not for sissies

This whole separation process is like a divorce -- just less costly and in a much more compressed time. (This metaphor is enhanced by the fact that I dropped by my divorce attorney's office today to sign some long-overdue paperwork.) There is pain and angst and conflicted feelings and the slow, steady painful process of stripping off my duties -- like ripping off a band-aid slowly from some really hairy part of your body (if you can stand another metaphor). The trouble here is knowing where to place the duties. My job has become so rarefied (not in the exalted sense, but in the mighty specific sense) that it is difficult to know where to place what I know. Part of my Job 1 is going to a tag team. Parts of that job will be peeled away and put on the party of Job 2, herewith known as Copy Team. My desk duties are going to a Copy Team with patchy experience in Features (they are fine editors, but they have not worked in Features, where copy editors have jobs that encompass more tasks than other copy editors' jobs). Part of the Copy Team is also new to our publishing system, adding another layer of training.

Identifying what they need to know out of my accumulated experience has been the bulk of the work today -- woven into finishing up farewell columns for Jobs 1 & 3, and doing the editing work I regularly do on this day. And Job 1 has been a thorny hand-off, with some reluctance to do the work I did in the same way. That, of course, is not my problem, but I need to make sure that they have the tools to do the job in whatever way they see fit, while also doing my best to protect the Copy Team (also not my problem, but loyalty runs strong among deskers, and I am leaving a desk that will be extraordinarily overloaded. I'm doing whatever I can to reduce that load.)
My Job 3 is coming home with me, to morph into a new venture.
In the morning, I received my Separation Agreement. I've just now had a chance to look at it. It is very like a Separation Agreement in a divorce, with both parties agreeing to hold no bars or commitments upon the other. The party of the first part takes the settlement and goes away.

Has this been tedious to read? It's been tedious to live.
For most of my newspaper career, weeks have flown by. In Features, our active date is days ahead, so we never live in the present; we live in the date of whatever section we're working on. I go to work Monday morning and return Friday evening, wondering what happened to those days in between.
Not so this week. Each day is full full full.
Two more full days to go.

D-Day, take 2

Today was the day that departments let everyone else know who was leaving (not that everyone didn't already know). It was also the day that people who didn't know they were leaving found out that they were leaving. And, curiously, it was our quarterly Development Day, where we do in-house training.
On the D-Day first note, the little bio that the boss sent out about me included the fact that I was the go-to person for recipe editing, but not that I'd had two books published during the time that I've worked here. Odd, that. I can let it go, but it's a reaffirmation that the work I value is not the work that they value. I heard good things from people I've worked with. Many were supportive of my heading out into the unknown to do good things. They believe that I can do it, whatever it is, and offered to help in whatever way they could. I'll definitely be calling on them for help, particularly the photographer I worked with on my Homespun series -- which tracked fleece from the sheep to the final product of weaving, knitting, spinning -- who offered to train me to do online videos.
On the second D-Day note, they involuntarily separated our graphics guy who does satirical cartoon films. When he posts a new film, we get 10,000 hits right away. That is most puzzling.
On the third D-Day note, attendance was sparse.
It was an exhausting day. I got some work done, but not nearly enough. Heading in now to work on Wednesday issue, which is a full day behind production because the designer had to attend Development Day classes. Go figure.

Trays in upright position

Late again -- I was polishing up a book proposal.
Curious day at work. Unofficial word was that our boss would announce our departures today. But yesterday, a key copy editor turned in his Form. His departure and mine combined would decimate the desk, leaving one temporary fulltime copy editor and two part-time editors to put out 10 -- make that 9, as of Oct. 5 -- features sections. So the announcement was delayed. Methinks that someone upstairs is rethinking that clause that says your voluntary separation may not be accepted.
The copy editor's thinking was this: We have to meet a number. And he is planning to leave in six months. So rather than someone losing his/her job when we come to involuntary separations next week, he opted to check that box. He couldn't watch someone go reluctantly when he is planning to leave anyway. And also, he could use the time to prepare himself for his next step, a venture into a whole new career, which will require a graduate degree.
This makes for some edginess on my part. Did I say I'm ready to go? I'm ready to go. I've already started leveling the dirt and have bags of gravel ready to pour (sorry -- neighbor down the street is putting in a driveway & it was the handiest metaphor).
It makes for some queasiness. That whole dreading tomorrow thing.
Oh, and on the gravel-laying front: In addition to polishing up the book proposal, which I will send out tomorrow, I made contact with the coordinator of a cancer program about the possibility of setting up a volunteer program. I find that if a body is feeling low, nothing helps more than helping someone else -- especially someone fighting not to work, but to live. Yanks everything into perspective.