It’s been… rough.
That’s the socially acceptable answer I’ve been telling people when they ask how I’m doing.
“This is some bullshit,” is what I actively think while being socially acceptable.
And not just bullshit… no. Like grade A, first-class level buuuuullllllllshit.
I got laid off from my job. That happened on May 10th. That was after receiving an email Friday, May 6th saying that I was approved to be promoted to Advisor II.
Talk about a kick to the balls. I had exceeded expectations every month on my scorecard according to the metrics used. I was in the mentorship program. I had outstanding customer service reviews from the borrowers I helped. I had been promoted to Team Caption for my group. I was actively working on transitioning to Global Training to start utilizing all of the teaching/training skills I have…
But… with the covid forbearance, Nelnet can’t justify the workforce it hired up. I and 27 other people logged in to work on the 10th to a meeting scheduled for 3pm to “Discuss Opportunities”.
It wasn’t a discussion, though. Nope. Just a bunch of confused and relatively optimistic teammates being told effective immediately all 27 of us, including my brother and the mentor who taught me during my own training period, were all fired. No warning… Just… dropped. All of us…
Our dedication. Our care. Our exceeding expectations. Our recent promotions… None of it mattered.
In Nelnet’s defense, they did have another company come in and speak to us about a position we could apply for. It would be cold calling people to try to sell their software… you know… totally the same thing as taking inbound calls for borrowers who wanted help managing their student loans… Oh, and since we would be “such a good fit” for this other company we would have “higher priority” if we applied to join their team.
Not even a gareentee for employment; which, I found out, the other company highered literally NO ONE from this meeting.
I logged out of the meeting and cried as Ox held me.
“I don’t understand,” was the only thing I could say. I said it over and over again as the realization that I was now unemployed refused to make sense inside my head.
I had done everything right. I had played the corporate game and played it well.
But none of that mattered. I didn’t have a backup plan because I had felt safe in that I didn’t need to worry about employment. I was a great employee and teammate. I didn’t have any corrective action on my record. I was involved with the company. I was engaged and active in all the extra stuff…
Didn’t matter.
Once I was done with my “I don’t understand” phase, I shut down hardcore, entered into over-function mode, and packed up my equipment. It was pointless to leave the computers and such setup. I wasn’t going to be able to log into anything anymore. I was going to have to return everything at some point. Might as well pack it up now.
I went from “I don’t understand” to “get shit done” in less than 20 minutes. I threw out all of the notes I had taken during training and from the online courses I had been taking. I disassembled the binder I had been creating to store all of my mentorship papers and scorecards. Fuck it. What’s the point in keeping this crap? I no longer have a job.
I spent all of that night on Indeed applying to literally anything I felt halfway qualified for. Fuck it. If guys can apply to things they don’t have all of the qualifications for, then so can I. And actually… that’s not 100% true. I had all of the required shit and most of the “preferred” shit.
Not required? Cool. Applied.
That’s pretty much how the next week and a half went. Applying and arranging interviews, having interviews, crying while I was alone and working through the feelings of failure from losing my job, and spending my nights sleepless as I applied to more and more things as a way to avoid the potential nightmares I knew where waiting behind my eyelids.
I’ve had to work through feelings of shame, unworthiness, and failure. I’ve had to reexamine my definition of “successfully adulting”. I have had to grapple with the reality that just because I interview well and feel like I have rapport with my interviewers, doesn’t mean I’m entitled to a callback, not even to let me know I didn’t get the position.
All of this has sucked.
While going through all of the job searching BS, my brother landed a job almost making 26 an hour.
I congratulated him when I found out. I am super happy for him. I also asked if that meant he would be able to pay the $300 like we had agreed to when I took over the lease for the house. He said that if I landed a job and no longer needed his financial support, then no, he wasn’t going to pay it.
He was hurt that I would even bring it up.
He’s making $10 more an hour than he was at Nelnet, and he’s going to not pay me like he agreed.
I’m hurt. I’m angry. And at this point, I don’t give a fuck what he does as long as he keeps his shit to himself and leaves me alone. I’m tired of him crying and saying how he “feels unloved”. I’m tired of trying to hug a catus and being worse off for it. He can figure his own shit out, just like I am having to figure mine out; without his help or support because how dare I think he would keep his word to me.
Anywho, I have accepted a job.
