Bang! Bang!

Monday morning I went to work like every other Monday morning. I had my coffee, I started up my PC, I said good morning to the up-teen coworkers who walk past my desk, I began preparing all the documents for the sales meeting. This Monday morning my phone rang. It was the boss asking me to meet her and the other boss in the office. Not a good thing to hear first thing on a Monday morning.

I began racking my brain wondering what I had done to cause such a prime meeting time. Maybe they finally caught on to the fact that I screwed around the majority of my work days blog surfing and emailing my Aunt Amanda. Maybe they read some of the emails I had traded with another coworker who hates her job as much as I hated mine. I didn't care. Whatever. I was begging to get fired. I hated working there so much that it took over every thing I thought and did. I had become this grouchy, unhappy person because I wasn't able to just let the crap go that I had to deal with there.

Well, I was fired. But it wasn't for any of the screwing around that I had done, or anything that I had intentionally done to try to get myself into trouble over. I was fired for filling out a time sheet incorrectly. I had worked at this place for two years. I had been filling my time sheets out the exact same way the entire time. You know that feeling I have mentioned having about how I just knew they wanted to get rid of me? Apparently that was right.

The bosses told me that they cared for me on a personal level and wished me the best of luck, but professionally they had to do what was right for the company, which I totally understand. (Not the whole "caring about me on a personal level", because there was no hiding the fact that they did NOT like me.) The thing I don't understand is that there were people doing a hell of a lot worse things that went by basically unpunished. There was one guy, and this is my favorite example, who went to Wisconsin for a training class. He was supposed to be there for a whole week, but he took upon himself to decide that he had learned enough and he wanted to go home on Thursday night. He left, didn't tell anyone at work, didn't came to work that Friday, didn't change his time sheet. He got paid for the day and he just stayed home. Work would have never known had the hotel not called to tell them that they were going to reimburse them for the day that was not used. HE didn't get fired.

Now don't get me wrong, I honestly DO NOT care that I got fired. I had never been fired from anywhere before, and it is a little embarrassing, but I didn't care. They did me a favor really. But I am all about equality in the workplace, and what they did was far from equality. Jake was all about me calling a lawyer and suing them and blah, blah, blah. No, thank you!

I cannot put into words how sickeningly HAPPY I am to not have a job!! I know that sounds weird considering the state of the economy and how there are so many people out there that need jobs. I felt bad going to work everyday knowing how much I hated it and how badly I wanted to quit because I knew there were people out there that would do anything just to have my paycheck. I have wanted to quit for the longest time and Jake wouldn't let me. Well, now I guess he has no say in the matter.

That's not true. He has plenty to say. He and I sit down together every night after I clean up supper dishes and we decide different things that need to be done. Since I got home from my former job at 9:10 AM on Monday, I have gotten more things done than what I have in months of weekends! I have had our garage door repaired, hired a guy to do the painting by the stairs that I am too scared to do myself since it's so high, met with a guy about our water problem and ordered a water softener, I have read, cleaned, scoured, organized, YOU NAME IT!!!! And there is still so much more to do!!! We have decided that I am not going to go back to work until my unemployment runs out, in a YEAR!!! And by the time that rolls around, we may have decided to just prolong it even more...depending on what courses our lives choose to take.

For years I have longed for a part time job, or no job, or even just a day off during the week so that I can make appointments, go to appointments, run errands at places that are only opened at the same time that I had to be holed up in my windowless office!! I know this sounds crazy, but today I had to go to the post office and it was the highlight of my day!! Not only that, but my two BFFs, Jeannie and Brenda, neither one work and I now have the opportunity to spend time with them that I never had before in the past.

I have even considered sending the place of my former employment a thank you card for allowing me this liberation, but Jake told me that might be going just a little too far! :)