Unemployed · 4:12am Dec 5th, 2014
On Sunday, November 30th, 2014 I became unemployed.
I wasn't fired or laid off, nor did I quit. My place of employment simply ceased to be. We "ran out of business."
I was informed of this the night of our closing.
I started working there when I was thirteen, taking out the trash, unloading boxes, etc. Menial work. I'm twenty-three now, and at the time of my . . . termination? I was the Co-manager of the store. I've seen two births, one death, five weddings, and eleven arrests during my time working there. I grew up there, made some of my best friends there, and it was such an integral part of my life that to wake up in the morning, without going to work, without checking in, without worrying about the employees being able to handle things without me. I honestly didn’t feel human. I felt hollowed out. Empty. Void.
I worked there for ten years, and in a single day, we packed up everything into boxes and loaded everything up onto a truck. Imagine seeing a place that you basically grew up in, stripped bare. It’s not easy.
But now that I’ve had a few days to deal with it, I’m starting to feel something like normalcy again.
I’m not really sure where to go from here, a high-school diploma and a management position at a small time gift shop don’t really equate to much more than a lot of “prior business experience” in today’s education-centric workplace, so I don’t have a lot of options. Not an ideal situation, but I’ve been through worse.
Well shit... that sucks to hear.
Well I cannot really relate on that high of a level, I can relate in sudden changes to your daily life after years of doing the same things. It can be difficult adjusting to no longer doing them.
All is left is to form new habits and pick up what you have and move on to the next thing. Not much else us puny humans can do about it.
allmystery.de/i/tdf753d_480px_Fluttershy_Shrug.png
Well now. That's... something. I can't really imagine what that must feel like.
You'll manage to find something, surely. Despite what the world wants you to think, jobs do exist for people without a college degree, and there is always the option of going for that college degree.
Ever consider going into business yourself? You say that you have managed the store, perhaps you can create your own? Just a thought.
Good luck to you!
2634756
Yep it sucks, but there's no use in cryin' over spilled milk, as they say. What's done is done. I'm not sure what I'm going to do now, but I'm optimistic.
2634875
Yep. I wouldn't say that I'm "shaken up" so much as overwhelmed. I was completely blindsided by the whole thing, and while I didn't think that I would be there for the rest of my life, I wasn't planning on leaving any time soon. But as you said, I am still young, and time is something I have on my side.
Aww, thanks!
2635139
I'll tell you what it feels like: awful. At first I felt like I had just wasted the last ten years of my life, because ten years is a significant investment, and now I'm going to have to start back at square one. But, I'm still alive, and I can afford a ten year loss. I imagine that it would have been much worse if this had happened a few more years down the line.
2635148
If there's one thing I've learned that my years at the shop have taught me, it's that going into business, is hard. Managing a store is no walk in the park, but owning one, is even worse. I've had glimpses of what it was like, and it's the antithesis of the low-stress lifestyle.
Thanks all for the kind words!