It’s not the one society is going to think I should accept. It’s not as a receptionist, which I’m more than qualified to do, and interviewed for, multiple times with offers. It’s nothing medical. It’s not something with the University of Nebraska, which I also interviewed with…
Nope. I accepted a position as an Auto Glass Technician and I, again, don’t give a fuck. The owner was super down to earth with me.
Him: We don’t get a lot of women applying for this job.
Me: I’m sure you don’t.
I want out of corporate. I want away from business casual bullshit and kissing ass and being punished for not doing it. I want out of the game because I’m tired of playing it and having it rigged for me to fail.
Fuck it. I’m going to go learn a trade, go to work, do my job, then go home and spend time with the cats and Ox.
Society: But it’s a step backward. You can do so much more. You’re better than that…
Fuck off and let me live my fucked up life, alright? Just… fuck off, with your judgements and standards and expectations. Live your own fucking perfect life and let me live my own battered and bruised one that’s nothing like what it was supposed to be when I was told to “envision my life” while I was still in fucking high school.
I’m angry. Still. I’m hurt, still. I don’t feel secure in “having a job” because I had one and then out of nowhere, BAM! No income, no preparation for joblessness, btw enjoy paying your rent lowly serf.
Yeah… must be nice being in higher management, not living paycheck to paycheck while the people doing good work get fucked.
Funny part to this whole story… Nelnet actually called me back Monday apologizing and asking me to come back…
Socially Acceptable Me: I have already accepted another position.
Rage-Filled me: No. Fuck you very much.
And if you’ve never heard Fuck You by Lilly Allen, here you go. You’re welcome.
Back to Nelnet asking me to come back… What? I’m going to come back so I can have a panic attack every day for eight hours wondering if THIS is the day I get laid off again?
Fuck that. I don’t buy into your core values anymore. I don’t buy into you “caring” about your employees. I was dropped so fucking fast I didn’t even know how to process it. I’m not going to come back. I CAN’T come back. I don’t trust you. To the point where I don’t know if I’ll be able to trust ANY employer again. At least I know I won’t for a really, really long time.
You TOTALLY fucked up my sense of self-worth.
Why, WHY would anyone go back after how you handled the situation? How could you have had the audacity to call me and think that saying sorry was going to be enough to fix all of the damage and fall out and uncertainty I was left alone to deal with over the past two weeks?
Go fuck yourself.
So yeah… I’m tentatively employed. I’m waiting to sign the papers to make it official. I’m terrified because he was supposed to call today, it’s 4pm and I haven’t heard anything. I fucking hate all of this. I’ve turned down other positions that pay more because he said I was highered and we would get the paperwork squared away.
I want to believe him. I truly do. We talked for an hour and a half in person. That’s not counting the time on the phone we were discussing things. I’ve lifted a windshield with them. I truly do think he is a man of his word who’s busy.
It’s so fucking hard to breath through the fear of being wrong, again. Of having said no to other things, to have fucked up other opportunities because I trusted.
Trust…
You know… this is where trust issues come from. From believing things, people, words, and then finding out you’re wrong and that wrongness fucking with your ability to survive.
“Trust issues” is really “self-preservation”. It depends on what side of the situation you’re on.
I don’t want to trust the Universe right now. But I really don’t have a choice. I’m in this story. I’m in this reality. The only thing I can do is keep breathing and course-correcting as I get new information.
I want to know where I’m going. I want to know where I belong. I want to know HOW everything will be ok. Not just blind faithing the crap out of “Everything WILL be ok.”
No mother-fucker. I want to know HOW. You owe me that much, Universe. And I know you don’t and I know you’re not going to give me answers because that’s not how any of this works. But you’re once again a mother-fucking son of a whore for this shit. I deserve to know HOW you intend for me to be ok. You want me to trust you with all your mystical bullshit of everything working out how it’s supposed to… How does being unemployed fucking help me? How does fucking with my sense of security HELP ME?!
I again, don’t have answers to anything. I’m just holding on, clinging, to something called “faith” and hoping that I don’t drown in the process. Holding my shit together is now a full-time, unpaid job. Fucking thanks for that. I’m my own charity case.
I hate it. I fucking hate it. Once I’m on the other side of this hard, I’ll appreciate the process and see how it helped me grow and all the lessons I learned and all that personal inner growth bullshit.
But right now, in this moment, I fucking hate the process. To my core, in my bones, fucking haaaaate it.
Warrior Freya 