Jobless, or am I?

I wrote out the following couple of paragraphs a couple of weeks ago.  Apparently I never posted it.  I must have had other things on my mind.  So I’ll post this here and then put more afterwards.

If you read my previous post (not the This Week in ADITLOAN, the one before that) than you know that I lost my job.  To put it simply, I got laid off.  I had complained about it being slow so I wasn’t completely shocked, and yet, I was.  I don’t remember ever getting laid off, as a matter of fact, after thinking about it, today is the first time in 18 years, that I didn’t have a job.

I’m angry, I’m scared, I’m all kinds of emotions and I’ve been trying to work through them the last couple of days.  I was at my mom’s all weekend putting up siding on her house.  I was there Saturday morning when I received the call not to return to work.  I was talking with Cheri on Saturday night, and she accused me of taking it personally.  I agreed with her, I was, and maybe still am.  My main issue is I left a job that I had security, I’ve been there for 14 years, I was in the top 40 in seniority in the whole plant, but I was miserable.  I hated it there the last couple of years, things were changing, and not for the better.  The hours were miserable and they effected my life at home.  So when I had the opportunity to switch to where my brother worked, I took it after a lot of thought.  The hours were better, the pay was less but had more potential.  I didn’t mind the job, I enjoyed it because I had to think ahead and plan.  During the 6 months I was there, I knew it was the right decision, mainly because I hated my old job.  Then our main customer was having problems with a new product and our orders slowed way down.  Originally it was supposed to last for a month, but last week, in our monthly meeting, they said it could last until the end of the year.  That was when I started to worry about it.  Then Saturday morning, it happened.

I was at my mom’s house hanging up siding for her when they called and left a voicemail about it.  I called her back and got more information and they had let go a bunch of people and the off shifts were going down to 1 line.

I’ve been weighing my options most of the weekend, and particularly, this morning.  I was never thrilled with the fact that I was going to have to work in factory all my life.  I’m not so sure my body could handle it to begin with.  I still have at least, but probably more than 25 years of work life left.  I’ve wanted to do something more, job wise, but never wanted to have to go to school while I work.  Cheri says it’s because I’m lazy.  That could be, but I don’t enjoy my days being completely filled up with stuff to do, whether it be work or not.  I guess if that’s being lazy, then so be it.  Now that I am unemployed, I’m starting to think about a career change, and that may take going back to school.  It’s an option, I need to ask the right questions and find out what or if it’s even going to be possible.  We shall see.

As I said above, I wrote that a couple of weeks ago, on the Monday after I got laid off.  Here I am now, exactly 2 weeks and 2 days after I lost my job and I started a new job today.  It doesn’t have the potential that my previous job had, but it’s a job.  I’m working in the shipping department so I’m driving a forklift still which is the reason that I was able to get the job so quickly.  That, and my mom just retired from there at the beginning of June so she might have pulled a few strings.

Part of the reason that I jumped into another job so quickly is because I’m still waiting on my unemployment pay so I’ve gone 2 weeks, so far, without any income.  Freaking government takes forever to do anything  It took them almost 2 weeks just to send me the form that I had to send to my previous employer to verify I was now unemployed.  Apparently they pay you on a debit card that they give you, of course, I haven’t received it yet.  Which would be part of the reason I haven’t received any money yet.  It’s not like I’ve been living off the government for 18 years, I’ve been working damn near every day for the money that they need to send back to me.  It’s so stupid.

But, like I said, I am working now so we’ll see how long this job lasts.  It was a decent day today, I did the job just fine and did everything I was asked so as far as I know, I’m doing alright.  I mentioned that my mom used to work there, well she also got my sister-in-law a job there and before I left today, I needed to go up front to turn in my 2 forms of ID.  As I was leaving, I walked through the lobby, I noticed my crotch was a little drafty, I reached down and sure enough, my zipper was down.  What’s even more embarrassing was when I looked up, my sister-in-law was standing there, laughing at me.  I went to the bathroom at 1:30 so at least I only went an hour with it down.  I hope nobody noticed.