Returning to Work, Part V: Day One

So I got to the office today after minimal trauma at home. The morning went remarkably smoothly. G slept for 8+ hours again, bless her little heart, waking up at 7:30 or so, and I was able to nurse her and still get to work at my usual arrival time.

I teared up only upon walking out the door. Not bad. No craziness yet. I'm in control.

Got to work, checked in to find my boss, and he was apologetic but told me that he had a few calls scheduled for the morning and could we please talk in the afternoon? Well, sure. I figured if I needed to, I could always go home and come back with the nursing thing, so I didn't explode.

See, Monday I had a conversation with him, and I just had...a feeling about things. That this initial conversation was not going to be super. So this conversation simply made me even more anxious.

Spent the morning getting up to speed on my main client. Not a lot to get up to speed on. Hmm.

Around 12:30, I went to the ladies' room. I found a gray hair. (I see one once in a blue moon. See my other post for additional content around this.) What the heck?

We met at 1:30...me and two of the three partners. The short version of the story is that the main account I have been handling is down about 80% in revenue. I knew this was coming; before I went on leave, they had switched agencies for the bulk of day-to-day due to political reasons internally...blah blah blah. Nothing new, I've seen it all at this point. I knew that they were trying to get some additional statements of work signed while I was on leave. Clearly, that didn't happen.

While I could read between the lines on what this meant immediately, it was up to them to tell me what the situation really was. They said they wanted to be as upfront and honest as possible since they knew what my "situation" was (2 kids, mortgage...). Basically, we've got about 30-45 days to get a SOW signed from the clients with a decent amount of work on it in order for them to afford to keep me on board.

Great.

I realize that I am one of the higher paid folks on staff. I also realize that it's hard running a small agency business when a recession is looming and marketing efforts are the first thing to get cut. And I respect the fact they were honest with me. But, it sucks.

I have to admit that I was musing about my options outside of my current position, wanting to do more writing, wanting to shift my focus and leverage the fact that I "get" digital marketing now. Which is valuable. I would venture to say I am far more marketable coming out of this position than going into it, to be truthful.

Welcome back, eh?
I'll be starting that job search...just in case.