I have an LED light strip that I intended to put up as Christmas lights in front of my house. It has sat in its box for close to two months. Finally, one week before Christmas, I got it out of the box and fully planned to put it up above my garage. I pulled out the step ladder, measured the installation location, and promptly gave up. My neighbor even came across the street to see if I needed help. I told him no and that I would try again earlier next year. However, I do need help getting out of this depressive slump.

I spent about six hours with a church friend yesterday. Initially, we were meeting for lunch, and to have him explain the bond market to me. We did do some of that, but I spent most of time talking about my work friend issue. It took a lot of embarrassing sharing, but I think I received some clarity on why I have been depressed. It is too complicated to discuss on a blog post but basically I have lost a close personal friend instead of just a work friend, which will take much longer to process and recover from. From the friend’s perspective, I am now definitely a mid to low level relationship. This discrepancy and how it affects communications is going to cause me a lot of grief and heartache until I can adjust my expectations quickly and deal with the loss.

Understanding a problem does not make it suck less.

I started posting here about four and a half years ago, and here is what I wrote:

It’s been almost two years since I started dialysis. I really don’t have anyone to talk to about the struggles of life with dialysis so I’m going to share with Internet strangers.

https://mybadkidney.wordpress.com/2019/06/23/welcome/

Since then, my physical quality of life has vastly improved after a bypass surgery and a kidney transplant. However, I am feeling more than ever that I need to see a therapist.

After my health struggles, I lost a lot of interest in work. What kept me going the past five years has been my relationships with both old and new coworkers. Being an introvert, each friendship means a great deal since I do not have that many. Therefore each time someone leaves, it feels like a punch in the gut. This is exaserbated by the fact that I am contemplating retirement.

I posted several times about my new work best friend and that she was let go from our compaany last week. Ever since then, I have felt an uneasiness and a sense of impending doom. The last time I felt this bad was when my wife of seven years divorced me. I am still in contact with my work friend, but once you are no longer coworkers, the level of interaction goes way down: no more quick texts on Microsoft Teams, no short walks in the factory, no sharing tea over coffee. My motivation to go to work, already low, is now practically nil. Of course this is all in my head, but it is hard to separate feelings from fact. I will have to adjust to loss once again.

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To the piece of shit that fired my friend, fuck you.

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The only other person that I blocked on Linkedin was someone form the old company that practically begged us for a job. After much difficulty, we did get a director level postion approved. Then the asshole use that offer to weasel a senior director position back at the old company. That was twelve years ago.

Backstabbers. Never forget, never forgive.

My new best friend at work just got fired today.

My friend has only been working for the company for about fifteen months. The entire time she has had one terrible manager after another. I have seen nasty emails sent by her current manager, and there seemed to be a targeted vendetta against my friend. After over twelve years as a director in the same department, I know everyone’s management style and effectiveness. Additionally, there is definitely a toxic cultural influence from our CEO.

I am old enough to know that nothing is 100% black-and-white. My friend usually comes into the office at around 10:00 AM. That is not rare for our department and company, but most people are in by 9:00 AM. However, if you get your work done, typically no ore really cared about your hours. There was also complaint that my friend was away from her desk often, but her team would not train her or assign her work. Right when she was hired, our collective boss put her under the worst manager and he bacically ignored her for six months. The unfortunate outcome is that my friend got the label of someone that did not get anything done, and a low performer.

I am very upset. Of course, when a friend is tired, it is a sad situation. This is different as I am part of the management, though my friend was not on my specific team, and I have worked for our CFO for twenty-four years. My friend is only twenty-five years old; that mean I have know my manager since she was one. I have raised this situation with my boss before, and he acknowledges that collectively, the managers in the department has done a poor job. I was also helping to find a solution that would keep my friend in the company. What no one expected was that my friend would be fired two weeks before Christmas. In hindsight, the fact her current manager called a meeting for Friday afternoon should have been a clue, but both me and several other employees did not think this would happen.

My friend texted me while she was being fired in a conference room. Af first I was shocked, then I thought about walking out since it was Friday and terminations are usually done on Fridays. I think it was an extra cruel to just walk her out without warning, company policy or not. My friend ended up driving home in tears and was almost involved in an accident on the way home.

What now? In many previous texts I talked about my pending retirement. Current plan is to exit at the beginning of February or March, with a possibility of some part-time or consulting work. A this point, I am disguested with the entire situation. Still, I want to unduely impact other employees so I will likely work through the calendar year and walk away. Right now I cannot imagine going back to the office and giving 110% to my work. We are a huge company now and there are many people working hard. However, having investt twelve plus years into the company, with many sacfices to health and relationships along the way, it is very disappointing.

January 12, 2024 will be my last day.

I just watched this movie this afternoon. It is about the 2007-2008 financial crisis. I just divorced my ex-wife in 2006, and I was working at my previous company. Since I was renting and did not have any investments, I was not really impacted by the financial crisis. There may have been a layoff at work, but I kept my job at the time. House prices did drop as a result, and we purchased our current house in December 2009. The market did drop further but as we all know now, rebounded with a vengeance, especially in Southern Califonria.

Even though I work in finance, I learned quite a bit from the movie, especially investment terms. I also like the way the movie was filmed/edited. There were many reality TV show sidebars that were included in the actual scene. The “explainers” by random celebrities were great too.

It is kind of racist, playing off the stereotype that all Asians or Chinese are good at math. However, it is also a bit ironic since most of my finance career has been building models in Excel, and being an ex-engineer has definitely helped. When I applied to business school, my cousin-in-law was teaching at NYU Stern. She said I should apply there, hinting that she may be able to help with the admissions process. Would I have ended up on Wall Street as an analyst versus starting my finance career in corporate planning?

Recently, I have been invited to invest in a bond fund managed by a church cell group member. Even though I was the treasurer of a large company for three years, I know next to nothing about investing, and have zero knowledge about the bond market. My friend did explain a lot of things over several lunches, but it is still mostly a big black box for me. Since his bond fund is also mortgage-backed securities focuses, I should have him explain the movie to me.