Another one bites the dust!

When I closed my company in September 09 I felt many things;

1. Sad that I hadn't reached my full dream.
2. Happy that I had at least tried.
3. A sense of accomplishment at how far I had gotten, even if it wasn't as far as I wanted.
4. Failure that I haven't made, what I believed, was a true success.

And sure I went through many emotions too; I cried, I laughed, I felt relived, almost all at the same time. And like they say, hindsight is a great thing; while I was truly glad I set up the company [and despite the thousands I lost closing it], I am truly glad it is no more too.

While I heard different in the news, from friends and on the grape vine, in my tiny little world I sometimes felt like I was the only one who had had to make the difficult decision to 'shut up shop'. I know, egotistical and self centered of me. And I suppose how I relate to it next is still a little self centered; today my husband lost his job, or perhaps I should say is loosing his job, as he is yet to find out when his job will be lost.

For the past 3 years my husband has worked for the well known high street bank,Halifax. At 3pm today all staff were told that by June 1st Halifax would no longer operate in Ireland. In one simple sentence over 700 people lost their jobs.

I know, I know, they are not the first and no doubt they wont be the last. But I suppose, I know these people, well clearly not all 700 or so of them, but I know some. I've been to their weddings, I've chosen little booties for their babies, I've envied their big expansive newly built houses and I've ate and drank with them. And today? Today I listened to their tears as my husband told me by phone that shortly he wouldn't have a job.

It made me reflect on the difficult decision I made back 5 months ago. How I tortured myself on what to do. Should I 'shut up shop' or keep going... Now I had nothing like the 700 employees Halifax have and for me the decision was tinged with emotion as well as business sense which made me wonder, as I listened to those background tears, did the 'big wigs' in Halifax show or contemplate any emotion when they considered 'shutting up shop' and making 700 people unemployed?Not that it will mean much to them [the recently redundant], but I hope they did because it seems like all human emotion has been removed from these business decisions, and who are at the heart of all business? - humans.