Stains!

Before I got pregnant with Tyrus I had a daycare that I ran out of my home. It worked perfectly for me. I was able to be home with the kids every day and still bring in some money. Ive worked odd jobs all my life, mostly things that dealt with customer service. I even worked for Discover Card at one point. The majority of my life has been at home, raising my kids, and babysitting other peoples kids. I loved it. I invested my life in other peoples lives. It was wonderful. Who could ask for more?

When I got pregnant with Tyrus I lost a lot because of my choices. I lost both of my babysitting jobs (I had two). One left because of personal changes in her life (love you S) and the other left out of hate towards me. I was left pregnant, no boyfriend, no job, and four little mouths to feed. It was a scary place to be. I was living off child support and food stamps.

I wanted out. I believe there is a time and a place to be on government assistance, but one must not make a career out of it. I wanted to be self sufficient so I made a choice to jump back into the work force again. I had babysat or cleaned houses for years and I wanted to prove to myself that I could do more. I could do better for me and my kids. So after Tyrus was born.....I got a job...a wonderful job in an orthodontics's office. I was the receptionist. It quickly became my favorite job EVER!!

Soon after my job started, I started noticing some "not so good" things. It was a family owned practice with the only employees being me and the assistant. The doctors wife was the office manager and essentially the one who I would always go to. Everything went through her.

A few weeks into my job I received my first review. I was informed that the Doctor didn't trust me because I was a "single mom with four kids who would probably be looking for a man to support her and consequently get married, run off and leave us high and dry." I was blown away by this comment but being my normal passive self just pushed it off. After about the third time of being told I was on probation and repeatedly being told the Doctor didn't trust me I had to say something. I told my boss who I will call "O" that the assistant was a single mom to and that she had just as much of a chance to run off and marry a man as I did. To that "O" replied "but she has a degree and does this for a living."

These comments were thrown around constantly during my seven months of employment. I was repeatedly told that I was not doing a good job and I basically spent the entire seven months of my job on probation. I believe that the doctor would do things to me to be vindictive...simple things like asking me to bring my own tissues "because I use to many and I was causing the office to much money in tissues", or locking me out of the office if I used the back door to use the restroom(we didnt have a bathroom we could use in the office). Yes I could go through the front but I preferred to use the back door so that the entire waiting room didn't know that I just went to the restroom. Any time I would get ice out of the ice maker he would empty it as if to avoid my germs. These things seem silly I'm sure....but they really degraded me.

In all honesty, I did make mistakes. This job requires a lot of accuracy and I did the best I could but would fall short sometimes. I believe this was my only shortcoming though. I worked every day I could, was never late and in eight months never missed a single day of work. I was very proud of that accomplishment. It wasn't easy. I have four children and to juggle all their little lives and my job was sometimes very challenging.

Most recently (within the past month) my hours were cut drastically. The new rule was if there was only four patients in the morning then they would ask me not to come in. One day while sitting in the lunch room I read on the office wall that I could apply for partial unemployment if my hours were reduced. I thought it was a good way to make supplemental income since my paychecks had been so slim with the cut in hours. In my head it was a great solution. Apparently it was not. "O" received my unemployment papers in the mail and directly called my coworker (the only other non family employee in the office) and asked if she knew anything about me filing unemployment. Fortunately the assistant and I are friends so she promptly called me. I felt violated. My boss was calling people and sharing my personal information. I confronted my boss the next day...(which was actually yesterday) and her response was "I had to find out what was going on."

Today, on a beautiful sunny day and what seemed to be a good "working" day....

I was fired.

Back to the drawing board. If you pray....pray for me! In all honesty, I feel like a dirty old shirt with a bunch of stains on it. I know I'm worth more, I just don't feel it right now.