3 weeks ago I got a call from the CIO at work, asking if I could come to his office for a quick meeting,  When I got there and saw him and a Director from HR I knew this wasn’t going to make me happy.  Turns out, I was right.  The company was making some cuts to deal with decreased sales and profits and my position was no longer necessary.  In truth, my position is still in place there, but someone else is doing the work.  The CIO hung on to his core group of people and I was the odd man out.  I can’t say that I would have done something different if I had been in his shoes, but it was still tough to look at the teams I built being handed over to someone else when it was really that guy’s job that wasn’t necessary any longer. Ok, so that’s a few weeks in the past.  Of course, one of my great disappointments is that this didn’t happen in April or May.  If I’m not going to work every day, at least I could be getting in a little extra riding.  But, there is a lot of snow on the ground and the temperature hasn’t been above freezing for some time. I’m working my network of business contacts to find something new, but it’s not the best  time to be out of work in this country.  Meanwhile, I’ll be off to the gym and maybe I’ll tackle a few special projects.