what, me worry?

i went to a group lunch last friday at the all-you-can-eat indian buffet. i made sure i dressed up comfortably, wearing baggy pants. as you see, i was looking forward to eating a lot because of my penchant for south asian food. on this occasion, however, i didn’t get my money’s worth. i wasn’t my usual self. i didn’t have an appetite to go for seconds.

the lunch was held in honor of a departing team member. in the past week and a half, we lost three people due to reorganization. this was in spite of the fact that our management had said around the end of third quarter that there would be no more layoffs for the rest of this year. it looks like you can’t really trust management on their word, especially if it’s not written on paper.

i believe that management doesn’t terminate people just to play god or to show who’s the boss. it’s part of doing business, governed in part by the invisible hand of adam smith. but what i don’t understand is why do it during the holidays. does management think the holiday spirit will deaden the pain? have they already forgotten the incident a couple of years ago when somebody shot himself in his car in the garage shortly after getting his pink slip? and why do it without warning? even somebody in death row is given sufficient time to contemplate his fate.

the ones that were let go were good workers, which means, nobody is indispensable. if it happened to them, it could happen to anyone, including me.

i guess the best strategy, nowadays, is to hold off on big spending because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. in other words, save for the rainy days, don’t buy a new car, forget paris, turn the heater down, and make do with top ramen. but then, there’s this other side of me that says, life isn’t worth living if you live in fear. that life is to be enjoyed because it’s not forever. ah, the more I dwell on this, the more I realize how precarious 2012 would be for a lot of people.