Good news and bad news

Sitting outside with a cup of coffee in the
morning was something I really enjoyed
last summer with Della's puppies.

The good news is that Luna now loves me, rolls over and gives me her belly, and she lets me handle her puppies. Once she decided to trust me, she seems ready to trust me completely.

The other good news is that, for now at least, I have plenty of time to spend working with the puppies, and the other older pups too.

The bad news is that I have all this time because I lost my job today.

Luna has decided to trust me.

The corporate powers that be have been investing big bucks in a Chinese-developed artificial intelligence program that they hope will replace my job function, at least in part. Having sunk a lot of money into it, and in spite of it resulting in zero reduction of human effort at this point, they have made the decision to begin to recoup that investment by reducing the number of American humans employed. The other big investment the company has made is hiring and attempting to train recent Filipino law graduates to do what we do. Again, this has had very little impact on the actual work process, but they work for breadcrumbs and that's all that matters.

So, at almost 62 years of age and after over 20 years with that fucking company, I'm unemployed (as of July 6th), and yes, I'm angry and bitter. I can't retire yet and I'm looking for a new career at what should be near the end of my working life.

Proud momma with her three pups. Three is much more
manageable number for her and for us, than was 12.

There's no connection with the Covid-19 virus here. I almost wish there was, because then there would be some hope that when the virus went away and the job may come back. But no, they have chosen to move forward with this plan and fire myself and about a quarter of our team in the middle of a dead economy.

Now, I don't want anyone to start a GoFundMe. I have some severance pay coming, Clay is still employed, we have some savings, and we aren't in any danger. We are far more fortunate than many people who lose their jobs to offshoring, or more recently, due to the virus. It is, however, the end of life as we know it. It's very unlikely that I'll find another home-based job with the kind of flexibility I've had that allows me to drop everything and go pick up a dog on a moment's notice, get a dog to and from a vet, or make road trips to meet potential adopters. I know that employed people do foster dogs too, but very few foster the numbers that we have been able to take on all at once, especially on top of the number of our own dogs. That will likely end and I will miss it. It's far more important to me than any job, but as we all know, it doesn't pay well at all.

For now, for this summer, I can help Luna raise her pups and get them adopted, along with the Troopers and Bruno and Luna herself. It was about this time last year that Clay lost his job, just before Della blessed us with the 12-pack. That was really a blessing because we needed him here full time for the first several weeks.

Perhaps the key to employment stability is to not take in dogs with litters of puppies. It seems that whenever we have puppies, one of us loses a job.

I didn't push my luck at first, but now it seems
that I have puppy privileges too.

I was concerned that she wasn't nursing them
enough so today I introduced something new.

They weren't sure what to do with it, but they
seemed to like the taste.

I remember it took Della's pups a little while
to learn to drink, but they learned fast.

Of course, after introducing the milk replacement,
later in the morning I saw her laid out nicely
giving them full access to the good stuff.

Her milk is best, but I will continue to try to supplement it
with some of the milk replacement. The puppies have their
eyes open now and are beginning to move around more.

Luna liked me sitting next to her and petting
her head while she fed the pups.

She stays with them a lot, and she is cleaning
up after them too.

They look like little bear cubs now.