The Death of Imagination

It's been a week.

On Monday, we learned what the President and Dean had been hinting at the Friday before in their vague references to measures to address the dire budget situation for the current fiscal year: 52 of my coworkers--a quarter of our full-time workforce--were furloughed. This came right the heels of the outright dismissal of all temporary employees, including all student workers. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long to find out if I was on the list: my supervisor e-mailed the same morning to let me know that I was safe (for now). Unfortunately, at the same time, she informed me that both my direct reports were on the list.

I was asked not to contact them myself since they'd be hearing soon from HR and concentrating on work was out of the question. I had a sinking feeling in my gut that threatened to consume my whole being. So I went downstairs and snuggled the cat for a while, hoping I might nap. But I didn't and--conscious of the fact that my employees might contact me, I guiltily made my way back upstairs to the laptop.

Sure enough, I found several notifications waiting for me. Two were from HR informing me that the employees had been informed of their one-on-one meetings the next day and one was from one of the employees, who had adroitly surmised exactly what that meant. I took a deep breath, reassured her that her performance had nothing at all to do with the decision (I'd literally called her "a model employee" in the evaluation I'd written for her the week before), and apologised wholeheartedly.

The malaise lingered all the rest of that day and the next. I checked on a couple of coworkers and they checked on me; we traded speculations but I held back from divulging what I knew. What I learned started making me angry: no professional staff had been affected, only paraprofessionals. I was at least somewhat mollified that when this became known to my professional colleagues at our workgroup meeting the next day, they looked suitably abashed. I know, like me, they were feeling that peculiar mix of relief and guilt at having been spared.

We learned some details then; I got more the next during my one-on-one with my boss, and then the closest we can expect to hear of the full story on Friday during a townhall with the Dean. It was both more and less reassuring to hear that they'd had very little discretion in the process. The instructions from on high had been that decisions were to be made at the directorial level without consulting workgroup leaders; that everything had to be done in secrecy and in a very tight timeframe; and that no extenuating circumstances could be taken into account. My boss called the process "opaque by design" and if I needed any confirmation that she and the rest of the administration would have done things differently if they could have, I got it when the Dean concluded her remarks to us by bursting into tears.

I feel slapped in the face by my own foolish complacency. Although I had some misgivings giving up the protection of a union to take this position, I was lulled by the fact that in every other way, it was an improvement. And that's all fine when things are good. But now they're anything but and we're basically unprotected. We were targeted for furloughs because we could be. Everyone else--faculty, physical plant employees, adjuncts, etc.--are covered by contracts and agreements which make letting people go a more involved negotiation. But we are strictly work-for-hire.

I'm really impressed with how well my employees are taking this. They're both older and, if they lose their jobs, they might not bother looking for another. I really hope they return, but there are no guarantees and next year's budget situation is going to be, if anything, more dire than this year's. I'm trying to resign myself to the fact that, even if they do, some of my colleagues won't. Those with more options aren't just going to sit and wait for three-and-a-half months to find out whether their job still exists.

Technically, I'm one of those with more options. I should be taking advantage of this time to explore them. But it's hard when I can't even imagine what the landscape will look like a month from now, much less a year.

So a funny thing happened at work this week.

One of my colleagues hired a new student worker to work on an ongoing project and asked me to provide some training, as I've done for previous hires in that position. It's not complicated work and he's reasonably bright so he picked it up quickly. To help while away the time as I was sitting in and staying alert for teaching moments, I started chatting with him.

When I started out, I tried very hard not to get too familiar with my students. But over time, the University has encouraged us to take more of an interest in their lives so that we can help intervene if they start to run into problems. The Library too has stressed the educational aspects of our role, as this is often the first paid work for many of them. We're supposed to be teaching them about the world of work in addition to getting them to do some.

Furthermore, he's not actually my employee, he reports to someone else in a different workgroup in a different department. I won't be evaluating him and no one's scrutinising my behaviour for signs of favoritism. Plus he's a grad student, and even if the age difference isn't that great between them and undergrads, there feels like a big gap in terms of maturity.

