In April of 2009 I quit my job as a legal assistant for a work at home job….and it didn’t work out….my “employer” ended up not having the ability to pay me when his financial backing backed out. I hadn’t been out of work a day in my life since I started working and I didn’t know what to do, where my next rent payment would come from and how on earth I was going to feed the family on one salary when we’d been barely making it on two.
This is not the first time I’ve dealt with a life changing circumstance.
First, I told myself, be positive. I said self, “I have always been employed, it stands to reason that I am a reliable, important employee and someone needs me or I’d have been out of work a little more often.”
It was scary, eye opening and now that I look back without my rose colored glasses – I should’ve known better than to make an emotional decision. At the heart of the whole thing, I hated my job and it wasn’t the job, it was my boss. He had a way of making you feel like the smartest dumbass on the block and he was the only one that could bring the genius out. I had to part ways with that man and I took the first train out. If I had thought it through more, I would have realized that making that jump was a bad idea.
Suddenly, two weeks after my 30th birthday, I realized I didn’t have a paycheck coming and made the first of what I expected to be a few phone calls to borrow money until I got a job, from my family. I was very fortunate that I had someone that I could call, then I touched up my resume, which I’d been doing for a while anyways so there wasn’t much to be done there, and then I started scouring the area for jobs.
I was scared of what would happen, uncertain of our future and not sure how long it would be until I found another job, let’s face it, they’re not in the plentiful supply that some of us have been used to in other times. I found a job though, and it happened quicker than I expected, I have a large skillset to offer as well reliability, accountability and consistency. My resume speaks for me and I can interview pretty well most of the time.
“When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.” -Henry Kaiser 1882 – 1967
It wasn’t the end of the world, as with most trials that we face in life, it was scary but I survived. Hardships in life present themselves for two reasons, you bring it on yourself with a bad decision, or you have an external influence that screws the pooch, the pooch being you.
Ultimately, you have two choices in facing it, play the victim and feel sorry for yourself or formulate a plan and take action to solve the problem. It’s up to you, but know this….a bad situation doesn’t have to be the end of the world.
