PARADOXICAL

I can't believe I lost my latest job just like that. It's true I was getting tired of rewriting the news for nurses for an Australian website, but I was wishing for at least a transfer to another project, of which Innodata has a number. I know of at least, within the company, two ongoing writing projects that are technical in nature, but management said there's no vacancy at the moment. Ouch.

The only alternative is to transfer to a medical indexing project, which I am quite familiar with, but whose schedule requires me to report for a 2PM-11PM schedule, which is too impossible for hypertensive me still reeling from numerous side effects of my medications.

I trust, in faith, that God was telling me staying at Innodata wasn't the next step for me. And yet, I was still shocked when the client I was working for, Nursepoint.com, suddenly decided to revamp their site and do away with the news page. Without so much as a by your leave, I was told one fine day that my job had to go, with my immediate superior saying, "So sorry I can't do anything about it."

Unknown to me, my immediate boss has already formally resigned ahead of me, perhaps because of having no project left for her to handle, or as she has said, because she couldn't take the new schedule either for the new project.

Meanwhile, I'm biding my time as I allow my perceived losses to sink in one by one.

Maybe I was hoping and praying I'd become a regular employee someday soon. After all, the company recently made an offer of regularization, to everyone's surprise, an opportunity which I gladly grabbed. After all, I've been working with the company for a few years now, transferring from one challenging project to the next, even working beyond my required skills set.

Sadly, after about six months, this sudden termination of work project came along. I should take it like a man, I guess. This is not the first time that I faced such a crisis anyway, although each goodbye always constituted a kind of death for me. The first time was traumatic. This time around, the second time, it's more of something I anticipated in fear. But in both times, I was aggrieved.

It could be that I couldn't stand the thought of losing many things all at the same time, on top of the already existing feeling of insecurity curdling beneath the surface, especially the thought that I was advancing in age and my skill and productivity might no longer be what they used to be. Maybe it scared me to lose the opportunity of working at a prime CBD location, the cutting-edge office space and equipment and software, the oftentimes frustrating but amazingly complicated (because multi-layered and global) organizational structure, the mere sight of my fellow employees (most of whom highly skilled, highly educated, smartly dressed, and seemingly decent folks), and the fringe benefits such as clothing and food allowance. Or maybe I am just scared of sudden death.

The loss of the work-at-home arrangement, a blessed convenience to me, was a loss that hurt especially bad. But what hurts the most is the thought that I've invested a number of prime working years in the company, and for what? The same hand-to-mouth sustenance. Despite my years of experience and a considerable number of years of service, the company can let me go so easily, with no retirement or insurance benefit of any kind, except for the measly backpay.

I guess what I am really feeling is anger -- anger at the thought of being at the losing end all over again. I feel like I've been had, despite giving my all. In the companies I had worked before, I would have been not only regularized, I would also have risen up from among the ranks. At this age, what are my chances of landing a job that will pay me well? I am angry that I will be left so helpless like this.

Then again, the problem could be me: I expected too much, despite knowing the nature of the beast. I expected the machine of globalized economy to treat me humanely.

Worse, this new chapter in my life exposes once again how much insecure I feel. My lack of faith in God, despite my apparent piousness, remains especially problematic, challenging me to grow in ways I have never anticipated.