No Such Thing as Refuge

Last week, the CEO of the corporation I work for announced they are going to make cuts (including closing entire facilities) in order to lower costs and focus more resources on fewer game titles. The following day, the Orlando studio president met with all of us. He told us that while no specific decisions had been made yet, there would likely be cuts here even though our is (by far) the most profitable facility in the global corporation. More will be revealed after the new year.

"Ha ha ha!" I can hear the Universe belly-laughing at me. "Silly boy, there is no such thing as security. There is only paying attention to what is happening in the moment, following your heart, and doing your best." Well, to be fair to me, I lived through the dot-com crash so I chose the way I chose as a gesture toward "learning from the past." As if. As if the past were ever a reliable gauge for the future. (c.f. Real Estate marketing in 2006, "Historically, housing prices have always gone up.") I'm not saying I should have gone with a Silicon Valley startup instead or even that I'm expecting to be laid off. But my imagination that a large corporation would automatically be a safer bet in troubled times has not borne out to be true. As far as I know, the companies I turned down have not announced cutbacks.

An NFL football coach once called a "trick" play that fell apart badly - so badly in fact that the opposing team was able to steal the ball and run the other way for a score. After the game, the press asked the coach how he felt about that play. "You know," he answered, "It's one of those things where if it works, you feel like a genius and if it doesn't work, you feel like... well, let's just say I don't feel like a genius right now."