Black Suits and Bad News

Today was the big day. The day I learned if I had a job at the soon-to-be-merged bank. Since September when the merger was announced, my confidence was an ebb and flow. One day I would feel totally confident and the next day, not so much. 

This week has been very hard for our bank family. Starting Tuesday, the pink slips were handed out to various employees. Some that seemed untouchable.

This morning, I counted the minutes until my 11:30 conference room meeting with my manager. When he came strolling through the bank, with two other higher-ups at 9:15am, I knew it wasn't good. They were all wearing black suits. 

How fitting for the grim-reapers....

The loan officer that I support was summonsed upstairs. After about ten minutes, he emerged, folder in hand. Head down. 

He was axed.

He said quietly, "They're ready for you."

My gut told me last night that this wasn't going to end well. I strategically picked out a black turtleneck to wear to work today.  It would hide the hives that would show up on my chest after I got the news. I smoothed it out and headed upstairs.

When I walked into the conference room, no one was smiling. A sweet, "Hi, Ashlynn" came from the very manager that hired me 6 months ago. One manager was texting in the corner. The sweet older blonde lady was sitting and waiting with my dismissal papers.

My manager gave me a short and sweet "Your position is being eliminated speech" and then turned to the lady to go over my severance package and insurance options.

The entire meeting was 10 minutes or less.  I walked down the stairs and directly into my loan officer's office and shut the door. We didn't want to chat with the rest of the people in the branch about it. 

We just sat there, stunned. We had shown loyalty after several other loan officers had jumped ship. We talked about how we must be the dumb ones to have not followed suit. We've worked for months, cleaning up the messes they left behind on top of new business. 

So much for loyalty on their behalf.

_____________________________________

My last day is June 30th. 

I am sad, but there is good news. The good news is that I will be home this Summer, maybe indefinitely. I have stayed home before and I can do it again. Sure, the income was nice, but there have been so many times when I was needed at home. Jimmy prefers that I am home, but supported my going back to work for this "wonderful opportunity. "  This bank closed my parent's construction loan just two weeks ago and we have broken ground! (More on that soon).  

Good came from this experience.

Harper has begged me not to go to work, every day, for months. We have very special guests coming to visit us all the way from England in September.  I had been stressing about not being able to spend time with them because of work. Not a worry now :)

Thank you to everyone for your prayers, messages and texts. I really felt them this week and especially today.  I promise not to talk about this anymore!! 

As I said on Facebook today, "God's timing is always perfect."

Love,