Thanks for the Cockblock, Life

My mom suggested that I call my sister to see if I could stay with her for a week or two and look for work.  Sounded like a good idea.  My sister lives close to Birmingham, which is a pretty big city with (hopefully) more job opportunities.  Staying with Shannon would mean I could live in the city without having to pay rent while looking for work.  

So, I gave her a call and she said I could come stay but to call her during the weekend to plan out the details because she had just gotten off work and was too tired to talk.  Fine.  Meanwhile, the lump is still in my throat and no smaller.  Concerned, I decided to call my ENT to talk to him about my options.  I was hoping I’d be able to get an appointment this week.  All the other times I had made an appointment, I was able to get in around the next day or so.   Not this time.  The next opening was two weeks away.  Crap.  Would I have enough time to swing on over to my sister’s house and find a job before coming back to see the ENT or should I just wait until the appointment to see where I should go with the lump treatment?  Decisions, decisions.

I decided to go ahead and go to Shannon’s and look for work until time to come back home to see the ENT.  If I found a job, I could reschedule the appointment.  If not, at least I went there and looked around and got a feel for the city.  If my sister would let me, I’d even go back after seeing the ENT.  

Well…

The day I was going to call my sister I got a phone call from my former supervisor from the company that shut down due to "illegal activities."  He told me the company was reopening.

I shat myself.

"Could be as soon as tomorrow," he said in his gruffy Southern drawl.  "Are you going to be available?"

I told him yes because, well, I was available, even if I was upset about the reopening.  Because I wasn’t employed, I couldn’t just turn down this job.

After ending the call, I felt sick.  I still do.

I hate that job.  I was glad when the place was shut down.  And because it has been shut down for so long and because it’s still up in the air as to whether the company is legal or not, I honestly thought I was done with that place.  I had closed that chapter.  In fact, I had nailed that baby up.  And now I’m having to pry it open again and it pains me to do so.  

I had a choice.  I could either decline returning to the job and go to my sister’s place as planned and risk not being able to find work there or I could accept returning to the job and have some job security.  As much as I had hoped I’d find work in the big city, there was no guarantee.  So, if I were to come back home with no job and turned down the job at the old company, I’d be back at square one.  Plus, I had to think of my mother’s nagging voice in my head, breathing down my neck and riding my back until I found work.  Obviously, I wanted to tell my former supervisor to shove it and go for the big city but that was too big of a risk.  Plus, I knew my mom would be upset, although she claimed she would let me decide.  Yeah, she’d let me decide but then she’d give me a guilt trip.  There are two things my mom does best: fry chicken and make me feel like crap.

Sure, you could say, "Don’t worry about what your mom thinks!  It’s your life!" 

Well…

That’s easy for you to say.  Sure, I don’t have to care what she thinks but I do.  And as much as she might not want me to give up this job in order to pursue something potentially better, I know she’d be majorly mad that I turned down a guaranteed job.  This lady has been on me ever since I was fifteen to get a job!  "Next year during this time I wanna see you filling out applications!"  Her disappointment is worse than her disapproval.  And I don’t want to live in the house with her in that kind of mood.  My mom’s a bit of a bitch.

The timing is absolutely horrible.  Why couldn’t this freaking place open back up after I went to see my sister and found a fantastic job and moved into an awesome apartment?  At the very least, why couldn’t it have opened up after I tried and failed to find work in my sister’s city?  At least then I could say I tried.  At least I would have had the opportunity.  But this is what happens to me.  The hope for an opportunity presents itself and then it’s snatched away right when I start to get excited.  It always seems things like this are happening and it just brings me down.  

Today comes around and my supervisor tells me to come in tomorrow at the regular time, a time I had to ask because it has been so long that I’ve forgotten my schedule. 

I then get a call later in the day from my supervisor’s supervisor asking me if I’d consider being on a different team for a different job.  After explaining it to me, I told him I’d consider it when given more information.  

He called me a few minutes later and told me to come in at 7am for a meeting to discuss the new position.  I asked him about the pay and he said it would be the same as I was making, which is lame.

"But you’ll be handling thousands of dollars every day," he chuckled.

"Oh, well that makes up for it," I said flatly.  These people are so irritating.  

The worst part?  It’s from 4 in the morning until noon.  That means I’d have to wake up at 1 in the morning to eat breakfast and get dressed before driving the hour and a half to get there.  That also meant I’d have to go to bed around six in the afternoon, when the sun is still out!  No bueno.  I’m a night owl through and through and I usually can’t function until it’s at least 10am.  And I’d have to work through the weekend.  But, I didn’t want to turn down this without seeing it through so I went ahead and agreed.

And the latest development:  My supervisor calls yet again to tell me we aren’t reopening tomorrow.  It might be the next day or three days from now. 

All this is absolutely ridiculous to me.  Why can’t they just keep that place closed until there is a definitive answer about the legality of the company!  Stop all this wishy washy back and forth b.s. that’s going down.  This is why I don’t want to go back.  This is why I don’t want to be a part of this company.  There’s too many politics involved and way too much garbage to sift through, not only from those who oppose the company but people within the company as well!  I’ll never forget how cold and uncaring the HR people were when I wanted to back out of my barback position.  Not to mention all that they’ve asked of us without ever showing any sort of appreciation.

I just hate being put in these awkward situations and having to make these hard decisions with no guarantee of success for either choice.  And most of the choices suck anyway.  I’m always having to choose the lesser of two evils and mostly end up choosing the…most evil option?  And as I said, when good things promise to fly my way, they go as soon as they come.

Ugh, I don’t know what to do.  I’ve got an unstable job on one hand and the hope but no guarantee of a job on the other hand.  And in between trying to juggle those decisions, I have a dentist appointment and ENT appointment that I need to fit into a shaky schedule.  I’m pretty frustrated right now.  I just wish that darn company would hold off until I could complete my sojourn to Shannon’s.

Unfortunately, the universe isn’t that accommodating.