Questionable Ethics and the Anger that Follows

One of my ex-co-worker/friends called me yesterday and had news he wanted to make sure I heard from him and not through the grapevine.

Apparently the layoffs were all a lie.  They're hiring other teachers.  They hired another math teacher, but with a math/science endorsement.  Perhaps they wanted a different staff with overlapping endorsements.  Perhaps they wanted a younger, less experienced staff so they didn't have to pay them as much as the people they laid off with Master's Degrees.  

They found out that Matt, the friend that called me, had been applying to other jobs, so they posted his position on CL and are making him reapply...  Does this sound crazy to anyone else?  They're making Matt REAPPLY to his OWN job because he was applying to other positions.  Is that legal?!  

They did the same thing to another ex-co-worker/friend two years ago after half the staff quit on them.  They called her and asked if she was looking at other jobs.  She made the mistake of being honest with them and admitted she had been, just keeping her options open.  They posted her job and made her reapply.  

I'm still not sad to be out of there.  You can see how completely preposterous and unethical the business practices are at that place.  But man I'm angry as hell.  I'm so angry that it's an anger that's buried and I've lost the words the describe how angry I am.  It's an anger that kept me up all night.  The people that run that school are sneaky, deceptive, unethical, and manipulative.  And I'm angry that I couldn't leave on my own terms and tell them where to shove it.  

Life in Limbo

(Prologue... Yes, I know it has been a long time since I posted.  Yes, I know that my adoring fans have been waiting with bated breaths for me to resume cataloging my every thought.  I got a bit overwhelmed with life in general since February and couldn't really bring myself to make time to write about it all... You'll see why in the coming post...)

Before I start actually blogging about specific topics, I think I need to just give myself a chance to close my eyes and just type away.  That's usually when I can write about the things that have been weighing on my mind.  Just a stream-of-consciousness type of writing that tends to get everything that's been bottled up, out in the open, and frees up my subconscious a bit.

I used to write a LOT when I was in my formative years.  I had a super nice sprial notebook - two actually - that I used for my journal. With thick paper and the stiff cardboard cover.  I'd write almost every single day from 8th grade onward.  It was usually just jibberish that I could never bring myself to read later on because it was either too embarassing to be face to face with my raw emotions, or it wasn't a reflection of how a truly felt.  But writing always made me feel better, like working out, or deep-cleaning my house.  It released a blockage that allowed me to be freer.  Happier?

So I guess that's why I blog.  Not because I have anything particularly interesting that I want the world to know about.  But to free up my mind.  I know I could do this in private - some posts do end up going in the private bin - but I also like knowing that there are people out there that are interested enough in my life and my thoughts to check in and read my out-there inner monologues.  Hi mom!  Hi Reezy!  :-)

Anyway... Life in limbo.  I guess since February, things at work started getting pretty awful.  Things had been going pretty well before then, but suddenly administration got really angsty and uptight and started the whole passive-aggressive administrating routine that almost drove me to quit my first year there.  It turns out, budgets got cut in every school district that we did business with, so our budget got cut, so 4 out of 7 teachers got laid off - myself included.  Which I hold is a good thing for me.  I didn't want to work there, but I was having a hard time finding a way out.  Now I'm out, with stellar references, and unemployment to hold us through until I find another job!  I was hoping to make it another year there, so Bryann and I could finish paying off our loans, but that was just not to be.  Hopefully it will turn out to be a "blessing in disguise" sort of a situation.

Thank goodness we started paying off our student loans when we did!  Since we got really serious about becoming debt-free, we've paid off nearly $30,000 since November 2011!  If we hadn't, our minimum payments would have been nearly unmanageable at this point with me out of work and surviving on Bryann's salary and unemployment.  But as it stands, we only have $150 loan payment, and one loan left!  Here's the board update:

We had hoped to be completely debt-free by May of 2013, but I think that pay-off date has been pushed back by quite a bit.  Bryann has been strongly considering going back to school to get his MBA, so if we cash flow that, it'll be another year after he graduates in 2015 until we can payoff that last student loan.  There are a lot of things still up in the air, but I'm happy with where we are, and I'm proud of us and all of the sacrifices we've had to make in the last year in order to make this happen.

In the meanwhile, I'm job-hunting.  Paul is being super-amazing and is basically being my job-hunting coach. He's meeting with me weekly to help keep me accountable to someone and to offer whatever insights and advice he can.  The theory we're working on is that the more applications I have out there, and the more people I get connected to and talking about their companies, the higher my chances of landing a good position and not working at a gas station.  My goal is to apply to 30 jobs this week, and I'm at 18 currently.  (I'm procrastinating and writing this blog post because I got real tired of copy-pasting my work history over and over again on applications.)  I don't have a particular job narrowed down.  I'm looking at Training, HR, Admin, Accounting assisting, Analyst assisting, and Education consulting.

How am I doing?  That's a great question.  It's been difficult to get out of bed and get moving.  I'm half-way through the 4th season of "Dawson's Creek".  My house is a disaster and looks like college boys have been living in it for months.  Currently it's 3:51 and I'm still in my pajamas and I haven't showered.  But I'm making progress, I guess.  I think being laid off, or being without work has the same stages as grief.  Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.  Maybe I'll throw in another one - Drive.  I'm currently still in the Anger phase, mixed a little with Bargaining ("If only I could just go back in time and do it again, I'd pick the 'right' major, and start my career on the 'right' track") and Depression (see current state at 3:51 pm.)

But I know I'll get through it.  Left-foot, right-foot.  It just super-sucks in the meantime.  As much as I promote myself as an adventurer and free-spirit, I hate the unknown.  I like to have things planned out, and have life be predictable.  I like to know what the next step is.  And right now, I don't.  I just have to put myself out there, be vulnerable, prepare myself for a lot of rejection, and have faith that there are no mistakes.  That everything happens for a reason.  That my life will be the better for the challenges that I've survived, and the trials that I've faced.

Until then, here's a cute picture of my dog (taken while still in bed, watching "Dawson's Creek" this morning...)