Exit strategy

I didn't get laid off last week.

For most people, that would be reason to celebrate. And, given our financial situation, it is.

But only to a point.

I'm exhausted, you see. I go to work at 4 or 5 p.m. and arrive home long after midnight. I go to bed as quickly as possible after arriving home and, if I'm lucky, I can get a little more than five hours of sleep before the stirrings of a morning-oriented household, as well as my morning-oriented circadian rhythm, pull me back to consciousness. Then the daily schedule swings into action, and I'm staggering through another day on autopilot, snapping at Elijah for little things, zoning out at 65 mph on the interstate and feeling my health decline in ways big and small.

It's been this way for five years now, ever since I made a vow that the little bundle of joy and demands in my arms would never spend one second in institutional child care while in his infancy or toddlerhood. Hence, the need to work nights so I could be home with him during the day. Over these past five years, I've had several cardiac episodes that ended with an ER doctor, peering at my test results, asking me when I intended to start getting enough sleep and cutting down on the staggering amount of caffeine it takes to get me from 8 a.m. one day through 1 a.m. the next day.

I've even taken heat from a dermatologist when I had the nerve to ask why, after decades of relatively healthy skin, I'm suddenly getting precancerous lesions everywhere. (This is despite my dedicated use of sunscreens so powerful that until recently, they weren't even approved by the FDA -- thanks, online Canadian pharmacies, for your skin-protection assistance!) He looked at me carefully and said something along these lines: "I can tell you're not getting much sleep. Our immune systems are constantly fighting off cancer throughout our bodies, and sleep and exercise are the most important factors in healthy immune system functioning. And remember, not all early stage cancers are as easy to spot as skin cancer."

The lecture went on, but you get the idea.

That brings us to June 16, the day my employer laid off more than 1,400 people across the company, 120 of them at my workplace. Since another lovely facet of my job is that I work weekends, I was home on that dark Monday and thankfully missed a pretty grim scene. We lost some good people, some VERY good people, and those of us remaining are acutely aware of how fortunate we were to escape the ax. But given that our industry is sinking and sinking fast, we know our time is limited.

That's the day I decided to formulate my exit strategy. I must admit that it's not much of a strategy, but here it is: Get all debt except the mortgage paid off. Switch our family health insurance coverage to Jeff's employer. And pounce on the next buyout offer (expected late this year or early next year) with a vengeance.

In case you're wondering exactly what it is that I do, let me refer you to a fellow journalist (at another newspaper) whom I've always admired and who sums it up quite nicely here:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/19/AR2008061902920.html

Is it too soon to write the obituary on newspapers? Maybe. But given my current state of exhaustion, I'm ready for my own chance to rest in peace.