Fat City or Bust

For a few weeks now, I assumed there would be an opening in New Orleans within my company; a position that would be a promotion for me. I thought about how amazing it would to live in The Big Easy, but there's plenty of rumors afoot that New Orleans, like many branches, will be gobbled up and centralized. Let me give some back story here. I used to work in the Tampa, FL. branch. We were self-sufficient, everything happened in our building; from taking the payroll from our clients to the printing and delivery of the payroll to our clients. After 6 years of that peaceful tranquility, along came the concept of centralizing the print operations aspect of the payroll process, and thus the fulfillment center was born. This was a cost-saving measure, as well as a disaster preventative leap. All print operations for all of our Florida locations were relocated to Orlando... safer from hurricanes and close to the airport. We were not the first center, but it's a concept that's caught on nationally. It was a brand new center that I almost relocated to in California last year.

So, here in lies my concern. New Orleans is still a branch setup, just like Tampa was. They have already gone into recovery once, during Katrina. The rumor is, they are being absorbed, like Tampa was, to a center that already exists in either Houston or Dallas. And so, I have two conerns that need to be dealt with and feel some assurances about before I commit myself to pursuing New Orleans. One, I need to know with some certainty that they are not being relocated; I have no interest in living in Dallas or Houston. Secondly, what happens to me if they do relocate, not all supervisors from Florida came to our center, how do I know I'd even be needed at a new center? So, it boils down to, are you moving or not New Orleans branch? I don't want to be without a job in this environment. All I have is my history and talents within my job; I have no degree. So, this is a critical concern.

On a different note, we've done recovery for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York this week. It feels good to allow our peers in the NE to be with family and freedom from having to worry about work. But more importantly, I have thought about myself as one of the millions of employees that work for our thousands of clients, and I thought how important and reassuring it would be for me that despite all the obstacles, I could still count on my paycheck to be there. It's the kind of thing that despite the size of our company, allows us to connect on a very personal level with the people we provide service for and that really resounds with me. Our donations to United Way, and verious charitable organizations is one thing to be proud of company-wide, but this is something that goes beyond that easy, philanthropist, pose-for-the-cameras effort. We found out today, as has the nation, that the NE is without gas and we are about to go down again. Our affected centers have been running off of generators, and that's about to be an impossibility, so the recovery effort will continue.

Well, that's all I have for now. Halloween was a little depressing to be honest. So much is different now.

Listening to: Coil - "Musick To Play In The Dark"