In the summer of 2006, I went to my boss, TIME managing editor Rick Stengel, with a pitch. "I want to cover the workplace," I said. "I want to write about cubicle psychology and office etiquette and working parenthood. And I want to write about it in a blog."

Blogs were brand new in the olden days of 2006 at Time magazine. A handful of us—the TV guy and the art guy and a gaggle of Washington hands—wanted to try our hand at posting daily notes on our beats. We didn't ask for extra money or fewer assignments from the magazine—just the privilege of covering our beats on our very own Time.com real estate. There was much talk of branding and new journalism. The boss was game.

And so began Work in Progress, a blog about life at work and the work of life. I wrote about treadmill desks (which my friend Belinda Luscombe recently covered in the mag) and things I don't love about working from home (dog farts). Sometimes, my posts led to stories in the mag, such as this one about video resumés and this one about working with jerks (somehow I got away with using a different word in print). Other times, my posts got other blogs all hepped up, such as this one about how my company made me look at porn, or this one about how I don't really hate my dog. (Tragedy: your loads of comments were wiped out when we switched platforms recently.)

As time went on, WiP became the best thing about my job. Truly. Know why? Because, to me, a blog is like a conversation. Where Swampland is a virtual mosh pit, WiP was an office kaffeeklatch about nothing and everything. Like most print journalists old enough to remember a day without Internet, this blog was my first experience talking directly to readers—asking what you thought, getting to know your stories, snorting with laughter at your comments. The WiP community was never huge but always loyal and smart, and hanging with you guys was like living "The Office" without the commute to Scranton.

And I can never go back. Journalism will never be a one-way street to me again. So as I embark on uncharted roads toward a new career doing Lord knows what, I hope you'll accept my continued friendship. If you e-mail me at lisa.cullen@gmail.com, I'll put you on my mailing list and let you know when my web site, www.lisacullen.com, goes live.

Thanks for being my favorite colleague. We'll meet again.

1. Morning meeting smackdowns, nerd style. ("In my admittedly jaundiced opinion..." "It's hard to fathom..." "Of course, you're familiar with the Cartesian argument...")

2. Plastic cups of red table wine at closing night dinner.

3. Two-month deadlines.

4. Time Inc. office gossip. Juicy, juicy stuff.

5. My corporate Amex. Oh, how I'll miss you, little green plastic friend.

6. Hanging with visiting foreign correspondents (yo, Simons, Hannah, Aryn).

7. Throngs of upward-facing tourists outside (specifically, body-slamming said tourists).

8. Pours.

9. Mentoring.

10. Free People magazine. Good-bye, Britney. Good-bye, fat Oprah. Fridays are a little dimmer now.

These last couple of weeks were pretty intense. Ever since my managing editor at TIME announced an open invitation for buyout volunteers, I've been a whirling dervish of pre-unemployment. What do I mean by that? I mean that no one in the history of buyouts has more thoroughly considered and weighed and analyzed and lost sleep over her decision.

You may be in a similar predicament. Not that I want anyone to agonize as I did — I don't actually think anyone is capable — but having arrived at my current Zen state, I thought you might want to know how I got from there to here. Here's what I did.

1. I collected information. As soon as the meeting ended, I called HR and asked what my package would look like. In retrospect, I should have read the union document that gave me the same information rather than tipped my hand to HR. Had I decided to stay, I would have erred by giving management the impression I was weighing an exit.
2. I did the math. Our union had negotiated severance of two weeks for every year worked. For me, that worked out to about six months of pay and health insurance. Not enough to throw away a good job.
3. I made phone calls. Lots of them. To mentors, colleagues, former colleagues, friends. I learned something from each call: a friend coached me on negotiating tactics. One mentor warned me of the depression that follows the elation of leaving a longtime job. Another told me about possible legal moves. About half the people I called said I should make the leap; the other half urged me to stay.
4. I negotiated. Though one colleague had suggested I do so through HR, I instead set up a meeting with my boss. Which got canceled. Then another, which got postponed. I kept pestering his assistant until he finally made the time. I was frank: though I still loved the institution and still felt excited about my job, I understood the realities and would entertain a package — if it suited my needs. I asked for the moon, and got a crescent. But it was better than the original offer, which made me feel like an old Japanese lady haggling successfully for a 10-yen discount at the fish market: victorious.

Throughout this process, I talked (and talked, and talked) to my husband. If you don't have one of these, I strongly suggest you get one before making a major life decision like quitting your job. Or at least a cardboard cutout of a sympathetic face with a giant ear.

