Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down

Anyone a fan of The Carpenters? I remember listening to them on AM radio as a kid and loving every song. Belting out the melancholy words of ultimate sadness by the brother/sister duo of the late seventies. Even their happy songs were sad in one way or another. Well today has that feel to it. It's gray. Lots of clouds. Can't decide if it wants to rain or not. Although not a Monday, the clouds have got me down. Just seems there is an infinite amount of sadness in the air today and I'm not sure why. Not anywhere near PMSy. Got plenty of sleep last night. Nothing earth shattering or bad has happened recently. It's just a gray day. And with that sometimes comes feelings of indifference. Living in Northern California, rain is bound to follow wherever one goes so thinking it's going away is not a possibility.

In some ways, I am ready for winter. I like the way everyone goes into hibernation. Things just simply slow down. The nights get longer, days get shorter. Makes for watching season whatever of TV program such and such much more guilt free. Taking the time to go inward. It's a seasonal thing and that time is about to arrive. The rain pouring all afternoon. Washing the car less often because nature takes care of it for us. Playing inside rather than out. Slow, slow, slow without the snow. Really like that! Movie season picks up. The mellowness of it all. I'm ready to move at a turtle's pace for awhile.

I have been interviewing all week for two new potential jobs at the jelly doughnut factory. It's exhausting. One of which I could totally do, the other, completely unqualified but thought to give it a go. Not sure if anyone likes to interview, I sure don't. Hm. Wonder why....people asking difficult questions to poke at inadequacies, bullshit fluff questions, thought provoking "how in the hell am I going to answer this!" kind of questions, and so on. But it's over. Should know within a few weeks what the results are. Not expecting much of anything so won't be all that disappointing if neither pan out.

What is going on, or lack there of, is production of jelly doughnuts. At one time this was a capacity constrained environment. Couldn't make enough of any product and up time needed to be at an all time high. Those days have changed. Since the doughnut facility is old, there is the movement to export the majority of production overseas in bright and shiny new plants or send it to the other plants in California. With that, we have entered the "Strategic Workforce Planning" phase which essentially means decreased headcount. We will need about 1/4 of the workforce that we have today by 2010. It's a change in the business we do today, moving from commercial doughnuts to experimental and clinical doughnuts. A shift which steering through will be difficult and a constant churn of change. Checking the master schedule today it's obvious that change is apparent, if the jelly doughnut workers are ready or not.

Now I really want to go home and pull the covers over my head. Or maybe I need to go listen to "Top of the World" by The Carpenters....