There's also the fact that he's gay. He never said this, but it was obvious enough even before I asked him his area of study and he told me it was music performance. Baby gays bring out a protective instinct in me that must be a dim echo of what foster parents feel. I try not to prefer them in hiring, but if I do have a queer student, I'll be more likely to drop hints about my personal life. Partly it's modelling ("You can have a fabulous gay life, too!") and partly it's signalling I'm someone they can talk to about issues specific to that experience.

In any case, this is how I ended up asking him about what music he listens to and then sending him links to a few favourite videos. And how I casually mentioned that Oliver Sacks was gay when mentioning that I'm reading his memoirs. It may be what prompted him to ask about my weekend plans. (I mentioned Sunday's wine tasting but not Saturday's Bear Night.)

After work, I went to Sea Ranch for dinner. Waiting for my food (and it did take a while--I don't know what's up with them lately) I opened up Facebook and found I had a new friend request. I expected either another Russian fembot or serial thirst-adder (part of how I prepare myself for disappointment), but it was neither.

I hesitated before adding him. I typically don't even add my colleagues on Facebook. But I searched my memory banks and found a precedent, another grad student in this position who I used to enjoy chatting with and eventually accepted a request from. Plus we do actually have mutual friends from the Chicago bear world, so it's possible I'd be running into him in social situations anyhow.

I did not expect him to begin messaging me immediately after the ad and I certainly didn't expect him to start flirting. Perhaps sensing my reticence, he asked, "Is flirty okay?" I told him it was fine outside of work hours but I'm still not 100% okay with it. He's cute enough that I can see making out with him if we were drunk at a party but not worth complicating my work life for. Hopefully I'm only a passing fancy for him and we'll settle down to being just buds, the way me and Burly Bear are.

Pōʻalua "Momona" keia. Ua ʻai mākou i nā "pączki" ma ka hana. He mau malasada Pōlani nā pączki. Ua oha ka ʻahahui poʻe hana i ʻeono kākini, akā hoʻi pau i ka lilo. Ua kūʻai mai i mea ʻelua wale, hoʻokahi mea me ʻīkomo pukini a me hoʻokahi mea me ʻīkomo ʻapelekoka. Ua ʻai koke au i ka mea ʻapelekoka akā hoʻokoe au i kekahi. Manaʻo au e ʻai mahope aku, akā hāʻawi aku au iā kekahi kanaka. ʻO wai kēlā? He hoa hana punahele ʻoia. Ake nui noʻu e hoʻohui me ia, akā ʻena aku iaʻu. Ua hele mai ʻoia i ka waihona puke i keia lā a hō aku au i ka mea momona. Ua inu kope ʻoia a kamakamaʻilio māua. Ua hauʻoli loa au.

Today's been a weird day. Originally my plan was to get coffee with a friend, but when he offered me an out last night, I seized it. It wasn't that I don't want to see him but I felt uncommonly tired didn't fancy getting up early (though I did manage to force myself to take a good long stroll through the neighbourhood).

I woke up at 5 a.m. feeling like I'd hardly slept at all. So I willed myself back to sleep and was rewarded for my bullheadedness with unsatisfying sleep and disturbing dreams. I finally got up and went through the steps of my routine but having my tea made me feel too oogy to eat. Remembering that I had nothing scheduled at work and a fair bit of sick time to burn I crawled back into bed.

I woke up again at 10:40 feeling considerably better, lounged for a bit, and then hustled to make the 12:25 shuttle. On the way in, I stopped at TJ's for snacks (finally running into an old pal in the parking lot) and then at Sea Ranch before finally strolling around 2 p.m. I was lucky; I hadn't been at my desk long before my boss brought by a colleague visiting from another university and I spent the next hour helping her navigate our system, which they're migrating to soon.

I decided to stay at work an extra hour and now I'm killing a little time before the next shuttle. Something in today's lunch didn't agree with me; my stomach is more upset than it was this morning and I can't really think of anything I want for dinner. I just tried snacking on some crackers (perversely, an upset stomach often makes me crave something savoury) but that didn't help.

