Quitters Never Prosper

So, for the second time in my life, I quit my job only to have EVERY ONE GET LAID OFF within days/hours of my doing so, thereby removing my bid for severance pay. Sweet.

So I quit my job--and now they're closing the fucker down. Closing the cafes, closing the pastry department. Bending over and taking it in the ass. (We swore this wouldn't ever happen--our boss is too arrogant to admit he fucked up, to admit he had to quit, that he was failing, had failed, could fail. These people believe unfailingly that God Will Provide For Us Because We Are White And Rich And Christian [GWPFUBWAWARAC] and that We Can Use Those Lesser Than Us As Scapegoats To Excuse Our Idiocy [WCUTLTUASTEOI]) But they aren't really taking it in the ass, see. Sure, they lost a shitload of money, more money than T and I will make in 2 years working our asses off full time--But they are worth millions of dollars. Millions. And they incorporated the business, which means (so we're told) that if the business goes bankrupt, their personal assets are untouchable. And it makes me so. fucking. mad.

See, these people lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they aren't phased. They aren't upset, no more than you or I would be if we washed a $20 bill and it tore in the wash. Annoyed, pissed for a while, but you wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over it, you wouldn't wonder where your next meal would be coming from. But if I stood to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars you can bet your life I would go down fucking fighting to keep it.

They left letters (LETTERS!) with all the cafe's employees paychecks today telling them they would be laid off as of next week. No "sorry!", no explanation, nothing. No personal meeting, just "Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out." These are people with children, husbands, families to support. Our town has NO JOBS. Seriously. We have the most economically depressed county in our state.

It's scary.

Also, they implied in the bakery meeting (yes, we 4 got an actual meeting, since we weren't being laid off) that the business being lost was.....wait for it....

My Fault.

My fault that 21 people are without jobs in this bullshit job market, shitty ass economy, just before the holidays. My fault that all these women have to go home to their families and explain why they can't afford....What? Anything, food, bills, medicine....My fault, because I quit, because I am allergic to flour. My hands blister, bleed and weep when I touch flour.

I know it's not my fault. I know that it isn't, all the girls who are being laid off say it isn't my fault. But how fucking horrible of these people to even insinuate that it was anything but their own retardation, their unwillingness to listen to their employees needs, to spend money on quality equipment or make real world business decisions.

And they're sitting pretty. Sitting fucking pretty in their goddamn mansion in the ritzy part of town, the wife of the pair with a closet that is bigger than the front half of my house (I'm serious), driving their BMW SUV and installing $50,000 worth of antique tile in their 'show' bathroom.

They don't care. Every one is better off not working for these people, every one agrees that this is the case. But it doesn't make me feel any less pissed off about the whole thing.

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One of the women I work with at the bakery--She is the kindest woman. She never has a bad thing to say about anyone--Anyone--no matter what. She's never angry, and if she is, she immediately apologises. She's super enthusiastic about learning new things at work, about being trained to do 'pretty stuff'.

This woman, she's had the hardest life. When she was 15, she was gang raped in her front yard while her parents watched game shows, oblivious. Her mother shamed her while they were at the hospital (where they only took her because she was so badly beaten, and bleeding so severely from her genitals) for how she brought this on herself, how horrible it would be if the neighbors saw. Her parents wouldn't let her press charges and made her, bandaged and shaky, hose her blood off the walk so no one would know. The doctors called a week later and said that she had stage three ovarian cancer (something that ran in her family, a fact she didn't find out until 20 years later when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and forgot she wasn't telling her daughter this) and would need a complete hysterectomy.

Which she had. They got all the cancer, but also took any hope she had of being a mom. Her own mother, rather than helping her daughter deal with not only the loss of her innocence, but the loss of her burgeoning womanhood, told her that god was punishing her for being a slut.

This woman, she grew up and married a sailor. A handsome sailor who promised her the world. They adopted three children, and appeared to be happy. The handsome sailor, he beat this woman, he raped her, he terrorized her and tried to destroy her. She finally left when he went after their daughter.

Her children, they were crack babies, abandoned, abused. These are fragile, damaged, butterfly children. The oldest turned 18 and went back to his birth mother, who put lit cigarettes out on his tiny body leaving scars he still has. He refuses to speak to his adopted mother, the woman who raised him. The middle child refuses to go to school, destroys their house if left alone, rips doors off hinges and tears holes in walls. The youngest, a daughter, she has severe emotional problems, makes chemical cocktails and bathes in them, burns and melts things, attacks other kids at school, is sexually promiscuous and hasn't even started her period yet. She's lied and called CPS on her mom for not getting her way. This woman, she does everything she can think of to help her babies, to make sure they know they are loved, to not lose them to drugs, mental illness, jail, and she is losing.

