Back From The Dead

Well, once again it's been months since I wrote anything in here. A lot has happened since then. An entire shitload.

First, in February, right before my birthday, there was a big meeting at work. Somebody from the head office came in and told us they're closing the office I worked at.

Right. Worked at. Past tense.

It turns out with all the free on-line yellow pages & smartphones nobody needs 411 anymore. Verizon closed their Weldon Spring office & another one, in Florida or somewhere.

They were nice enough about it. They gave us about a month's notice that we were going on an all expenses paid trip up Shit Creek. They could have just walked in and told us all to get out.

Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

They did let us take off the rest of the day. I guess they didn't want us either giving out wrong numbers to get even or just sobbing hysterically to all the customers. I went right to the unemployment office, but they said there wasn't anything I could do right then. Not until I was officially unemployed.

So in March I was out of a job. On the bright side, Verizon offered everybody a pretty sweet buy-out. They offered buy-outs about every year. Last year they didn't get enough takers the first time so they offered a second round.

I don't remember right off the top of my head how much I got for my payout. It was a certain amount for everybody & then more depending on how many years you worked there. The people who worked there the longest got the most. People who just started didn't get as much. I think I got about $10,000 or so, at least in theory. In reality the IRS got about 1/3 of my money.

That still left me enough money to buy a camper.

Which I needed because this year is the 20 year anniversary of the Great Flood of 93. We joked when we moved  back into the floodplain that we were just doing it to take advantage of the unavoidable repeat performance. Move to the floodplain, load up on flood insurance & just wait for the water to pour into our new house, then laugh all the way to the bank.

It almost worked.

Not that we really wanted to get flooded. Believe me, I've been flooded often enough to know it's just not worth the aggravation. It's fun in theory, but the reality is an enormous pain in the ass. It's smelly & messy & very annoying.

This year the water came up & up & up. It eventually broke the levee & started creeping it's way closer & closer. Then, before it got to town, it started going back down.

Then the river changed it's mind & started coming back up & up & up. It did that over & over. Up & down & up & down.They couldn't fix the levee until the water stayed down long enough for everything to dry up. I'm just assuming it's finally fixed now.

I was so glad I had the buyout money because believe it or not getting unemployment isn't really like winning the lottery. It's more like finding change in your sofa cushions. The buyout money was going to let us keep afloat until I was able to get a job. I gave myself 6 months because besides the buyout money Verizon let us all keep our health insurance for 6 months. I thought I'd take a couple of months off & then get another job.

No problem.

Turns out getting a job wasn't as easy as I thought. Sure, I had a couple of pretty good nibbles. There's a company in Wentzville that schedules medical transportation for people that was hiring phone operators. One of the ladies that interviewed me was one of the bosses at Verizon, so I thought I had a pretty good shot at that job, but no. For some reason I wasn't good enough. Then there was another company in Lake Saint Louis that does basically the same thing but for veterans, and the lady that interviewed me went to school at Winfield a couple of years ahead of me, but, once again, I didn't make the cut. They wanted somebody with experience dealing with VA paperwork.

It kept going like that. I put in applications all over the place, but usually didn't get any farther, then a company would tease me with a possible job & then say no. The most promising job was working for a company named Serco that got a government contract running a phone bank for Obamacare. I went to their big hiring fair& they hired me.

Sort of.

I was conditionally hired. I thought that just meant as long as I passed the drug test & background screening I had a job, but what it really meant was they already filled all the positions available & if they hire more people later on they'll get back with me.

After that I pretty much gave up. My insurance was running out & with all the money we sank into the camper (& a truck to pull it with) we were running out of money. So I ended up hitting all the temporary agencies on-line. A bunch of nothing, then all of a sudden I got a bunch of offers. Working at a Nike factory inspecting inflated shoe insoles. I would have taken that job even though it sucked. I mean, seeing these microscopic imperfections in these little clear plastic pillows was hard.

There was another job I wanted more. Working in a warehouse for Citibank, just filing paperwork & scanning forms & things. I applied for the second shift through Kelly & the first shift through another temp agency. Can't think which one anymore. I waited & waited to see if I'd get that job, finally gave up & told them to send me to the Nike factory, then that day both companies called & said I had the Citibank job. I went with Kelly. Partly because I worked for them before & partly because second shift paid 50 cents an hour more.

So now I have a job. Sure, it's a temporary job, & there isn't any insurance or anything, but I'm working. The best part is they're letting me get 10-15 hours of overtime every week, so we're almost caught up on all our bills now.

Plus a couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail from Serco saying they might be hiring more soon.

Stay tuned.