Really, this entire day I've felt somehow...superfluous. Like someone already dead just performing the motions of somebody living. It's a state that comes and goes but it's been visiting a bit more than usual lately. I don't know any cure for it but to push through until it fades again for a while.

I spent most of today processing yesterday's lockdown. Having conversations with trusted colleagues helped. I'm still torn between the knowledge the preparation is the key to successfully navigating a crisis and the fear that putting an active shooter situation on a level with natural disasters normalises paranoia. There are some protocols which are applicable to any emergency situation, and we could always use more drilling in those. But there are some which are unique to a scenario where a person with a deadly weapon is deliberately trying to kill you.

Chief among these seems to be liability. We all accept that in an emergency situation, part of our responsibility is getting patrons to safety. But in our active shooter training, we were specifically enjoined not to do that. So when the message came through to "take shelter", we found ourselves rudderless. I don't know where my boss ended up going. My initial thought was to head to the basement, but that requires moving through a large open corridor, so my second thought was simply to remain at my workstation, which is reasonably out-of-the-way and surrounded with movable obstacles.

And then there was the confusion over what our actual level of alertness was. My colleague at the next cubicle over and I were bantering with each other while I amused myself flipping a coin to fill out March Madness brackets. Little did we know that in the next department over, a hundred people were taking shelter. We didn't know because they were entirely silent. Meanwhile, another colleague who chose to remain in the department got a personal call and so--in accordance with departmental policy--went out into the hall take it.

The call turned out to be a hoax (technically a swatting so--to quote a friend--"still at least either attempted homicide or reckless endangerment, just using cops as the means"), so ultimately what we experienced was a very realistic drill. And as with any drill, it helped us spot flaws (such as the fact that none of the contracts--from the café attendant to the guys pouring concrete outside--received the direct alerts the rest of us were getting every 10-15 minutes) which are doubtless already being discussed so that the system can be tweaked. But the feelings unearthed by it are all very real and still more or less our own responsibility to process. (On a personal note: One more opportunity to keenly feel the absence of a life partner I could turn to.)

The eclipse was fun. I was a bit disappointed that no one had planned a party for it at work like the one we had during 1994's partial eclipse, but apparently they did and I just didn't hear about it because when I showed up around noun, there was a clutch of people with deviled eggs, donut holes, and cookie-box eclipse viewers. By the time of the big moment, there were nearly a hundred people present, a mix of staff and students with perhaps a few randos. As you might expect, there was a bigger gathering a little farther north near the Observatory.

It was cloudy, but that actually had the advantage that at times you could glance up at the sun without the aid of glasses. (Those were the times when the viewers themselves were useless.) We only had 88% coverage. Judging from the reactions of my friends who were in the path of totality, maybe I should've gone ahead with my plan to go down to St Louis for the occasion. My sister and her kids were someplace with 99% coverage and even they didn't get to see the corona, so it would have involved planning an excursion southward and I just wasn't up to it.

Last week I made a vow to meet everyone's responses to monshu's death with a spirit of generosity and I've done a pretty good job of keeping it. Not yesterday, however. Near lunchtime I suspected La Vache was making an attempt to wish me sympathy so I spent the rest of the day dodging her. At Chicago, she basically tried to get the Old Man fired, encouraging a disgruntled employee to bring a complaint against him and just generally being a dick to him (and later me, when we started associating). I'm sure he'd forgiven her for this--he was letting go of all his old grievances as he felt death approaching--but I'm not him and I couldn't imagine hearing her offer condolences without saying something cutting like "One thing I've always admired about you is your chutzpah" or even just a nonplussed "Really?"

So I fled and ended up at another bank informing another indifferent functionary about his death. But where Friday's employee covered up his indifference with good customer service, Monday's was careless and inept, drawing increasingly curt responses and even admonitions from me. I think it's the first time someone has offered me a business card and I made no show of taking it in order to be polite. (For all I know, it's still lying their on his desk where he dropped it.) There was a loud, cranky old man in the neighbouring cubicle and I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

Fortunately, bunj is in my corner. Despite a Bavarian Totencold, he and e. stopped by in the evening to pick up a death certificate so he could file the will first thing today. He tried going to a branch of bank #1 to wind things up, but they wanted not only the affidavit and the certificate but also a copy of the will and he didn't have one with him. I don't know why I'm so impatient. There's plenty of money in the joint account to handle known expenses for the coming month it will take to have the assets transferred to me but it's just a messy state of affairs having no control over his funds and I don't like it.

