Too much going on today. I'm stealing a few minutes I really can't spare to give y'all an update.

I was trying to get my desk cleaned out before Buehler got here today (just loading my personal stuff into my car, not packing and running away) so he wouldn't be all sad, but I didn't succeed. (I could have sworn I'd already taken most of it home...I always underestimate how much personal junk migrates to my office.)

Now he wants to pay for my insurance for this month and next month. And we have to talk about rolling over/whatever my 401k money.

In the meantime, Sassy called me at 7:30 this morning to beg me not to leave...as though I had quit voluntarily or something.

It's all just too stressful. I mean...it isn't enough that I'm tense about being unemployed (more on that in a moment), but now I have to stress out about "leaving them"?

I have all the guilt of quitting and all the ego-bruising of being laid off at once. There's no way I can win this one.

In the meantime it's been "settled" that I'll try to give Bernie's company a hand. It was supposed to be 10 hours a week for 2-3 weeks, just to see how it worked out. After a 1-1/2 hour meeting yesterday, he was talking 10-15 hours a week for a couple of months. I didn't promise to do that.

For one thing, listening to Bernie, the Tweenybopper, and Diamondgirl interact yesterday gave me flashbacks to Tuffy the Tank. Bernie has much the same management style (micromanaging one minute, being AWOL the next, and in-between, forgetting what he asked you to do and blaming you when you do it) and T&D are honestly trying to "do it right" but getting so rattled and defensive that it's all falling apart.

I talked with Buehler and it's his opinion that, short of being physically out of the office more, there's no way Bernie is going to change.

For another, I've got money to live on for a couple of months (even without the pay I'll be earning from Bernie, a thing he and I still haven't negotiated), but I can't make a long-term commitment to working 10 hours a week.

I will be job-hunting and with a bit of luck I'll find something, so I don't want to lead anyone on to expect I'll be here for them for months, you know?

And now Buehler says he just doesn't see how he can live without me and he wants to talk about me maybe working a couple days a week. He does understand that job-hunting, serious job-hunting, takes quite a lot of time and focus. But he just doesn't want me to leave. I had to talk him out of going completely without his own salary for the next couple of months (he's already down to paying himself only two days a week) so he could pay me.

He had a meeting, so we'll have to finish that conversation later.

Unemployment is starting to look better and better.

For the love of god people, I've spent hours a day blogging for the past three years, and then there's the time I've spent in personal e-mail and just generally dinking around. How on earth can you possibly think I'm not expendable?

Thank goodness it's Friday.