Working hard is hardly working

The future of my job is tenuous at best. I can't return to my office because of building damage - they have shut everything down until January. They are graciously paying us full-timers our salaries, but are laying off administrative and part-time staff in the meantime...and I can only wonder when my time is up.

I hate this. This waiting. But I love my job - it was a big part of why I love New Orleans. The people I work with are fun, goofy, diverse, and real. We were all friends at work and after work, and we shared birthday parties and drinks. And now everything's in question. We're all trying to be patient, and be helpful - we're desperately doing things to be visible to upper management. Things to make us look indispensable, so they won't lay us off.

In the meantime, until the office re-opens, I am hoping to go to Atlanta and help out with Red Cross efforts there. I hear they need people to help with logistics in food supply/delivery/distribution. I have been offered a great volunteer gig, and I really want to do it. I can't stand feeling helpless and the restless cabin fever has really done a number on my sanity.

But I've been told by my boss - who I love - that if I go, I'll probably lose my job. But even if I don't go, there's no guarantee that I'll keep my job, he says.

I've been at my job for over 7 years, and it kind of pisses me off that I'm being evaluated on whether or not I can sit around and wait for a work assignment when the office is closed ANYway. I would much rather go and volunteer in Atlanta...I can stay with friends there, and I am willing to not draw a salary from my company when I'm gone. Why, then, when they know this, are they still threatening to lay me off if I go and volunteer? Why lay off one of the few people who has been busting her ass in the post-Katrina aftermath, who is willing to not be paid until the office re-opens? How does my situation create greater burdens for my employer, so that I should be laid off?

The climate of fear among my co-workers is thick. We feel so in the dark and hate knowing that the future of our jobs is being discussed by the clueless bigwigs up in New Jersey (corporate headquarters). We're pissed off, scared, and just want things to be normal. Please.