On top of that, I got a second date with Girl #3 this weekend which I'm very excited about. Sure just a few months ago I said I'd never do long distance again, but an hour is right on the edge of long distance, so it's not. Also, that was before the drunk too, who if nothing else reminded me maybe a little travel might be worth it. So this weekend we're going to a 24 Hour bad SciFi movie marathon. So she's pretty cool.
Speaking of the drunk, I've made arrangements to pick up the last of my stuff off her front porch after work. No interaction, no talking, nothing.
Speaking of the drunk, I've made arrangements to pick up the last of my stuff off her front porch after work. No interaction, no talking, nothing.
With that said when I went into work that Wednesday morning, I was feeling pretty damn good, that chapter is over in my life and I'm looking forward to the future. Work's not satisfying, but I think I've carved my own place there. I'm being cross trained on something new every week so they seem to think I have a place there too. And as of tomorrow, I've been at this job six months. That's the longest I've had a job in four years. So I thought nothing of it when my boss called me into his office, at least until I saw the HR rep sitting there.
I tried to come up with any other reason for this meeting in his office clinging onto hope as he started in on his predetermined speech.
"You've missed a lot of work."
"I've never called in sick. I had to go to court and I missed another day for a funeral, I gave you as much notice as I could, in some cases more than a month notice. I always had documentation."
"Still that's not all. You just don't seem to be as invested in this job as everyone else."
What does that even mean? Have been I as invested as I could have been? No way. Between the depression, divorce, death and drunk the past six months have kept me rather preoccupied. I know that, but I've always done my best to do my best printing best church sheet music. Even though I'm Jewish and have no real emotional investment in songs about Jesus. Wait ... is that what he means? Did I let it slip that I'm Jewish? Is that what this is about? I guess if I didn't let it slip, it could be what he means about not as invested anyway.
He prattles on about this and that and company philosophy. I know I'm not the model employee, but I've done nothing wrong enough to be terminated. I stare at the floor for a moment, then without lifting my head I glare at him. It seems obvious this child of a boss has never fired anyone before. And I'm sure my unwavering eye contact isn't helping him any. He turns it over to the HR person as quickly as he could then. She explains all the legal crap with insurance and other nonsense. I don't know how they expect anyone to retain that information seconds after being fired. I'm then escorted to my work station to gather my belongings. I have one steel water bottle and a phone charger. The HR person asks if I need to get anything from the locker room. I didn't even know there was a locker room. I walk out empty handed, never invested enough to bring anything of value to work and leave it there.
I go home. This feeling of complete hopelessness I've grown too accustomed too returns. This crappy day ends with a drunken profanity ridden text for forgetting to pick up my stuff after work as I promised the drunk.
The next day I ponder the upcoming weekend. I briefly toy with the idea of pretending everything was okay to just plow forward with the date. But morals interfer. Then I text Girl #3.
The next day I ponder the upcoming weekend. I briefly toy with the idea of pretending everything was okay to just plow forward with the date. But morals interfer. Then I text Girl #3.
"What's up?"
"Just got off work, about to go get our tickets for this weekend"
"Don't!"
I realize as soon as I hit send how terrible that sounded so I pick up the phone and call her. I explain everything. I tell her as much as I want to go see her this weekend, with no income, I'd be too stressed about the money situation to enjoy her company I should. She offers to come to me for the weekend instead. I accept.
Come Monday morning I'm feeling kind of okay about not having a job because of a pretty good weekend. I start doing all the things I need to do for my unemployment. I file for unemployment. I file for food stamps. I start applying for jobs. This time I do something a little different. I look for jobs in Capital City where this girl lives. Don't read too much into that. I've already moved all over this state the past few years, and Capital City isn't that far away and I don't know why I haven't been looking there before. Plus my other sister lives there. So if I wound up there, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Over the next two months I'd get a few interviews up that way, and I'd see her each time. But eventually I just couldn't maintain a relationship, even as just friends. I had nothing to talk about positive and doing the whole "my life sucks" thing just doesn't make the best first impression as friends and absolutely not romantically, It got longer and longer between visits, and longer and longer between conversations until there were just neither. Given the choice between doing the poor me routine, and letting the fruit wilt on the vine. I let it wilt.
Yet my life just kept getting worse. There was a miscommunication about my food stamp debt card and it took almost two months for me to see any of that aid. My unemployment claim was denied because I was fired, which it took them a month to let me know and another month for the appeal process to kick in. I sold blood every chance I got. But money got so tight for a while I felt so guilty for "wasting" money every time I ate, I only tried to only eat on days before I sold blood. At one point I went three days and only ate mulberries off the tree in the side yard. I felt life slipping away from me. I was afraid to leave the house, I had no money for gas. I was afraid to have friendships. Even I didn't believe life had been this unkind to me anymore. I must be asking for it somehow.
