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Today was kind of emotionally exhausting, but productive.

(No advice, please.)

Background: Although Google laid me off back in January, I’m still officially an employee until March 31—just an employee who has no responsibilities and no access to anything. (US law requires them to give two months’ notice for this kind of thing, but doesn’t require them to let the notified workers do any work during that time.)

So before the end of this month, I need to return my work computer. And I’ll be out of town for much of the time between now and then, so I need to return it before I leave. And there were a couple of things I wanted to do on the work computer before I return it.

Last Friday, I found out that I was supposed to ask them to mail me a box to return the computer in. But it would be easier for me to return it in person (I live very near the main campus), so I asked if I could do that. I also asked whether my monitor belongs to me or them—it has no ID label on it, but I couldn’t remember whether I bought it or just brought it from work to use at home back in 2020 or so. (I know what the company wants us to do with monitors that are theirs, I just didn’t know whether this one is theirs or mine.)

It took them a while to answer, and when they did, their answers to both questions were confusing. But after some further back-and-forth, they sent me a box to return the computer in (which I took as an implicit statement that I can’t return it in person, though it would’ve been nice if they had explicitly said that). And the box arrived this morning.

So I finally did the last things that I wanted to do on my work computer—none of them were strictly necessary, but (for example) I figured I might as well delete the few remaining documents that were on it before I returned it. And one of the other tasks took a fair bit of time and emotional energy, and some coordination with a friend who still works there. (Long story, not gonna go into it here, but don’t worry, it was a good thing to do, it just took some work.)

Meanwhile, I had trouble signing in to the temporary account that the company set up for laid-off people, so I had to call tech support, and that also took some time and energy. (Though it did lead to an unambiguous answer that my monitor isn’t the company’s, so that’s nice.)

I gradually and eventually got everything resolved, and packed up the computer, and arranged to have it picked up despite FedEx’s automated phone system being apparently unable to recognize my saying the word “yes” in response to a prompt.

Then I contacted the opthalmologist who I was supposed to have an appointment with on Wednesday. (They had canceled due to losing power at the office. They’d said they would call me back to reschedule, but they hadn’t yet done so.) I rescheduled my appointment, and talked with an assistant who patiently answered several basic questions about these particular glaucoma eyedrops, which had been prescribed for me but nobody had given me any info about how to use them or even what the dosage was (and I’ve never used eyedrops before). Turns out the whole process is more flexible than I had thought, in several ways—for example, even though this particular medication is supposed to be refrigerated until you open it, the assistant said that it’s not a big deal and it works fine even if it’s not refrigerated.

Then I found out that Google has provided me with an advance copy of the severance agreement that they’re gonna ask me to sign in a couple weeks. So I read through that, and even though there are things I don’t like about it, on the whole it’s much less restrictive than I had expected it to be. And it somewhat clarified my post-layoff medical-insurance situation, which had been very unclear to me for reasons that are specific to my particular situation. (Yep, I know about COBRA.) So that was a little stressful to read, and took a while to get through, but in the end reasonably pleasing, and it means I don’t have to fret about what the agreement will contain for the next couple weeks. (I’m sure that for some people, some aspects of the agreement will not be pleasing at all. But in my particular situation, it’s okay.)

Anyway. Point being that although I still have several important and time-sensitive and tense-making things on my to-do list, I got through a few of them today, and got multiple bits of information and resolution that will reduce my tension levels over the next couple weeks, which is really nice.