It Finally Hit the Fan and the Splatter is Widespread

The past two weeks have been a shit storm. You'd better fix yourself a hot toddy and grab the blankie, cuz this is going to take a while.

It all started a week ago last Thursday. I was at The Asylum, doing my sales thing, when Gorilla Head started berating me about the way I did things when I'd dared to ask him a question. This would happen often and I'd learned to just say "okay" and go back to my desk.

Anything to avoid an altercation.

This time, however, he made more comments, under his breath from his desk and.. well.. this old girl snapped. The problem working with GH was, he felt that everything I did, that I always had done, was wrong, yet he refused to tell me what he expected. He'd go on for ten minutes, getting a chubby from the sound of his own voice, but never, ever, actually telling me a damned thing.

Dude, just TELL ME. I'm not an idiot. I can follow directions.

The next morning, I called in sick. I'm sure it looked like I'd laid out because he pissed me off, but I didn't. When the whole gang, excluding me, had gone to the trade show the week before, they'd brought back some kinda funky Florida virus and infected the whole office. It felt like the flu. I slept so much that weekend, with fevers, chills and churning snot that when I woke up Sunday morning, I didn't know what day it was.

Sunday night, I received word of a family tragedy, involving Long Lost Daughter. I don't want to go in to it right now, my emotions are still pretty raw, we'll talk about that later. There are links to the newspaper articles regarding the drama on my Facebook page.

I was emotionally wrecked. I still showed up for work on Monday morning, but all it took was Lulu telling me she'd seen the link for me to lose control and start sobbing uncontrollably. She went and got Kat who told me to go home and call in the next day and we'd figure something out. So I did.

Kat ended up calling me later that day to tell me that Turbo Bitch would not approve bereavement leave, but I was welcome to use as much vacation time as I needed. I told Kat I was taking the week off.

In 20 years at The Asylum, this was only the second time I'd ever taken an entire week of vacation.

Lets just skip over last week. I basically sat on the couch and bawled the whole time.

I dreaded going in to work on Monday, I knew it would be hard, but I sucked it up and went to work. I stopped and spoke to Lulu and the Baby Engineer (who was recently moved to the sales department, supposedly to lighten my work load)  who hugged my neck and welcomed me back. I sat at my desk, my phone rang and I was called to the GM's office.

The following is a direct quote from the letter I was given during that meeting:

"I have spent my first 6 months at (The Asylum) observing and listening to the needs of the company, our employees and out customers. I also have been actively developing plans for the growth of the business. Based on those two activities, I reached my decision that your skills are not what (The Asylum) needs at this time."

Also...

"I personally regret that I have had to make this decision and it was not made easily. It is my responsibility to ensure that (the Asylum) has associates with the specific skills needed to help achieve our goals. When that is in question, I must act."

They gave me a months severance pay as well as paid me for all unused vacation for the year. I was escorted back to my desk, where they had boxes waiting and packed up my stuff. The Baby Engineer came back and asked me what the hell I was doing. Bless his heart, he was all to pieces when I told him I'd been fired. He carried the box out to the truck, hugged on me some more and ranted a while. I told him it was okay, I'd been suspicious that I'd be training my replacement when he was moved to sales.

Those are the facts. Now, the truth is probably that Gorilla Head had me fired because I refused to do my job and his while he sat back on his ass and picked his nose. Whatever, I'm kind of relieved to be honest.

In the past two days, I've received emails and phone calls from customers that I've worked with over the years and honestly, that means the world to me. They know how hard I worked for them and that I was exceptional at my job.

Yesterday, I completed my application for unemployment. I'm still sorting out next steps, still a little floored, not just over the job loss, but all the assorted clusterfuckery that has occurred in the past two weeks. I'm sure I'll be fine.

I can't afford therapy, so I'll be doing the next best thing, putting it all out here for someone to read.

Ya'll hang in there. We can do this... and we'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!!