This woman, she works two jobs. She works harder than anyone I know, she smiles and laughs and thinks of every one around her first. She is so happy to see you when you arrive, so sad to see you go when you leave. She hugs you, tells you how smart and beautiful you are, how talented. She is genuine, loving, caring. She is never bitter, never sad. She is stronger than anyone I have ever met.

And our bosses, they treat her like shit. Like she is stupid, less than them, like her needs and life don't matter. They berate her for taking time off to be with her kids. And it makes me SO MAD.

They have so much, and all they want is more. They tell us that it is "By the Grace of God" that they have done well, that if we would "Come to the Flock" we would prosper as well. Bullshit.

They told one of my coworkers that she deserves to be poor and unhappy because she is gay.

They stole from JZ, A and me. And lied when we caught them.

I feel no guilt for quitting. I feel no guilt for no longer associating with these people.

But I do feel bad leaving my coworkers, my friends. Knowing that their working lives will not change in the slightest, they may get worse, if anything. They will be lied to, berated, made to feel bad about themselves every day.

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My boss looked through my cell phone today. Read my text messages. And didn't understand why I was enraged, tore my phone out of his hand, snapped at him, yelled.

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My bosses accused me of lying about my allergy. Told me they would fight me if I applied for unemployment.

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I'm tired. There's so much more. So much more that these people have done.

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I feel bad worrying about money. If we were that bad off, I wouldn't be quitting, right? I would be powering through this shit in the name of financial security. Every one who hasn't been laid off is. Maybe my boss is right--Why am I better than my coworkers are?

So many people I know are dealing with so much bad. Poverty, illness, terminally ill children, mental health issues. It makes me feel like a big fat shit for worrying that we won't pay off our windows on time, that our carpet makes T sick and we can't afford to get rid of it. I went to see my friends in the southerly metropolis, and I was jealous. Jealous of their life, their house, their cars and jobs and college educations. Jealous of their town, their fucking wall color.

It's disgusting, my feeling like this. I have more than so many--My wanting more, it makes me just like my horrible bosses, in my mind. It's disgusting.

Well....

I just quit my job.

I'm happy to be free of the fundies and their insanity, but scared because there aren't any jobs here and we're pretty damn poor. T supports my decision, but I can tell he isn't happy that we're going to be down 1/3 of our monthly income.

We will be fine. If I have to clean toilets for rich people again, so be it. We will be fine.

Has it really been that long?

I doubt that anyone is still reading after all this time.

We have no computers at our house. (At least none that belong to us and function.) The laptop died after one of the brothers downloaded porn, the PC died a similar death at the hands of a friend of one of the brothers. Which means....We have all this internet, and no access to it aside from our iPods and iPhones. Ever tried to blog on an iPhone? I don't recommend it.

We went to the southerly metropolis this weekend and were given a spare laptop to borrow to get us through until we can get something worked out on our own. I don't think that the offending parties of computer death will be ponying up the cash any time soon to fix what they have broken, so until we manage to come up with the money ourselves, we're depending on the kindness of non-strangers.

So much bullshit has happened. Seriously. I'm on the cusp of quitting my job, J gave notice and her last day is Wednesday. The bosses haven't done a single thing in the way of getting me any help after she's gone, I'm not allowed to have any overtime, and they don't want to give me a raise. So, essentially, I will be running the pastry department, doing all the ordering, special ordering, menu changes, holiday shit, etc., and doing my current job while not making a penny more than I already am and not working any more hours than I already am. Two jobs in no more time with no more money? I don't fucking think so.

Aside from all that crap, I simply cannot (CANNOT) work for the these people any more. Our...ethics are too separate. Too distant. The way they feel it is ok to threat people, to do business, to enact 'justice', it's disgusting. We have discovered a bit of illegal activity within the company. I don't think anything will come of it....but it's pretty shitty.

Oh, also? The last 2 executive pastry chefs had brought all the equipment to the bakery. As of Wednesday.....we have no (and I mean NO) equipment.

The bosses don't seem to think this is a problem. Me, alone, doing the job of 2 people, for no more money than I make now, in a bakery with no equipment.

If it weren't true and slowly destroying my soul, it would be hilarious.

Anyway. We're heading to the east coast (sorta. Sorta. East, no coast.) later this month for T's grandmother's birthday. T hasn't seen his grandmother since he was 5, she's never met me and she hasn't ever met J, who will be coming with us. We can't afford the trip, but we're going. Family is important. Now that I have a family.

......Yeah

My sisters are in town. I don't love it.

Work has gotten more insane, if that's possible. Which I guess it is.

