The Unemployment Chronicles, Vol. 1

So no move? Any update with CJ?

Women are the future. We only cook for them and upkeep their homes.

Yeah, crazy. I’m the ’50’s housewife that does all the maintenance, plus. CJ is still there. They offered her a manager position (she’s now a director) with a smaller salary. They need to create cap room to hire three new people for the job CJ was doing by herself. There’s no way, given the amount of work that she has done for them that they could let her go immediately. I also know you can never go backwards and still retain respect from your co-workers and advised her to ask for a lateral move at least, even if we had to take a hit money-wise. They said they couldn’t do it. What they were subtextually saying is: we can’t pay a director what we now want to pay you, therefore it’s manager or hit the road.

If I have to cash out all my stock and work at Walmart, I’ll do it. They are totally taking advantage of her. She told them she’d accept the severance (which was pathetic) and turned in her letter of resignation. She was relieved. They were shocked, absolutely dumbfounded.

This happened six weeks ago. She’s maintained her title, has less work with the new hires, and is still making what she was making before. She’s won the battle in an ongoing war. Could be done at any time, but I’m proud of her stance.

I seriously don’t know what the hell to do. She could get a job in SoCal, but we’d be living “down” for a while, and God knows that state is about to fall off into the Pacific. I just drink to quell the mid-life crisis that I’m having. Maybe I should stop drinking, seeing as I only have 2 kidneys and may need to sell one.

Fuck.

We’re too old for this shit. I made six grand teaching that acting class in May and I’m down to my last $1500 — and my debt is out of control. I have a life insurance policy I’m going to cash out. After that, I really have no idea. I’m beyond stressed at this point. To make matters worse, I had a root canal last week. Damn crown cost me $600 and that was with insurance. Teeth are still necessary, right?

I withdrew $100 today and can’t remember the last time I saw a bill larger than a $20, seems like a dream. Earlier this year, I’m wrestling with a credit card bill for days and finally have to ask Jules for help. Tell her I need $170 and we both roll our eyes at how small the number was. It’s pathetic. Everything’s dried up.

Self-employed means not qualifying for unemployment. My last $10,000 of business inventory, I made $100. What’s the point in risking that type of money again? I’m lucky to get out on the plus. I wouldn’t expect to, if I did it again. I considered different angles and there just aren’t a lot of products you can sell anymore without a shitload of pain or nonsense somewhere on the back-end. Money needs to come from somewhere and it’s not like they’re delivering it to my door.

Then there’s the ongoing situation with the cats (long story).

So I made a list of restaurants and, yeah, we are too old for this. I had to create a separate resume, I’d never used one. Putting together references, I realize I’ve known one of them for 23 years. My experience is most likely older than most of the people I’d be working with. I’ll be older than my managers. I’ll be “that guy” — I never wanted to be “that guy” — the flunkey outcast in his 40’s doing the job of a 20 year old.

It made sense back then. Money was good; flexible schedule; met some great people, always did. Fell back into it in my 30’s, not much of a choice: California; could rely on the money; met more great people, all you guys.

To say I lost my mojo for it is to undersell the process of mojo loss. This will end badly. This will end Bret Favre badly — crazy mistakes that cost the team a playoff spot and always one text message away from doing something really stupid. I wouldn’t want to be sitting in my section. I have no idea what might happen.