Last Friday, the uncertainty was at last over, as the final announcements were made about who had to leave the company. In the end, there was little impact on our department, so that was good news. I knew the chance that I would get laid off was very small, but I was still afraid what it would mean for the people I know, and how the decision will impact our situation at work.

The atmosphere in the last two weeks was definitely very strange. Everyone talked about the coming layoffs, of course, but not excessively so. There were even some jokes made about the whole situation. All in all, things at work almost seemed entirely normal on the surface. However, I don't think anyone really felt in a normal way, and you could constantly feel that tension hanging in the air.

And now it's official, I'm not sure what to think or how to feel. Do I feel relieved? Do I feel guilty for feeling relieved? Am I angry? Am I sad? Do I disagree with the whole situation, or am I able to rationalize the decisions to a certain degree? I don't know, in the end I feel all of these things, and yet I feel none of them at the same time. I don't know if that makes sense at all, but that's the closest description I can come up with. It also feels like an anti-climax. For 2 weeks, this has been a large part of the lives of myself and people around me, and now the moment has come and gone, what does it really mean? On Monday, the world will just keep going on again, like it has always done, almost as if nothing had happened at all.

At least I had time this weekend to clear my mind. Strangely, I feel less tired at the moment than before. I admit I haven't thought much about work this weekend, and barely even touched my laptop at all, so that helps. For some reason, this weekend also seemed longer than usual, even though we lost an hour today due to daylight savings. I guess it's just another sign that I should stop thinking about work so much.

However, that feeling of tiredness seems to have been replaced by a feeling of melancholy. For the last 2 years, I thought I had my life almost figured out. Even though I never really have a life plan, I thought I would be fine as long as I stayed in the current path. But now my inner doubts are starting to creep to the surface again. Is this really what I want? I worked so hard during the last few years, but can I seriously say I feel like I achieved anything? Am I actually happy with my life and where it is headed? I'm not sure, but answering 'no' to these questions don't feel as improbable as it would have seemed a year ago…

P.S. I realize it sounded petty when I mentioned in my last post that I was angry that my salary has been frozen, and reading back, I don't think I put my comments in the right context. It's more the combination of things that got me pissed: even though the company made a lot of profit last year, we still had to cut people AND freeze salaries? If they were to freeze salaries so we could keep more people, I would have understood (of course, management said that we would have to cut even more people if salaries were not frozen…). I can understand cutting costs in the face of the economic crisis, but I felt and still feel these measures were too extreme.