I guess there was some fall out after the wedding, which I just heard about. Somehow, after hearing the details.....I'm not surprised, considering who was involved. Which is sort of a sad thing. Meh.

I wish weekends were longer.

I'm tired of liars.

I'm tired.

I had a 'donut party' with the ladies from work tonight. Made dinner, drank beer. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed hanging out with that many women at once. I think it's because we're all assholes who aren't typical bitches.

I'm home alone. The idea of going and locking the house up for sleeping seems arduous.

T quit smoking. I'm insanely proud of him. Especially since he just...quit. Said, "I'm a non-smoker" and that was that. I'm also jealous, as quitting for me (every time I've tried, anyway) is like eating ground glass and being trapped in an elevator with Carrot Top.

My sisters took my dad's ashes from me.

Our neighbor kids play drums and guitars all day and it makes T want to explode. He threatens to blast them with the air horn. I don't think it will change anything.

I got our wedding pics. Email me and I'll send you the link if you're interested.

All I Do is Sleep and Whine

Hi Kids. Is anyone still out there? I'm, you know, lame and stuff, for not posting. Serious.

But my thinking that now that the wedding is over, that now we're back from vacation, things would be calm and easy? I would have time to knit, to cook at home again, to do more than a half a load of laundry at a time, vacuum my horrible carpet, and update the blog?

Yeah, well, that thinking was wrong. WRONG.

My job? It's horrible. I mean, the work is great, things are plugging away nicely, I love my coworkers, I'm learning new skills every day. But my bosses? Sweet googly moogly. I have no idea what the hell they think they're doing, how they think that some of this shit is ok or even legal....But it's taxing me. All of us are looking seriously for new jobs.

In a word? (Or two) I'm fucked.

See, they don't pay me SHIT at this job. Which at first was ok, because I was looking at it like it was an apprenticeship. But suddenly, in under six months, I'm second in command in the serious money making side of the bakery--I'm being asked to develop recipes and take part in photographs for marketing purposes. (I'm doing neither of those things, btw.) But I'm still making a dollar more an hour than the cleaning dude. (And not to say that janitors aren't worth a decent wage. That's some serious hard work there, and they earn every dollar they are paid. I know this because I was a janitor. However, people with more specialized skill sets are typically paid more to do jobs that require said specialized skill set. Not anyone off the street could walk in and do my job, nor do it well, quickly, and in sub standard conditions. So I'm irritated that my wage is so close to the starting wage for, well, everyone.)

If I quit this job, I now have to find another one. I can't really get a cut in pay from where I am now, but I will almost definitely have to commute. Right now, I commute 20 minutes total a day. (Spoiled, I know.) I'm looking at two hours a day if I get the job I'm seriously hoping for. But will my new job (if it exists) pay me enough to offset the cost of my commute? Not to mention the fact that we will have to buy another car for T so he can get around while I'm putzing back and forth across the peninsula.

If I get fired, I may be able to collect unemployment. But for how long? We're not in debt, but we have pretty grim savings and really can't afford to go back to being a one income household right now.

I don't want to have to go back to waiting tables.

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The other thing that's keeping me from blogging is my new BIL J's sudden love of the party. He, daily, asks me this series of questions.

"Do you work tomorrow?"

My answer is usually something along the lines of 'What day is it? Tuesday? Then yes, considering I work Mon-Fri.'

His response?

"When do you work?"

My answer? 'Just like every other day, J, just about the time you're going to bed.'

The final part of this talk always goes something like this.

"Oh, because I really wanted to have some people over tonight to play video games/role play/drink all your alcohol/eat all the food/smoke all your cigarettes/make the house filthy/make a ton of noise and keep you up till 1 or 2 so that you want to stab a panda when your alarm goes off at 4am"

'J, you can do that somewhere else. The era of 'T and M are out of the state for 2 weeks so I can party all the time at the house' has ended. Mom and Dad are officially home.' Buzz kill, I know.

But seriously? I want to feel for him. I remember being a party animal. But now I get up at 4 every day and bust my ass for 9 or 10 hours for not a whole hell of a lot and all I want to do when I get home is have QUIET.

Cleaning has become a recreational activity.

And....We're back.

It only took 18 hours and a battle of wits and strength with a country music concert, but we have returned. To prove it: Photos.

(Can I just say that I am thrilled to NO END that this is all over? That I am married, have a 'normal' last name, and have 1/11124th of the stress in my life now? Sure, Hawaii was great, but now that we're home....Aaaaah. Plus we missed the heat wave.)

Tide ya over

I won't be posting until August, as we will be mooning in the honey until then.

In the interim:

Wedding photos of people you don't know! Hoooooray.

(The wedding was awesome, I cried saying my vows, mom behaved herself, and everyone had an awesome time. The end.)