Rob came home for lunch yesterday with news.

“All the employees slated for reduction have been notified according to my boss, and since I haven’t heard anything personally, I think that means I still have a job.”

This is good in my opinion although Rob is indifferent. His job is still a source of tedium when it isn’t out right irritating him.

“An engineer who has been on mat leave the last two years is back on the job this week,” he told me as we ate. “She was one of the rising stars once but given her skill set, it was largely a gender promotion thing. She cackles and is loud, and I had to shut my door and plug myself into my iPod.”

And no, he isn’t a closet sexist, but he does see gender promotions of marginally talented females as a practice that should cease. 

My immediate family hasn’t been affected yet by the frenzied downsizing, which ironically is probably more than a little to blame for the sharp drop in consumer spending which is fueling the layoffs in some measure. The business world never seems to really get the whole supply/demand thing and how consumers fit into the ecomonic circle of  its life.

The girls are still employed but they can’t job hop like they used to, so they are stuck for the moment where they are at and that is in service industry jobs which are the first affected when economies grind to a halt.

As far as I know DNOS and her husband are safe and my mother, god bless her 76 year old self, still puts in a 32hr week. BabySis and LawnMower Man still have jobs, I think. He milks cows and she does laundry. Things that always need doing in their Wisconsin neck of the woods. Even CB is working which is something short of miraculous given that he was threatening to drop off the edge of sanity again right before Christmas. He has to travel pretty far from his home base because the construction jobs are not plentiful in Nevada or California these days, but he has a reputation that, despite his sometimes erratic behavior, still manages to work in his favor. Even my MIL in B.C. is still working despite the fact that it is retail and it was supposed to only be seasonal.

I guess we’ve shed enough blood as a family this past year that the Angel decided we were square. If only he felt the same way about our investments.