Checks and Balances

Four people close to me were laid off from three different companies on the same Wednesday in January and selfishly, I really, really wish it hadn’t happened because some of those people were also co-workers and I miss them every day and the survivor’s guilt coupled with the lonely absence that is now the desk adjacent to me are a bad combination. Feeling guilty and feeling lonely at work are still better than, oh, unemployment, I realize, but this side of the pink slip haze is feeling it too.