Unemployment

So much has changed in the last year since my first post to this blog.  Happiness breeds the lack of time to blog in my world.
I'm still loving my "new" home - very grateful that we made the move when we did because since then I've become unemployed.  Wednesday April 27th my position was eliminated.  I was informed during my "lunch hour" while my re-heated lasagna sat on my desk as I hustled to get needed signatures for an upcoming ad....it was surreal.   One moment I'm under the gun meeting deadlines and the next I'm being walked out of the building like a blue collar criminal.  
Ah, "what did she do to deserve this?" you may be wondering.  Just my job and more. Perhaps I didn't kiss the correct tushy.  There was no wrong doing or lack of doing on my part aside from dedicating the past 6 years of my life to a company that didn't deserve that dedication.  It's difficult not to be bitter, and yet, I know I am not alone in this line of thinking.  I was given a whopping 6 weeks of severance and not one day of my three weeks of vacation that I hadn't taken any of.  When asked if I was treated right by a former co-worker my answer was "I was treated right, I wasn't treated well" and i stand by that.  They did what they had to do within Connecticut state law and not one bit more.  Understandable.  They need the money.  God knows my vacation pay would have probably put them under (tongue in cheek).  Okay one more clear shot and I'll let this negativity go for now.....It wasn't bad enough that they walked me out of the building in the middle of a work week in the middle of the day as if I were a criminal, OR that they gave me literally six weeks of pay and no vacation pay.....Their payroll department messed up my severance checks and I ended up owing THEM money which came out of my last severance check.  They forgot to withhold money for benefits I was no longer receiving.....??  My initial thought was they could have let that little bit of change go to save face if nothing else, but instead they took their few hundred dollars and put it back into their multi- million dollar bank account.

Non-profit treated me better.  I guess it was the red blood flowing through their veins.  Warm blooded people are difficult to find at the corporate level in retail.

So ANYWAYS- I have been searching for work and exploring different options at a time when our Governor is laying off 7,000 people in an already under-employed state.  Over 200 of my resumes have been sent out into cyberspace since the end of April and I have only received one response which was to tell me I didn't fit the position.  I have never been so excited to hear that, because it was at LEAST a response that let me know someone somewhere had actually looked at my resume.  One real, not automated,  response out of over 200 applications....that is very disheartening and very real. 

Oh wait....it seems that insurance sales REALLY wants me, along with everyone else that posts a resume on Monster, Careerbuilder, etc.   I can't get these companies to stop calling me or emailing me.  Its a very strange form of harassment only instead of trying to sell it TO me they want all of us unemployed losers to SELL.  They really just won't go away, like a mosquito.  A nest of mosquito's.   One frustrating conversation began with "I have your resume here in front of me and you are the perfect fit".......So I asked, "you have my resume right there in front of you?  right now? at this very moment?   Yes, indeed he did.  "Well," I asked, "Can you please tell me where you see the word INSURANCE or SALES anywhere in my resume?".....Well no, actually he couldn't.  "what exactly makes me the perfect fit? that I'm unemployed and I'd like to sell insurance to other unemployed people who can't afford it and therefor make no salary on this commission based position?"  

"no one wants to sell insurance" says the man recruiting me for this lucrative position.  I suggested he brush up his own resume and join me in the search for job that would allow us both to keep our dignity.  Has it come to this really?

Happiness is........

....Waking up at 8:00am on a Friday morning and realizing you are still on vacation, looking out the window to check the weather and seeing a turkey and her chick in your front yard AND being able to get to the camera and snap a picture in time, floating down the stairs of your new bedroom in your new house in silence knowing everyone is still asleep, being the first to get to the coffee and bring it out to your new back porch and just BE for a few moments before the day starts, hearing "hey lady" and turning to see your houseguest from WI great you with her own cup of coffe as she joins you, finding a lady bug on your door jam, hearing your daughter describe her new home as an "upgrade", finding out that your spouse has confided to a friend that he "can't wait to come home now"........

Happiness is wading through all the difficult times and still keeping the hope that someday everything will fall into place and then magically.....it does.  No mansion, no servents, no lottery.  Just a small cozy home that fits me, family and friends that love me and are loved in return and the good luck of having a profession that stimulates and satisfies me.  Today, i feel like i have it all.