Losing Your Job Sucks

What do you do when multiple big life moments occur so close together?

This time last year was a struggle! We were trying to get our house ready to sell and move to a different state by choice (not because the military was telling us we had to), our dog was having lots of accidents (that lead to tearing out the carpet because I was sick of cleaning dog shit out of it), our child was going stir crazy and would literally pitch a fit anytime we got home from a walk or a car ride because she didn't want to be there (and girl neither did I), and I felt as though I was going to lose my mind going farther into debt trying to earn just enough money to pay my car payment every month and that was it. I wasn't even making enough to put gas in my car.

October came and we were packing up the house, putting things in storage, and getting ready to move as soon as we closed on our new house in November. My old catering company reached out to me to see if I would be interested in coming back, part time, 20 hours, fully remote, doing my favorite part of my old job...entering invoices!

You might be thinking that is so boring but I loved it! I loved tracking the prices of items, checking weekly or monthly market reports, reaching out to vendors when I didn't see a credit posted or if there was a significant price change during the same week (like Tuesday green grapes were this much and on Thursday they were almost double...uh I don't think so!). I had a great relationship with all the reps and they were all super helpful and all remembered me, or claimed they did, and I found my rhythm in a mater of days. When I tell you that I left my onboarding session with over an entire ream of paper of invoice copies to enter and I finished it in less than 2 weeks, I am not joking.

One of the main things they wanted me to do in addition to entering current invoices was to work on backlog because in the 3 years since I was let go for the rona, no one was doing this aspect on a consistent basis and it was throwing off costing. I started entering invoices in January and by July 31st I had entered over 7,000 invoices (7,387 to be exact). Some of the vendors I was able to go all the way back to about the time everything started going down in 2020 and enter everything! Like I crushed it.

In June I get a meeting request. It was the day before we put out dog down and I was getting close to wrapping things up so I said fine as long as we could be done before whatever time my work day was supposed to be over. We ended up starting late and going over my time only to be told that because the sales team didn't perform well in April and June, they couldn't afford to keep me on and my last day would be the following Friday. I said absolutely not. We talked it out and determined that I would stay on through July and before he left on vacation that weekend he would make sure I had in writing that my job was secure until the end of July. We talked about seeing if there was any way to keep me on even if it was just like once a month to enter all the current invoices so I was made to feel a little hopeful.

I log in after a super shitty weekend and I have no confirmation that my job is secure through July. I reach out and ask and end up getting a generic letter stating that I am to report in full time starting Monday July 31st. Color me confused but I thought I was being let go from my part time job because they couldn't afford to keep me on but now I'm being told to come in and work full time??? I forward that letter to the person I had the original meeting with and basically asked for clarification. I knew he was on vacation but I needed to make sure that things got cleared up once he returned. Was I being terminated or being told to come in full time?

After a week of him being back from vacation, I reply to my original email to him asking again for clarification. I got super pissed the next morning, a Tuesday, when I find an email stating that due to the state of wanting everyone on site, my final day would be Thursday...like 2 days from that day. After stewing all day and waiting for my mom to be awake on the West coast, she helped me craft a non-emotional response basically calling them out on their BS. I got an "I'm sorry" reply that he transposed 7/31 to 7/13 which would have been acceptable if he hadn't written that my last day would be Thursday 7/13...Monday 7/13 that would be an accident but bro...you wrote the day of the week and I caught you. They gave me until 7/31 and you better believe that the last pay period was only 2 work days but I worked all weekend to log all 20 freakin hours!

With that long story, I'm back to reconfiguring my mornings and my days. Here's the kicker though...my daughter is about to start school full time! I know the responsible thing to do is start a routine now that will take us through the school year and not start something now only to have to change it again in a couple weeks. So now I'm trying to nail down a routine, possibly job searching (waiting to see if unemployment has been approved by mail), and not losing my shit on this new medication!