Dear friends,
Those funny stories about food will resume soon, I promise. For now, though, I bring you the continuing saga of Your Bakerina’s Adventures with the Egg Board Fellowship and the increasingly-appropriately-pseudonymed LuthorCorp…
So, did you give up your fellowship? I am glad to say that I did not. From June 15 to July 14, this bakerina will be calling Eureka Springs, Arkansas home.
No kidding? LuthorCorp is letting you go? Uhhhh...kinda.
I don’t like the sound of that “kinda.” Me, neither.
You didn’t quit your job, did you? Uhhhh...not as such.
For the love of Christ, Jen. Okay, okay. I apologize.
Boss’s boss, true to his word, met with me as soon as he got into work this morning. I pleaded my case, telling him that if I’d ever thought I would actually win this thing, I never would have applied. I told him that my co-workers rose around me and vowed to help take on my workload while I was gone. (I felt like Kirk Douglas in Spartacus.) I reminded him of how often I’ve stayed late, come in early, helped in generally helpless situations. I wailed and boogied until the tale had been told and the song had been sung.
He countered with what I thought he would counter with all along: as my long-time co-worker, boss and friend, he thinks that this is an opportunity too good to pass up. But as a sales vp at a public company, one that takes its shareholder returns very seriously, he has been presented with this request at a terrible time. We have a whole new executive management team, and they are watching us very carefully, asking loaded questions about why we’re not making any money and is he sure that he can’t make any cuts to his staff? He pointed out that I have given him a tricky argument to give to HR: If he tells HR that I have recruited people who will pick up my workload, they will ask why I’m on the payroll. If he says I’m on the payroll because I’m indispensible to the team, they will ask why I’m being allowed to go if I’m so indispensible. But he has promised to advocate for me. I believe him and I trust him.
So in the end, we are one step forward, two steps back. I am going to keep the fellowship. I do not know if I will have a job when I get back. Hopefully the meeting between boss’s boss and HR will take place within the week, and I will know if I’m staying or going. It is a scary thought, but the worst-case scenario is scarier: While there are no immediate, announced plans for layoffs in our group, they have not been ruled out, either, which means that I could turn this fellowship down, only to find myself unemployed anyway. That’s a risk I will not take.
Lloyd, incidentally, is standing by his woman, giving her two arms to cling to.
In the meantime, I remind myself that the greatest rewards come from the greatest risks, and I remember Cynthia Heimel’s line that God protects babies, drunks, fools and reckless girls, girls who are up for anything. Since I am all of the above, my odds are good.