today i found out that, as of january 1, i’ll no longer be a fmsm employee.

fear not: i didn’t lose my job.. fmsm was just bought out– or wait, merged– err.. i don’t know. anyway, we’ll be stantec employees (or more on cnn)as of the new year. new year, new names.

from wilco’s dash 7 –

Because I’ve found the way those engines sound,
Will make you kiss the ground
I found the way those engines sound,
Will make you kiss the ground,
When you touch down

it’s funny.. i’ve known something was up for some time now. the closed doors around the office are always a dead giveaway. this time, though, it went on for longer than usual and no one was letting up. usually you can get a hint here or there from someone.. but this time lips were sealed and direct questions were directly avoided. as speculation increased, so did stress levels. i figured, though, that having the news would ease concerns and lower the blood pressure. sadly, not so..

now that this bird has landed and i’m kissing the ground, i’m finding that i’m just as anxious as before.. maybe even more so. about what.. i’m not exactly sure. i doubt there will really be any major changes, at least initially. i guess i’m mostly just stressed now because i see the people around me are worked up about their futures and the uncertainty of tomorrow. personally, i’m in a decent position: no debts or dependents, no home to payoff or family to support.. but my co-workers have a lot more riding on this, family, kids, homes, careers, retirement.. dogs 😉 .. and there’s no doubt that the uncertainty is disorienting at best.

it was a strange scene: the entire office gathered in a room that’s still under construction and the office manager made the main announcements while the president followed up with his thoughts and feelings and a few of the details and reasons why. i didn’t really watch them, though, and instead watched the faces around the room. i don’t think people really grasped what was going on for the first thirty minutes, their faces locked into as straight a face as they could manage. it wasn’t until later that the anxiety would well up and, if it weren’t for their determination to remain as solid state as possible, would wash their illusions of the future out of their eyes.

what if anxiety acts as its own self-sustaining emotion? i see the anxious faces and hear the anxious speculation around me and it, in turn, makes me anxious. and i can hear it in their voices when they talk together.. one person starts speculating and the edge in their voice gets sharper.. and the people listening get edgier themselves.. and like a flood behind their eyes, you can watch their anxiety rise and they’ll pass it on to the next group they talk to. soon enough the epidemic grips the entire office.

i’m not here to say let’s turn that frown upside-down and everything will be just honky-dory.. i just have to wonder aloud if we can’t calm ourselves down in a group scenario like this. you can almost watch the hysteria spread from one group to the next, faster than news of cookies in the break room.

another part of this that nags at me a bit is that i feel so very small in this process. i have nothing to say about what happens, have little control over my eventual situation, and, now being one of over seven thousand stantec employees, well, i feel that my voice could be lost in a hall of echoes. the obvious analogy that gets drawn is one of pawns in a big chess game, small, largely expendable, and easily forgotten.

now, none of that is to say that i believe in that.. i think there’s a difference between feeling one way and honestly believing in that feeling. i do think this change will open up a lot of opportunities and that good things will come of this all. and more than all that, i know that these are only circumstances.. and one can never be a victim of circumstance without also being a willing participant: i’ll always have choice and so long as i have choice, i have the choice of being alright with this, with seeing the positives.. or, if i see too many things that i’m decidedly unhappy with, then i’ll always have the choice of walking out that open door.. i have that infinite freedom (“man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” and “freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” –jean-paul sartre).. then again, if they play the game right and for long enough, even pawns can become royalty.

..i know this is hardly a linear post. and it’s mostly a smattering of incomplete thought.. but that’s all i can offer for now.

time may tell all.