We got more notice than most, and more resources. We were lucky. The company chose to handle this in a remarkably humane way. They offered us a $5000 net relocation bonus to move to Oak Harbor, or a 4-week bonus and minimum 4-weeks severance pay if we stayed on until the end. I have been involved in two similar closures where they just shut the doors and sent everybody home. Just like that your job was gone.

People were devastated. We spend more time at work than we do with our families, and it becomes the core of our identity. You meet someone new in a social situation and one of the first questions they'll ask is "What do you do?" And everyone understands immediately that the questioner is not talking about your interests or passions or spiritual practice, they are talking about your job. And if you were to say, "Well, I DID work in customer service, but my company relocated" your reply would be meet with downcast eyes and an awkward expression of sympathy. You've become one of the disappeared, the unmentionables, the lost.

Disaster reorders our lives in marvelous ways, as long as you maintain your resolve and accept the challenge. I could go to Oak Harbor easily enough. A new start in a new town might be good for me, and I could relocate for a tank of gas and a move-in deposit. Whatever is to happen between Marie and I, our prospects are better with $5000 and a job. But her daughter would be deeply reluctant to relocate. She loves her school and her friends, as 16-year-olds do. At that age her peer group is the most important part of her life. All of Marie's kids are here in Portland, and her grandbabies. She and I haven't talked about it. We went to dinner last night and rented a movie, but she was terribly tired and fell asleep. Facing decisions like these can make people tired. Often they're just exhausted by the grim responsibility to make difficult choices.

In my email today I got a message from Kaiser that my profile had matched six jobs. Membership services representative in Beaverton, $16 an hour to start. Our manager at my current job met with each of us individually on Friday and made herself available before work for questions, and the management team has made a special effort to circulate around our cubicles and in the hallways, to leave their doors open and ask us how we are doing. Every effort is being made to give us resources and information. We got a packet at the meeting. The company is hiring a placement and recruiting firm to assist us in job search, and resources are being shared about Oak Harbor housing and shops. Theresa gave us each a guided tour on Google maps, with a notebook of photos from the new site. The new building is in a strip mall three minutes from several condos and apartment buildings. There's a Teriyaki place and a gym across the parking lot. In some ways it sounds like employment heaven, all the things I would hope for in my dream job.

Oak Harbor is three and half hours from Selah, down Highway 90 through the Cascade Range. Stephanie sent me a hundred new pictures on Friday. Ethan is seven months now and sitting up and eating solid food. Kourtney is beautiful and learning handstands and flips. They have a new puppy.

The bomb went off and the initial shock is over. Now people have to get on with their lives and rebuild. Disaster reorders our lives in marvelous ways, if we have the will and resolve to accept it and move on.