Fired

I've come close for it before, but I've never been honest-to-God fired until two weeks ago. I always imagined it would go something more like



but in truth it was very antiseptic, by design I'm sure. I mean, I was there reeling from the shock of it that I couldn't say anything because so many bells were going off in my head. I really have to get better at that. I let it go, and rolled away.

How it happened is very very stupid. Everyone involved is stupid, me included. Stupid me, in a discussion of Internal Conflict in front of a 6th-grade Language Arts class, drew an example that it is what you feel when you have five dollars and you can't decide to use it to buy a gun, or some crack. It's a joke, right? I think we can all agree on that? Its a stupid joke, but I remember Middle School Language Arts as a time that I really didn't enjoy myself, a fact I attribute to presentation, considering that it turned out being the one thing that I enjoyed over everything else. I wanted, for my one day, to make the idea of it fun, to make the kids interested. And it worked! I swear it did! I got their damn little attentions. All was good, and if I had never gone back to the school, there would have been no problems, because no one had told me of any problems. But I did, about two weeks later. It seems that, in the time that I had been gone, word had gotten back to a (or more, I'll explain the questions I have later) parent, who I suppose was Livid, or something, and demanded that I not be allowed back at the school. The school was all 'naturally, of course' blah blah blah. But they didn't follow through. I picked up a job for the school a couple weeks later, not a worry in my mind. I was working as the same kids' science teacher, actually. During first period, a school administrator came to the room, which I thought nothing of, as sometimes admins will do that to make sure kids are behaving for subs. He rolled in, saw I was sitting at the teacher's desk, saw the kids were quietly working at theirs, and all was good. Minutes before fourth period began, another admin came to the room where I was sitting alone, told me to gather my things, and that I would be leaving. It appears that one of the students whose parents had complained before had called their parent who then had called the school to ask what the hell I was doing back there. The next day, I was in the middle of actually a very stress-free day (which was great considering the day before) at another school, when I got a call informing me 'You have been terminated, but please feel free to apply to work at other Kelly Services, just not with Kelly Educational Services.' Ugh. I'd been told that a do not send will not result in immediate termination, but apparently 'in some situations' it does.

A lot of this is very hazy, I know, and I think that's for good reason. The only thing that I really know for certain is that I lost my job as a substitute teacher. I've only been able to piece together everything else through what people kinda let slip when I pushed them on it. See, when you're me, you're expendable. A parent calls and wants a replaceable teacher gone? Get them out of the building and don't say goodbye. A school says GOD ONLY KNOWS what I did? Cut em off, give the jobs to the deserving. And without a word more, I'm back to not pulling in any income.

I'm alright, I've been saving for Taiwan enough that I won't die, and if I can pick up a new job soon enough, there won't be much of a speed bump. Worst case scenario, I can get a start-up loan from Hess, so I'll be ok. It just fucking sucks to lose a job for trying where I literally could have chosen to do absolutely nothing.

And now I'm stuck looking for jobs. I've been spending a lot of time looking online, which is great because 80% of them are scams, just a little more of a tragedy injection when I get to spend 15-20 minutes working on a pretty nice Cover Letter, only to get in return a reminder that I'm crawling with the leeches these days.

Once I got an interview! For really reals! See if you can count the bad ideas- It was at a Hotel on the interstate near the neighborhood where I grew up, with tripadvisor reviews such as “STAY AWAY!!!” and “Not really a good choice.” I sent in my Resume, and was told that 'Open Interviews' would be held on Thursday and Friday, and that although they had my resume, I'd have to fill out an application. I showed up early on Friday, with about eight other people in the lobby for the same reason I was. I was told that they had run out of applications, and they would print more for me, but they had also run out of paper. It'll be about an hour before more comes in. I come back in an hour, and in the 10 minutes that it takes me to fill out the app, a screaming lady runs into the lobby demanding that they call the police, to which the workers there ask that she calm down or else they'll call the police on her. She doesn't, so they do, to escort her off of the property. I believe that the insinuation therein was that she was a prostitute, but I can't be sure. I finish my application, hand it over, and they tell me they'll call me. The insinuation THERE being they've already hired someone.

I'm gonna level with everyone here- this whole deal has me feeling pretty worthless. I'm fired from a job I'm WAY more than qualified for, and then spend my time dodging scam artists while being told I'm not good enough for consideration for jobs I'm WAY WAY WAAAAAAY more than qualified for. Fuck this life, you know?