Getting Laid... Off

It came out of nowhere. I was having a terrible day last week. One of those mornings where nothing was going right. I kept telling myself that it wasn't a bad day - days themselves cannot be bad - but the evidence kept piling up to the contrary. I was just getting over a summons to go to court as an expert witness for a patient involved in a car accident (this is apparently a horrendous ordeal) when I got a message to call Theovis.

He sounded terse. "How's your day going?" "It's getting better. I'm not letting it get me down." (I'd called him in a panic about the summons). "It's about to get a lot worse," he said. "You got laid off!" I exclaimed.

I knew almost immediately because there had been lay offs a few weeks earlier. That was only 7 people but this time was 25. He was obviously really upset while we chatted and I was in total shock. I'd just changed clinics and have been rather slow so I'm not making as much as I usually do. What the hell were we going to do?

As it turns out, he has lots of employment options but is going to take it easy for a while since he's getting paid (fingers crossed) until the 15th.

It really breaks my heart because he put his whole self into that job. He described it to someone as his dream job. He is a fabulous worker and to have someone rip that out from under him made me so angry. I felt like a lioness: wanting to go tear off some heads down at head office. That angry, protective instinct is so interesting since I'm usually the least confrontational person in the world, avoiding it all costs generally. I was ready to go down to the office and bust some heads because they hurt someone I love. Grrrr!

I wandered in a daze into one of the physio's office and when I started speaking, I started crying. There's nothing like crying at someone on your third week on a job. Who is this basket case? She was very nice, though and made me feel less like a freak.

I had a huge gap in my day so I wandered down to a park near the ocean and let the breeze clear my head. I headed back to work feeling not much better but at least able to keep myself together.

After a week to let it sink in (I think) we're doing better. Theovis plays late killing monsters on the computer. Very therapeutic, in my opinion. I've been working hard on my side jobs, trying to earn a few extra bucks and have been successful at fighting my usual response to stress - shopping. Retail therapy is not an option at this point.

It's more disillusionment and disappointment than anything else that makes the whole situation such a blow. Theovis would have been happy to stay there for quite a few years, which is unusual in our generation of job hoppers. All I can say is they'd better not try and screw around with any of the payments owed to both of us or I will stop resisting the urge to pay them a visit and some asses will be severely kicked!