I'm in a Marian McPartland kind of mood this morning. Quiet, tension free. All keys being played slowly, melodiously.

I've just dried up from my morning shower, scanned my calendar for today's meetings and glancing over the headlines. Still more of the same: Citigroup's laying off an additional 53k folks, and I'm sure those people are not all top managers taking home huge bonuses for jobs well done-poorly.

Over at my company they've cleared all the layoffs for this year. It begins all over again next year, which is only two months away. Funny how they didn't say "In less than sixty days we begin anew." So, God's protected me again and I'm still standing.

Everything is so tense at work. Employees leaving for stress days or those too stressed to leave for fear they'll be considered liabilities and unable to hold up under stress. For my folks who've come to me I've just given the same message: these are changing times for companies everywhere, you have to make sure there's nothing wanting in your performance. If something comes up, you'll be the second to know."

It's a sobering experience to constantly be in this environment of stress and I have to remind myself how lucky I am that if and when I'm laid off I have a back up plan and the layoff will affect just me. I don't have dependent children to worry about, no mortgage or rent and my old jalopy will be paid off in February. So when my people come to me with their worries and frustrations, I worry about them too.

There are two women in my area who have had to change to full time schedules because their husbands were laid off and their homes in foreclosure. On top of all that, one of the ladies is pregnant so we don't know what her stress level will be from one hour to the next. We're trying to buffer her from customers as much as we can, but then she feels we'll consider her the weakest link and not tell us when she's feeling overwhelmed until she's a basket case in front of her peers, causing more stress to her surrounding co-workers.

And when I'm not calming my folks, I'm having to talk my peers off the ledge which is why I'm glad that I have good friends in my life to listen to my fears and frustrations and feed me too (shout out to BFF Pete!).

So, before I go into that craziness this Monday morning, I felt like hearing Marian. Slow and easy. Melodious and light. Tension free. Here's hoping your Monday and week is like this:-)