The newsroom is not a pretty place — and by newsroom, I mean the imaginary one we work in at TIME, which is actually a collection of flourescent-lit offices with about as much Hollywood panache as, well, a collection of flourescent-lit offices. We reporters are not a queasy people — and by reporters I mean the staff writers and editors and researchers who put out our magazine.

But the day after a mass layoff, we are all a little traumatized at the sight of all the blood on the newsroom floor.

The names are still emerging and have yet to hit the outside press (as of 2:46 p.m. on Dec. 5, anyway, I saw nothing on Gawker or Romenesko). There seems to be some question about whether all the people on the list even know they've been booted. My colleagues report a feeling of doom and dread among the laid off and the left behind.

That contrasts with the collective mood among those of us who've volunteered to go. We're exchanging congratulatory e-mails and phone calls, many beginning with: "Whoo hoo!" I'm not saying we're glad to leave an institution we love. It's more complicated: we're glad to be free of the tension and fear that accompany beheadings, and we're excited at the prospect of new opportunities.

Speaking for myself, my elation is coupled with worry, of course; how can we not react to news of 533,000 jobs lost in November, or when economists call the job market "almost indescribably terrible"? But there's plenty of time for the reality of unemployment to sink in. Let me enjoy the sweet taste of freedom. It tastes like wine. Is there wine?

From the tone and subject of my posts over the past couple of weeks, you may have guessed this was coming. Yep: I'm sacking myself.

What kind of brainless ninny would volunteer for unemployment in an economy so crappy we've run out of hyperbolic adjectives? If my mother were alive, she'd ask the same thing. Or, rather, she'd ask, "Daijobu?" — "are you okay?" — in a voice that indicated she didn't think I was at all.

Believe me, I've questioned my own sanity. Following are just a few reasons why leaving a good job in this economy is totally mental:

1. There are no other jobs. Period.
2. Health insurance is still not universal.
3. Pampers still cost money.
4. It's illegal to force a four-year-old to get a job.
5. Daytime TV isn't really that good.

Like any TIME writer worth her salt, my next paragraph will begin with "On the other hand..."

1. I've had a great run — 12 years — and it just feels like time to go.
2. The buyout package will keep my family insured and my baby in fresh diapers. For a while.
3. I've survived five layoffs already, and I don't want to white-knuckle it through one more.
4. My industry is undergoing seismic changes, and my strong feeling is that sooner or later, we'll all be free agents.
5. The cafeteria isn't really that good.

Over the coming days I'll analyze what my new work status will mean in this economy, and I don't doubt there'll be times when I'll feel nauseous with anxiety at my decision. I'll ruminate over the many, many things I'll miss about my company, my brand and — okay — the cafeteria.

But right now, I feel pretty good.

A few reports from the front lines of the battle for journalism's future (yes, it's a hardship post, deserving of three weeks' R&R in Phuket):

No journalist who works on staff anywhere is safe—including those at successful dot-coms. The kids over at Gawker who usually report on media layoffs are wincing from their own. That said, the most popular news sites are still hiring. Arianna Huffington has raised not $15 million, as previously reported, but $25 million for her white-hot Huffington Post. Dead-tree journalists are finding a home on Tina Brown's Daily Beast. Writes John Koblin of the New York Observer:

These days, Ms. Brown's aggregator site creates as many as 10 original stories a day, and the Beast's roster of writers reads a bit like a list of the recently laid off. She's like Schindler, in a skirt-suit.

But Tina Brown can't save everyone from the camps. So what about the hordes of journalists exiting the profession? What will we turn to: underwater basket-weaving? Plumbing? Something involving...gasp...math?

American University journalism professor  Dave Johnson has an idea: video gaming. Reports FishbowlNY, Johnson thinks the skills of journalists could be used to

build a working "SimCity" model of Washington, DC, visualizing the federal buildings and placing avatars of elected and appointed officials in and around them...Beyond the platform interface, the goal is to attach vast databases of public information...Strong journalism — print, broadcast and new media – that relates these communities to Washington will be easy to find and new audiences will appreciate the relevance to their communities. Newspapers spend millions on NIE programs, but why not put the content in front of young users in the game space, using visualizations that help tell the story and engage the user on a deeper level?

Why not, indeed.

You've doubtless heard all the buzz about the January Vanity Fair cover flaunting Tina Fey, as photographed by Annie Liebowitz and profiled by Maureen Dowd. (Talk about a PR juggernaut over there at Condé...and how come Tina hasn't graced the cover of TIME yet, I ask you? The Sarah Palin cover doesn't count.)

