The Long and Winding Road

Eleven or so weeks ago I was called into my boss's office at work and was let go (I hate the term fired). As much as I would like to rip apart my former employer I won't but I do reccomend that if you have an account with them that you close it. That meeting started an eleven week trip down this long and winding road.

After the initial shock of being let go, I actually kind of enjoyed the time off work. Of course there were a few stressful weeks when my unemployment was initially denied, however after a successful apeall to the state I was granted the benefits. Many days were spent looking for work, applying for jobs left and right with no luck. I must of tweaked my resume about 27 times before I finally found a version I was happy with. My wife referred to me as her "house husband" as I attempted (not always successfully) to do household chores such as laundry, taking out the trash, doing the dishes and running errands such as grocery shopping and going to the dry cleaners. I saught out work with a temp agency in order to supplement my unemployment. They were supposed to find me jobs closely related to the skills that I have but they didn't. I spent one day in December at a factory that makes cereal and three days this week at the same place working graveyard. That was loads of fun spending eight hours a night pouring buckets of dried fruit and other products into big bins and stirring them. Through that I kept thinking to myself this is why I went college so I didn't have to do jobs like that. I was scheduled to work there all week however this morning while I was sleeping the temp agency called and said they didn't need me anymore this week and needless to say I am happy about that. Now I can just sit back and enjoy these final days of unemployment because earlier this week I recieved a job offer for a job that I believe will be much better than the one I lost eleven weeks ago. The best part I'll no longer be a bill collector!

At the end of this week it will be eleven and a half weeks that I was without a job. That was longest period time since I started working as a Junior in High School that I was without a job. While I enjoyed not working at times I hope to never be in that position again until I retire or win the win the lottery. It will be weird returning to the 9-5 world on Monday but I'm ready to do it and happy because I finally reached the end of this Long and Winding Road.