BIG lay-offs.

i, have not been laid off.

yet.

i, am very scared, nonetheless.

they say that the "re-organization" is over, but it's corporate america. what reason have i to believe them at all? worse than that, it's corporate sales. i have been advised by my boss on various different occassions to fudge the truth for the sake of easing a hard situation; greasing the wheel, if you will. or something.

at any rate, i have no reason to believe her when she says that there will be no more lay-offs. especially when that statement is qualified with "as far as we've heard".

so, all day today i thought about what i might do, if i got laid off. what kind of work might i try for next?

certainly, sales support is not what i want to do with my life, so maybe, if i was laid off, it would be a blessing in disguise, though that phrase is far too "touched by an angel" for my taste. but, that may be what it is.

what am i qualified to do, though? i have a BA in philosophy from an accredited institution. my intention had always been to go to grad school and become a philosophy professor, something i have no doubt i am suited to do. perhaps not at the best university in the world, but somewhere certainly.

but, once i earned my BA, back in may 2000, i was so burnt out that the last thing i was prepared to do was go through the rigamarole of applying to grad school. not only is it draining and intimidating, but, in philosophy, the job market waiting for the fresh new phd is worse than horrible. it's terrible odds that you'll find a tenure position at a university. so, unless you get into a top tier school (read: harvard, nyu, columbia, ucla, ucb, uni of pitt, etc), you might as well look for another kind of job.

the problem is, and always has been, i don't have enough interest in anything else to study it. formally, at least.

i have interest in plenty of other things to do.

for instance, if i could somehow get paid to make books, i would do that happily. but my work is untrained and sloppy, and i have never taken single art class. i do not have the strength of character it takes to study the visual arts, either. critiquing would most likely tear me apart.

the same goes for writing. i like writing when i want, about what i want. i have neither the discipline or the imagination to write a novel. worse than that, if i wrote one, who would read it? so far, 4 people have answered affirmatively to that question, and that is not enough to entice a publisher to take me under their wing. and that's assuming i get it together enough to write anything to publish. if, somehow, i could get paid to write whatever i wanted, when i wanted, i would be in the clear. but, like with visual art, i am fragile, and critique of my writing may be more than i can take.

i could, i suppose, make money writing supermarket romance novels: i know how to be melodramatic and i can use euphemisms for throbbing genitalia to great affect.

and, for about 20 minutes today i thought seriously about this option.

but, it would be me doing something to just get by, it wouldn't be me doing anything that i love.

and that's all i really want to do.

and, if i could do something marketable with one of the following things, i could be gainfully employed for life:

-music is the one thing i love more than anything else. i would like work listening to music/making mix tapes(cds)

-i have a great sense of style, i could dress people, or tell them why what they are wearing is no good.

-i can be a very good friend.

-i play tony hawk like a champ

-i do enjoy writing. maybe i should look into writing.

but again, what would i write?

and who would read?

i am both scared and, for some reason, excited.

i need time to mull this over.

i know this entry is not complete, and probably feels agitated and choppy.