I made the wrong call by deciding I didn't need any lorazepam to fall asleep last night so I stumbled through today and blew off my afternoon meeting. I guess I should be consuming the slack people are extending me at work while it lasts. So far, I've been resisting the urge to respond to the umpteenth expression of sympathy with a novel response like a cheery "All's well that ends well!" I guess it helps that today I heard mostly from people who I have nothing against and who really have been through some shit so there's a weight to their words I don't find in everyone's. Always is interesting, btw, who comes through in these moments and who doesn't. I have a growing stack of condolence cards on my desk now and they're nearly all from colleagues I wouldn't have expected.

I am staggering through the day today--I'm doubting I'll make until five--and I'm choosing to blame a combination of sleeping poorly, getting soaked at lunchtime yesterday, and the two-day effort to declutter our workspace. It was much needed and long overdue, but also strenuous and exhausting. I tried to pay as little attention as I could to whatever nonsense my colleagues were getting up to around the corner (such as unpacking several boxes of materials which are under embargo and can't be cataloged) and focus on my own area. It looks much changed--the head of another work group asked, "What happened to all your stuff?" as he was passing through--but I feel exposed without my comforting towers of books on either side.

One of the discoveries which came from offloading a couple long-beached boxes was that there is nothing holding the access panel on the wall in place except for the desk itself; although I can see screw heads, they're clearly not attached to anything. That explains why sound travels so well up from the sub-basement; today I even felt a draught of cold air I suspect is from the same place. I also found some amusing printouts given to me by a coworker who is no longer here, but fortunately no dead vermin. Whew!

monshu also came down with something this week so I wasn't expecting any kind of fuss for Epiphany. I was totally prepared to be warming up a potato pie from Sunday and instead came home not only to baked halibut and sweet potato risotto but a tremendous nut-brown roscón de Reyes. Naturally, I found the coin, though my one official act as King was to take down the tree--ceremonially, that is, which is to say I removed the finial and extinguished the lights. Later I returned and put away the most important ornaments but lost steam before it came to wrapping all the glass baubles in tissue.

I also got to play Rex Magus at work, since the nameplates I'd ordered before New Year's came in and I made a point of delivering them personally in order to bask in everyone's delight. (Honestly, it really is the small things.) I also had something more personal to give away, my 2013 edition of Best European Fiction. I'd been talking it up to a Bosniak coworker and finally just decided to gift him with it. First, though, I had to make a push to finish the last dozen stories or so. I tackled most of them over break, but still had two unread as of Tuesday night, so I read one on the ride in (Eloy Tizón's "El mercurio de los termómetros") and the last (Ray French's "Migration") at work only moments before handing it over.

He and I both agreed what we'd really like to see is a bilingual edition, because neither of us can read all the languages represented but we could each make a serious dent. That's too specialised a market for a paperback, however, but would be easy enough to do electronically if not for the fragmented way in which foreign language rights are parcelled out. In any case, with that off my plate, I'm poised to make a final assault on the last quarter of Gösta Berling and select my next victim.

Is maith an lá so a bhí agam aniogh. Bhí craic againn ag an obair. Do threoraíomar fochéimithe tríd an leabharlann ar feadh dhá uaire agus mé ag tionlacan sé grúpaí san am san. Do bhíos go litriúil ag rince idir chuairteanna leis an áthas a bhi agam. D'fhanas ann tamall tr'éis sin chun cuidiú le comhleacaí ceisteanna d'fhreagairt is a leithéid. Do shíleas go mbeinn tuirseach ar fad ar teacht an tráthnóna ach bhíos go beo friochanta go fóill. Níor é ach an turas abhaile a chuir an tuirse orm. Do chaithios dhá uair leis chomh maith ach diabhal an spórt a bhi iontu!