As if rub it in my face, when I'm already laying facedown in the dirt. In the span of two weeks, two girls I used to date, the Librarian and the Girl with the Amazing Smile both get married and in between those two weddings, my almost ExWife give birth. Normally I wouldn't have cared about these event, but I just felt so alone, it felt like a gigantic cinder block dropped on my head.
As if rub it in my face, when I'm already laying facedown in the dirt. In the span of two weeks, two girls I used to date, the Librarian and the Girl with the Amazing Smile both get married and in between those two weddings, my almost ExWife give birth. Normally I wouldn't have cared about these event, but I just felt so alone, it felt like a gigantic cinder block dropped on my head.
My situation feels hopeless. I apply to anything and everything I can.I apply all around the state in my field. I apply for anything I can local. Most retail places want me to work weekends and I can't that with my kids every other weekend. I finally put in with a temp agency that finds an assignment for me. It's a forty five minute drive in the wrong direction, it's second shift, it's only $10 an hour and it's the only choice I have. I go in for a paid three hour orientation. It's another three weeks before they actually start me though.
So I keep job hunting in case something better comes along in the mean time. It doesn't of course. But during my wait I finally get my official divorce papers. I get my kids every other weekend, which is what I was fighting for mainly, and she has to meet halfway. But pretty much everything else was against me. It's full of just mistakes, like actual factual mistakes. I'd been trying to get money out of her for what we borrowed from my parents for a septic system and through out it calls it a water heater. It also says our halfway meeting point is a a toll road exit approximately and hour due west of her location, I live 2.5 hours due south of her. It makes no sense. Luckily we both agree to that and find a new meeting spot, but I can't help but feel like it's going to come back to haunt me. This is what passes as good news for me anymore.
So I keep job hunting in case something better comes along in the mean time. It doesn't of course. But during my wait I finally get my official divorce papers. I get my kids every other weekend, which is what I was fighting for mainly, and she has to meet halfway. But pretty much everything else was against me. It's full of just mistakes, like actual factual mistakes. I'd been trying to get money out of her for what we borrowed from my parents for a septic system and through out it calls it a water heater. It also says our halfway meeting point is a a toll road exit approximately and hour due west of her location, I live 2.5 hours due south of her. It makes no sense. Luckily we both agree to that and find a new meeting spot, but I can't help but feel like it's going to come back to haunt me. This is what passes as good news for me anymore.
The job finally wants me to start, it is assembling and packaging fast food hamburger boxes. I hate it. There's nothing I like about the job, but I refuse to do anything but my best. The factory is hot and it's the middle of summer. The first night there I nearly pass out on the line from heat stroke, but I refuse to let both my trainer and the supervisor send me to break. It's hard work. It's fast paced. It's loud and dirty. I work hard. I'm eager to learn. I'm not going to lose another job. Normally the training time is six weeks, but I've worked so hard by lunch break on Monday of week four my supervisor tells me I'm fully trained, then adds almost as an afterthought "By the way, there's overtime this weekend."
I thank her, but decline because I have my kids this weekend. She tells me it's mandatory. I tell her I guess I could do it just this once, have my parents watch the kids or something. She shakes her head. "once you're trained, mandatory overtime is like three out of four weekends of the month." I tell her I can't do that. I explain to her how my kids live two hours away and how working second shift I only get 36 hours with them every other weekend and I wasn't going to give up eight hours of that to work, (plus another hour and a half to drive to and from work). Just great. I worked extra hard only to have that screw me over.
"Well, I certainly understand that. But if you don't show up, you'll be terminated. Company policy."
The next day on my way into work, I stop by the temp agency and explain the situation to them. I remind them I specifically said I couldn't work weekends. thier response is to tell me that I can't even finish out the week. If I'm planning on quitting, they can't in good conscious let me go into work for their client anymore, effective immediately. "I'm not planning on quitting!" I protest, "I'm planning on them firing me for not showing up this weekend which I said in the beginning I couldn't work." Eventually they decide I can finish out the week. My supervisor tries to talk me several times into coming in on Saturday. Suggests maybe I could get away with calling off just this once. "Why would I do that? I'll just get fired the next weekend there's a conflict."
Saturday I went and got my kids. I didn't go back to that job and I didn't feel bad even for a minute.
Even when I found out later that in order to qualify for unemployment, you had to work for an employer for at least six weeks, which would have been right up until that next weekend there would have been a conflict.
This is my life now.
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