Priorities vs. Keeping Busy

For whatever reason, 2009 has been a pretty rough year thus far. My husband and I are doing fine, but it seems like everything around us is crumbling. My niece has cancer, my mother-in-law has cancer, one of our good friends was murdered, my sister-in-law had her baby 2 months pre-mature, our best friends had to dip into their saving & vacation account to pay their 2008 taxes ($12,000 EXTRA even after their regular with holdings), and all of news hit in February & March... and we've just been dealing with the aftermath.

Emotionally I was a wreck for about a month, then I started feeling really neutral. The whole world seemed to be a blur and I was just doing enough to keep breathing and not smell too bad.

At the beginning of May, I planned to stay in Denver to help take care of my niece. All of her cancer treatments are at the Denver Children's Hospital, and since her mother is legally blind they needed a driver... and I was more than happy to help and have time with family. I had been working part-time at Curves just to get out of the house (maybe 12 hours a week). I had turned in my time off request a few weeks earlier, and handed in my notice to quit at the end of April (work through the end of May). My home business gets crazy in June/July, and I'm not willing to sacrafice my real job for something I do to get out of the house.

The Curves manager (her mother is the owner), doesn't like anything being done on someone else's terms. When I had turned in my notice in December, she was going to let me go until 3 other women quit at the same time. She asked me to stay and help for a couple of months until she could get a few replacements hired. She tried increasing my hours to 20 a week, which I couldn't fit in with my home schedule, then she moved me from working late afternoons to mid-days (which totally fucked up my home stuff), then she let everyone know we had to work longer schedules because she wasn't willing to hire more people, then she informed us that no one was getting pay increases from minimum wage but that we would have more responsibility. After all of that I really had no inscentive to stay anyway.

The straw that broke the camel's back was that I laid into one of my co-workers about her inability to get to work on time. I took serious issue with someone being incapable of showing up to work because she wanted to take care of her checkbook and bills before coming to work because she would be too tired afterwards... and so she would call in and be late by 30 minutes to an hour every time we had a shift change. I couldn't schedule business appointments reliaby because I couldn't leave Curves unmanned, and I couldn't count on Candy getting her ass in on time. She came in almost an hour late that day, and I had to cancel a new client appointment because of it, and I was fit-to-be-tied!

The manager found out due to "anonymous" letter written by Candy, and called the 3 women who were on staff in for a meeting, sat us down and said, "I know I would get 3 different stories if I asked... and I don't have the energy to care... so all of you can consider your employment terminated as of today." I started laughing, and then I said, "This is awesome!" The manager looked at me like I had lost my mind. I followed up with, "Do you really think putting up with the drama that goes on here is worth it to anyone for minimum wage? I've already given you my notice, and I reject your termination because I quit!" I got up, walked out, and went on with the appointments I had scheduled that day.

The next day when I would have been scheduled to work I made rounds to my clients I never had a chance to see on Fridays... and I made 2 HUGE sales. Since then my home business has had a boom like never before, things are looking up for family, and I'm beginning to feel again. I'm thankful, I'm staying busy, and I'm happy!