Monday?

It's the last day of January, and coincidentally it's also Monday.

My day started off slowly, back to work, into the office, etc... get my cup of tea and start my morning work. Mostly going through what I did last week so I could submit the inspections.

Then I heard the first surprising news - my office laid off a couple of my co-workers. That was really enough to take the shine off my shoes, as one of them was a guy I've worked with lately. Personable guy. I talked to my supervisor, who was apologetic about not letting me know last week. Um... the layoffs were Tuesday, and I'm finding out Monday after? That's letting just a little time lapse, don't you think? I had my cell on me all week while out of the office... but anyways.

The good news is that, even though I am not swamped with work, the people I work for are looking for work to keep me busy in spite of the lag. Apparently that wasn't the case for my co-workers who were rather light on work (as winter is so light on construction - their area of operations - who knew?) and who were cut loose.

Then I had the other shoe drop. A friend of mine informed me that a co-worker of hers was involved in an industrial accident at the workplace. He was alive, not sure if he'd have all his limbs once they got him out of the machine he was trapped in.

All of a sudden, my life is looking so much better. Really, counting my blessings is suddenly easier to do. Not only do I have the ability to refuse unsafe work, but my company actually makes me be safe in my job. You know, if I had to do maintenance on a major machine, I'd have a lock-out padlock so someone couldn't turn it on, by accident, when I was inside of it. Although not actually part of my job description, at least I know that it would be part of the equation if it were. Not so for my friend's co-worker.

So while I might have had some disturbing news from a couple different directions this chilly Monday in January - holy cow, it could have been a lot worse. My thoughts are, somewhat understandably, on Victor in the hospital with an unknown prognosis for tomorrow, and Garry at home with his wife and toddler with no income for tomorrow.