A Few Devil's Night Thoughts

So one of Detroit's fine traditions besides crooked, foul-mouthed mayors and poor sanitation, is Devil's Night. The night before Halloween people go out and set fire to abandoned (and sometimes not abandoned) houses and buildings. It's this quaint tradition that makes people of Detroit as "the city that's always on fire."

At my job, my students are in the business of learning to build houses and, right now, we own two different houses - one complete but unsold and another that's about midway through construction. Having had one of our houses on the same street firebombed a few years ago, we're obviously concerned about our property.

Rather than pay someone to watch it or asking for a select few students and staff to monitor our interests, the powers-that-be decreed that everyone - all students, all staff - had to participate in a mandatory lock-in. We are to stay all night in our main building and rotate in shifts out to our properties a few miles away.

So rather than carving pumpkins tonight or staying with my kids while Suzanne goes visiting teaching, I am here at work. It's 11:30 at night as I write this. I've already watched a movie for school (Preminger's Laura with Gene Tierney), whipped some students at Scrabble ("hex" while landing on a triple word score tile), and eaten lots of hot dogs. Soon, I will find a secluded corner, lay out my egg-carton pad and sleeping bag, and try to ignore the students hooting and hollering all night.

Do I need to be here? No.
Am I doing any real good here? No.
Do I have a choice? No.

I haven't mentioned it here on the blog because it's become too stupid and sad and comical to even repeat but we lost two more employees this week. One, Sabrina, got a job with the state as some kind of case worker and today was her last day. The other, Duane, despite having been here for five years and being the only person who knows how to file all the reports and statistics that keep us funded, got fired. Why, after five years of loyal service, did he get fired? Did he steal? No. Did he show up to work drunk? No. Nope. He complained about having to participate in the lock-in and when Bev, our boss, called him a wimp and a whiner, he lost his temper. He yelled a little bit because he was really offended. (Duane is gay and so the term "wimp" is a little more touchy for him than it might be for someone else.) Within 24 hours, he had his termination letter in hand and that was that. Five years of service and crucial knowledge down the toilet because Bev couldn't handle being called on her rude, unprofessional, and insensitive behavior. Awesome.

On another subject, as those of you who are regular readers of Suzanne's blog already know, she was laid off yesterday. Compuware's stock is plummeting faster than the employee count here at YDB and so their solution was to lay off about 10% of their workforce. Suzanne didn't have seniority and so off she went. It kinda sucks. She feels good about her time there and understands that her leaving has nothing to do with performance but still, nobody likes to be let go.

Anyway, I have a on-campus interview at a community college in Illinois next week and we're really, really hoping it works out. If it doesn't, it doesn't. We're in a peaceful, accepting mode right now but it would be really nice if I got the job. If you're the praying sort, throw a few our way so we can get out of the burning city.