….but I’m back. Settle in for a lengthy post, because there’s a lot to catch up on. I also want to share my plans for this blog with you.
It’s amazing how much life can change in a few short years. My last post was about my son’s wedding… two years ago. I had intended to continue blogging when I returned, but real life announced it was calling shot-gun.
The following December, after returning from Cabo in April, I was let go from my job. A job that I held for 6 years. I worked at a Kmart Distribution Center in Colorado unloading trucks in receiving. I gave that job my best, but evidently, my best wasn’t good enough. They used an archaic quota system that didn’t change much with the changes in the business, and it became increasingly difficult for any of us to “make our numbers”. I fell below on rolling average to the point that termination was the next step in their protocol.
It was humiliating and frightening. Humiliating, because I gave everything I had to that job, and that’s probably why I lost it. I was not one to cut corners….cover things up….or do anything outside the standards laid out for all of us who worked in the department. I used to see people hiding damages and being careless with freight to save time and not fall below. All most of them cared about was hitting that magic number of 100%.
I’m old school. I can’t work like that, so, for doing a good job, they got rid of me. My immediate supervisor took me up to HR to get my final paycheck, and then I was escorted out like a criminal. It felt like “The Walk of Shame”.
I was scared too, because I had just bought my townhouse a year and a half prior and was horrified at the thought of possibly losing it. I was a first time homeowner at the age of 52. It took me THAT long to get here.
Sometimes your faith in God eludes you in the first few hours after something like this happens. I sat in the parking lot and cried, wondering what in the world I was going to do.
I called my son and told him, “I just lost my job!”. His response was quite unexpected. “Good, now you can get a real job! Call this guy……”.
I should probably back up a bit at this point and tell you that back in 1994 I went to school and got a class A commercial driver’s license. I drove a truck for quite a few years before I got the job at the DC. I was….or so I thought at the time I took that job…..that I was tired of truck driving. I had been doing it for a long time and wanted something new. For some reason, I kept my CDL and I’m glad I did.
Anyway….the guy my son told me to call was the owner of a trucking company who’s primary business was in the oilfield, which until recently, was booming. I called him and he gave me a job without even meeting me. That was my first blessing. The second one was that I would be making $3.50 an hour more than I was making at the DC.
I love when God reveals himself to me through blessings in disguise. I had kept my CDL, but didn’t bother with keeping up my DOT physical card. I wasn’t driving, so figured I didn’t need it. I also didn’t keep up with the ever-changing regulations and didn’t know that the rules were changing in 2014 regarding physicals. You had to keep your physical card current in order to keep your CDL. Had I stayed in my old job, I would have lost my CDL, because my physical card had long expired. I would have had to start all over again. God had the good sense to yank me out of a job I hated and stayed in because, I hate change and am a huge procrastinator when it comes to changing jobs. His timing is always perfect.
I don’t want to go into all the details, because that would take too long and everything will fall into place as we go along here.
The main reason I had to stop blogging for so long is lack of time. I have come to realize that I’m not very good at time management and I had too many irons in the fire. A blog for this….a blog for that…..it was all too much. I think I probably threw the baby out with the bath water and chucked it all in, instead of just paring it down.
So, for now anyway, this is the only blog I plan on keeping. Family life, my work in process known as my townhouse, my Zazzle offerings, and whatever else I fee like talking about here.
It feels good to be back and I hope my old readers will find me again.
