The Demolition of the Bowling Alley

It was a big week in the Himmelreich-Truman household. And in the city of Callie, Arapaho.

1. After exactly three years of service, my wife gave her ninety-day notice to Baxter Hospital.
2. The following day, she received a Letter of Intent for a new position elsewhere.
3. The hospital seems to be in a position where it feels like being Bregna material (explanation below) is about as important as the job you do. A recent pair of terminations reinforced this point.
4. We turned over the keys to our old house.
5. Callie’s bowling alley was torn down.

Clancy’s imminent departure has been known for some time now. She gave them a year’s notice because she wanted to give them every opportunity to recruit someone and not be short-handed. It turned out not to make much of a difference. The ultimate reason for her leaving is that the position ceased to be a good fit for her. The job description changed over time, as did her priorities. They technically found a replacement for her, but are still going to be short two FP-OB’s. As it stands, they’re interviewing people who wouldn’t be able to start until 2015. She wants to change her career trajectory. Baxter is unwilling to accommodate that.

The position is out east. Details on that to follow. We’ve been burned before, so we’re not counting on it materializing since it depends on things like state and federal funding that is always a precarious wager. It’s a one-year training job. It pays a little over a third of what she gets now. Money is going to be tight since, unlike her residency and previous fellowship, it’s unlikely that I will be able to work. We want the baby to have a parent at home. That’s the bad news. The good news is a fresh start with an employer that looks at the wide variety of skills she brings to the table – as well as the desire to gain more skills – as an asset rather than merely something to be grudgingly accommodated.

If there was any doubt to the extent to which we would never feel welcome here, it ended right after her resignation when her best friend at the hospital was let go. First, a bit about Bregna. Bregna is actually a former employer of mine. They are infamous in the Colosse area for being the employer that cycles through IT people at a very quick clip. The average employee lasts less than four months. On employee satisfaction surveys, they are one of the five worst employers in the entire nation. Which sounds crazy. Crazy like a fox, I’ve determined. You see, Bregna was ever in search for a very particular kind of employee. And I’ve become convinced that the bullcrud they put you through was essentially a test to see whether or not you were Bregna material. Are you the kind of guy that doesn’t mind your restroom breaks being monitored for duration and frequency? Are you the kind of guy who wants every room, hallway, and restroom you enter logged into a system so they can give you advice on how to be more efficient? Do you think it signals your company cares when they tell you that you need to get a new roommate because your current roommate left the company? If so, then you are who Bregna wants. When I left, and they told me that they were sorry to see me go, I didn’t know whether to be proud of the deception or horrified that I could pose as an android so successfully.

No matter what her skills, Clancy was not Bregna material. Or Baxter material, in this case. They didn’t monitor restroom breaks, but they were looking for a very particular kind of individual. Clancy wasn’t it. And while they tolerated her because they desperately need someone to do what she does, it’s not sustainable to be tolerated. Nobody was fooled. They wanted somebody else and she wanted to be somewhere else. As convenient as it’s all been, it simply couldn’t go on forever. The axe falling on those around her only reinforced the point.

Which brings us to Callie and our failed experiment here. I came to Callie with as open mind as I could muster. I wasn’t sure about how well I would do in a town of this size, as far away from towns of notably larger size. But I was willing to try. I was going to join a bowling league. I like to bowl. It would be a good way to meet people. A starting point to insert myself into the local social community. The folks here seemed nice. They are nice. They like to hunt and fish. I don’t, really.

I do like to bowl. The bowling alley closed in between the interview and our arrival. It was always supposed to reopen, but each planned purchase fell through. And the building stood there, reminding me of what was supposed to be here that wasn’t. A home, if not a permanent one then one I could call my home for a while. The building stood vacant and the town never felt like home. Ever the hope that someone might move in. It never happened. And this week, they tore it down. The illusion was demolished.

And we left the house for another. We loved that house. We did. But even with that wonderful house, things went wrong somehow. Our relationship with the landlords deteriorated. I somehow found myself having to clean the door of a garage that they planned to tear down. A pipe leaked and I found myself cleaning the dirtiest water I’ve ever seen off a basement floor that was always half-finished. The landlords were upset that I hadn’t dismantled the stove and cleaned the parts.

It’s all quite unfortunate. The place where my daughter was born will always be a mostly bad memory. The hospital she was born at will be a place her mother was miserable. We have our baby girl, we have our wonderful dog, and everything important to us is leaving town with us.

I sincerely hope that, going forward, I will be a more pleasant person. Not to mention a happier one. These past three years have taken their toll on me.