So what do you do when your career comes to an abrupt and premature end? I'll tell you what I did: I took it laying down.
At first I had a little bit of relief, when the weight was lifted off of me after so many months of oppression. It was during the holidays (of course) and there were a lot of opportunities for getting together with people. I felt like a prisoner who had been set free, but not the elated I'M FREE!! kind of feeling. More the eyes cast downward, I'm a damagedanddirty person kind of thing. Sometimes I was able to spin it with real righteous anger. I mean, if the anti-age discrimination laws weren't made for this....!
I actually did seek legal advice, as everyone urged me to. I was told that, despite the fact that the people and the place really had treated me terribly, we lived in a state where, in legal terms, you can be fired at any time for any reason.
Oh, Well. Thank you, and here is my check for $250.
Then came "negotiating" with the company on my "severance package". This consisted of two weeks pay and they wouldn't contest unemployment. I did manage to get four weeks (a spark of the old pro coming through?), but they wouldn't pay for any expenses, as in all those cabs and overtime hours I worked. I guess they agreed with me that I just didn't deserve to be treated like a human being.
Since my husband is self-employed, I've always been the health insurance provider. The government provides for us to continue with our company insurance by allowing us to pay the full cost of coverage via COBRA, after we've lost our jobs. For the family insurance I needed, this would cost us $800 per month. Gee, that unemployment check just about covers that. And then maybe I can pay one utility bill per month! There's a plan. Now it's time for sleep.
I was not in any shape to look for a new job, and had no idea what to look for, anyway. I couldn't possibly go back to the old business. I was stupid, slow, and old, and I never really knew how to do that in the first place. By now I believed that my whole career had just been a fluke. For 25 years. And where had been all the friends and connections I had made during all that time? I don't know. I really don't. I think the friends I still had in the business were either totally buried in work themselves, had moved on out of The Business, or were hanging by a thread themselves and were just afraid to consort with a loser. Contagious? Who knows, maybe they were right. But I knew I was never going back.
My husband thought that, with his work going well, we might be okay if we watched our spending. Well, I discovered that leaving the house equals inevitable spending, so more reason to be drawn to the bed. I slept late and needed a nap in the afternoon. If I didn't get my nap, I would nod out in my chair or even standing up. One time when my concerned husband insisted that I get out of bed, I groggily lurched to the car and drove to a mall where I could grab a quick snooze in the parking garage. There was no way I could stay awake.
When people would talk to me about going back to the same kind of work, my blood pressure would spike and I would panic. I couldn't do it anymore. I did it for 25 years. I put in my time. As much as I had loved the good times, the spiral and the plummet at the end crushed any feeling I had that I belonged there anymore. How could I risk going back and having the same situation repeat itself? You can't control the people you work with, and you can't blame it on someone else a second time.
And so much had changed. It wasn't about careful consideration anymore. It was about being an appendage of a machine, filling in the blanks exactly how they needed to be filled. No deviations for special circumstances.
The people had let me down. All of the people I had worked with, laughed with, cried with, and encouraged when they were down were not there for me. Move on.
But what could I do now? Maybe there are some who can finish one full life and re-invent another, starting off fresh and frisky at 50. Go back to school and become a doctor! Start all over in a completely new world! Sorry to disappoint everyone, but I only had one "A" run in me. I can't ever put myself in that kind of position of stress again, and will never allow myself to have a job so important that someone has the power to talk to me and treat me like that again.
So when I finally got it together to look for a job, where did I wind up? In Retail Sales!!! And boy, can I write the book about Empowerment For The Worker now!
Let me tell you about the Wonderful World of Retail Sales.......
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