The Blood of the Lamb

The tension at work is so stiff that I can’t even cut it with a knife. The sad part is that I don’t think that there is any solution to this easily avoidable problem. The damage has been done and the things that have been said can never be taken back.

The situation is that two of my co-workers were up for their 90 day evaluations last week, and their bad performance reviews caught us all off guard. My employer told them that their contract would not be extended into the permanent positions that they were promised and that they were fired. To add insult to injury, they are supposed to finish out the last two months of the research project. What kind of company fires someone and then expects them to grin and bare months of working for an employer who doesn’t value their work? I mean these are the sweetest ladies on the planet and they worked their butts off on this project, staying late without overtime pay and working through lunch for weeks at a time. Is termination how you reward such dedication?

I just don’t understand it, and one of the ladies didn’t either because she put in a half of day’s work and left probably never to return again. The other lady, who took so much care in training me, is going to stick it out and work that ridiculous two months of shame. I'm amazed by her strength and composure. There’s no way that I could work through such conditions. My supervisors pretend that all is normal and that it’s okay to let so much tension circulate so freely in the workplace, but I’m so angry with them that I can scream. How dare they fire the hardest working women that they had working for them! How dare they put me in the middle of an impossible situation! How dare they offer me a permanent position?

It’s not official, but they want me come in to interview for a permanent research position. This is not one of those temporary four month studies, but I long term project with a salary and benefits. It’s like a real grown up job and I might have to give it some serious consideration, but I’m so disheartened by this whole experience. I’m caught in the middle of a war that I do not understand, but from my vintage point I can only see innocent blood being spilt.