The Facebook

As usual, it's been a crazy week. Well, maybe a little crazier than others.

As I mentioned in my last posting, my customer whose site I work at is closing their doors. It was a very sudden move on their part and caught a lot of folks off guard. Imagine walking into work on Monday morning and being shuffled into a room to be told you were out of work, effective immediately, and you were not getting any kind of assistance, severance package, or anything. Needless to say a lot of folks were upset, and now most of them are already gone.

Since I work for an equipment vendor, when they shut down, we had to kick into overdrive and get all of our things out of there before they decided to cut the power and chain the doors shut. My boss was working at a site on Oregon one time where this happened. He showed up for work and all the factory doors were locked and everyone was standing out in the parking lot. No notice. No anything. Since my boss had experienced this before, he wanted all of our equipment and parts out of there as soon as possible. I don't think I've had to work that hard in months, but yesterday, the truck pulled away with several neatly organized pallets.

This week at work, it's been like a big party breaking up. Everyone has been shaking hands and swapping details and making promises to keep in touch. Normally these have always seemed to be hollow promises. You keep up with email for a while and eventually that trails off. However, this time, because of technology, things have proven to be different. Enter LinkedIn, Skype, and Facebook.

People all remember many of Pres. Bush's funny sayings. Bushism's I think people call them. One of my favorites was when he said he had been looking up stuff using "The Google". I can't tell you how much I laughed when I heard that. I still laugh when I think about it. Unfortunately, now I can't stop adding "The" to the front of all my favorite computer applications.

I've had LinkedIn and Skype accounts for a long time but never really did much with them. Skpe is awesome if you have relatives who live overseas like we do. It definitely helps with the phone bills! However since the party has ended at work, those "We'll keep in touch" promises have been kept and my contact lists on those accounts has grown considerably.

Then the other night, I did the unthinkable. I got an account on "The Facebook". Initially, I was very reluctant to do this. I really don't have time for another thing to keep me in front of my computer. I was always getting Facebook invitations but just could never get around to doing anything with it. Then last Christmas, my sisters started harassing me about it. "It's so great", they would say. "You have to do it."
"What's so great about The Facebook?" I asked.
"Ohhh, you can keep up with everyone from High School!", they gleefully replied. Their answer was, in my opinion, the number one reason I wouldn't want to get on-board. I already keep up with everyone from High School that I was friends with. Sometimes we go awhile without seeing each other or talking, but we can always pick back up right where we left off.
But I got the account anyway, because of all the people I had been working with, I was probably the only one not on The Facebook.
So far so good. I do like that instead of emailing my pictures to everyone, I can just post them in one place. We had been doing them on The Snapfish, but since everyone is on The Facebook already, it will be easier. The only thing I haven't had fun with is filling out my profile. I figure I'll eventually get that sorted out, but I never know what to put down. I want to be honest about myself while still trying to maintain some tiny sort of "cool" factor. It's a tough tightrope to walk.
So the only other thing I have noted in the past couple of days is that The Facebook sure sends you a heaping helping of email. I have it tied to my home email address that until recently was hardly ever using. I check it once a week or so but have realized that I need to check it daily now to keep the mail from piling up.

It's interesting to see how technology has changed how we do relationships. We never really permanently say goodbye to one another anymore. It's possible, and very likely, that most of us have friends or know people we haven't and will never meet in person. Also, I have single friends who use The Match.com for dating and they tell me that dating for them is so much easier now. They just spend some time online and make it happen without having to go to bars or have those awkward moments of trying to get around to asking someone on a date.

I'm into this for now, but who knows for how long until I begin to feel it taking over and I gain another temporary seething dislike for technology. I'm still not ready to get on The Twitter though. That is a whole other animal and I just don't think I can be that plugged into the grid right now. But who knows what's going to happen down the road.

So, for those of you who are curious about my job...
I have a job now. My company right now says they have enough work that I can stay based out of Richmond until at least this summer. By then someone will be operating the Richmond plant again and I'll go back there, I'll find a different job in Richmond, or I'll be ready to relocate with my current employer. All are possibilities. I've updated my resume and am sending it to a couple of friends/contacts this week to start doing a little networking and shake a few trees. My aim is to stay in Richmond but we're going to be ready for anything.
In the meantime, while I'm going to be based in Richmond, I'm probably not going to be in town a whole lot. We have an office in Manassas, VA where I'll be spending a lot of time and they already have me scheduled for a couple of trips to NY.
It's going to be an interesting ride and I'm sure something good is going to come out of all this for me and the family.

But don't worry. No matter what happens, it will never really be goodbye for us. I'll see you around...... on The Facebook....