One nugget the publicists have leaked is Fey's discussion of the scar on her left cheek. I noticed the scar when she first began appearing on SNL's Weekend Update, but promptly forgot about it. I barely see it on 30 Rock's Liz Lemon. But in her increasingly frequent magazine spreads, I've noted that her scar is often airbrushed out. Fey herself seems to care far more about another body part:

“The most I've changed pictures out of vanity was to edit around any shot where you can see my butt,” she says. “I like to look goofy, but I also don't want to get canceled because of my big old butt.”

Also, her feet:

“I don't like my feet,” she says. “I'm not crazy about anybody's feet. But I have flat feet.”

Because I never read any comment by Fey about it, I presumed the scar was off limits. Now that she's addressed it in the VF interview, I found myself wondering: seriously? Who cares? And then I wondered: do physical quirks—scars, bowed legs, a missing ear—affect a career? What do you think?

Sometimes, when I tell young people where I work, I add a little explainer. "TIME. It's a magazine. Sold on newsstands. It's got a red border. No, not the Times. No, not Newsweek, you little cretin. TIME."

Turns out I was wasting my breath. A new survey by Anderson Analytics finds that TIME is among the best known and liked brands among college kids. I'm serious. Even Ad Age, reporting the survey, was rubbing its eyes:

While in some cases the results were predictable, there were a few surprises. Time magazine, for instance, ranked as the No. 1 magazine, unseating perennial favorite Cosmo and jumping ahead of last year's No. 2, People.

The results are all the more interesting when read alongside another Ad Age article by Simon Dumenco titled, "Hey, Magazines, Are You In or Are You Out?" He writes:

I've got a few questions for American magazine publishers: Are you in or are you out? Do you still believe in the very act, the very business, of publishing? And do you still believe in presenting carefully selected words and pictures -- expertly produced information -- for a targeted audience?

Dumenco takes my employer, Time Inc., to task for shuttering some very successful brands, including Cottage Living and Teen People. He continues:

Retrenching during an economic contraction is one thing. But starving and killing off your brands one by one -- and refusing to invest adequately in the transition from print to web -- suggests that you're simply abdicating. You've lost faith in what you do. You've lost faith in publishing.

I think what happens in times of economic crisis is that employers panic and jettison every fixed-cost item they can lay their hands on, including and especially employees. One sure way to squeeze costs is to lop off a division altogether. Those of us who work for the marquee divisions once thought we were immune. But that's all changed now.

We do still believe—passionately, even desperately—in presenting expertly produced information for a smart, curious audience. The mode of delivery must and will change. But here's to hoping our commitment doesn't.

Today is a big shopping day for office workers as we put our deadlines aside, crack our knuckles and start clicking on online holiday sales. Reports CNN.com,

"Cyber Monday," the first weekday after Thanksgiving, usually sees the first spike in online spending habits for the holiday season. That's in part because people are shopping from work, after being off for the Thanksgiving holiday - comScore said purchases from work account for approximately half of all online spending.

Comscore predicts sales for November and December will hit about $29.2 billion, which is unchanged from last year. PCWorld says 84% of online retailers offer some sort of Cyber Monday promotion (PCWorld also lists 20 of the hottest deals in electronics...$500 laptops? Hot mama).

Almost a third of workers shop while at work, says Careerbuilder.com, but beware: about half of employers monitor workers' online whereabouts.

How guilty do you feel about doing your holiday shopping on company time? More importantly: whatcha snag? A $12 Hannah Montana briefcase? Mink ear muffs for $40? A body-part enhancer for $199?

Editor & Publisher reports:

When a newspaper cuts its staff, those who remain in the depleted newsroom become valuable. But as The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. slowly says farewell to 151 newsroom folks who took buyouts last month, at least two longtime journalists have been reassigned to the mailroom.

That's right. The reporters were considered so valuable they were kept on to sort and deliver their colleagues' mail. What does that journalism degree earn you if not the right to hand out press releases and ask for a signature on a package?

As layoffs decimate my industry, I feel like every conversation I have with friends in the biz is about what they'll do next — and I'll tell you, it ain't journalism. It ain't sorting mail, either, though. Which makes me wonder about what motivates people to take such a dramatic demotion. Not that there's anything wrong with postal delivery; it's an honorable, honest job. But it's not what those two reporters trained for or worked so hard to attain. And let's face it: in the corporate world, the mail room is an entry point, not a destination.

How low on the totem pole would you go to hang on to your employment?