When You Wake Up Unemployed…

26 Comments / Daily Dose, Work / By

The world is weird. Very weird.

When you wake up at 3am and can’t go back to sleep because your head is so congested you actually wish it would explode, you get up and take some meds and wander out to the deck with your phone waiting for the meds to kick in.

But, there’s only one email box to check and it’s unsurprisingly empty because you’re an inbox zero kind of person and you cleared it a few hours ago and nobody sends newsletters at midnight.

There’s also no Convo (the messaging platform your little team uses to communicate throughout the day) to check.

There are no Facebook groups or pages to manage.

There are no feeds that you need to catch up on.

The internet is always slow at 3am but it’s much, much slower when you’re unemployed.

And, when you wake up again at 7:30am and open your browser … only two tabs open instead of 12.

There’s still only one email box to check, instead of three.

There’s no spam to pull. There are no problems to solve.

The internet is apparently somewhat slow at 7:30am, when you’re unemployed.

So you wander off to mow (most of) your front lawn.

And then you get your paperwork taken care of for the company you’re no longer employed by. As you seal up the company phone and get dressed so you can run it over to the UPS drop off, you discover a small problem with the aforementioned paperwork but that’s solved within two minutes. So you drive the 1 mile to drop off the box and spend 10 minutes wandering around the little five and dime store that is home to the UPS drop off and smile because you live in this tiny little town with this tiny little store. A line scratched off of my to do list and a happy little diversion, too. #Win.

When you get home, you discover a potential issue in your inbox but even that one is resolved pretty quickly so there’s nothing left to do except file for unemployment benefits.

As frustrating as that little task is, (error messages on submit, hahahahahahaha, welcome to my life), it still only took 30 minutes.

And suddenly, it’s 4:30pm and I wonder how in the hell that happened.

An entire busy day where I worked in service to myself or my family and not my company or my community. How weird is that?

So weird, for me.

I haven’t gone one single day in the last 10 years without assisting a member of my community or a co-worker. Not one. Weekends, I worked. Holidays, I worked. Vacations, I worked. I worked the day my daughter got married. I worked the days by grandsons were born. I worked the days I moved to Chicagoland and then back to Florida. I didn’t work all day, some times it was just one email or one text message or one Convo message or five minutes of pulling spam. But I have always done SOMETHING work-related.

Waking up unemployed… crazy weird and I get to do it again tomorrow. Better yet, I get to figure out LinkedIn. Oh good grief, LinkedIn. Sheesh.

26 thoughts on “When You Wake Up Unemployed…”

  6. Cathy

    Bummer. Did your unemploymnet happen fast so. no prep time to anticipate what its going to be like?

  7. Somer

    You were the best, THE BEST community manager. It was impossible to feel overwhelmed, overlooked, or left out with you at the helm.
    *hugs*

  9. Julie

    I’m feeling you Denise. You will find a way to be indispensable again– because people know a good thing. I know it feels weird right now.

  10. Mel

    Wow…I am in shock. You have always done an amazing job! I’m sorry for your job loss. I hope you are able to heal and when it is the right time, a new job that is perfect for you!

  11. SunbonnetSmart.com

    I had a sicky feeling when I couldn’t find you both in LA. You did so much for so many. This is a grand beginning, not a sad end, but it sure is a shock. Love you. Thank you. Much Love, Fondly, Robin

  12. nelle douville

    I hear you, if one can hear written words. I like to think I can. I’ve been there in the not so distant past. The world is different, that unemployed status. Employment is everything obvious and much more. Sharing what we do (or asking about it) is how we break the ice when we meet someone. When the old gang from the job just past gets together, some of us (me) choose not to go because well… it’s embarrassing to be the last one unemployed. It doesn’t matter that I stayed two months longer than the rest to close things out, nope. What is the now?

    But here’s the deal. I am a huge believer in things working out. In adversity there is opportunity. When a co-worker last year worried herself silly over the coming end of our programme, I reassured her with this, that she would find a job suited to her desired career path. Twelve months later, she’s working with the court system and with young adults, exactly her field of study and work interest.

    My last day of work was 11/27/15. Me, with a felony conviction. In the following months, I applied for maybe 90 jobs and interviewed for 8. If I were to take each one and lay them out to examine and choose which was most desirable, a funny thing would happen.

    It would be the job I now hold. Hands down, no contest. Essentially, for me at this stage of my life and my experiences, the only thing I’d rather be doing is writing, and I get to do that in this job as well, even if it is in a legal context.

    I have little doubt, zero doubt as in none, that you will find what your heart seeks. And you will begin the dogged pursuit of excelling in a new endeavour.

    I not only believe in you, I believe this is how it will work.

  26. elaine plummer

    You so captured what having no job is like, as I have been there. You were the best support and did seem to always be on duty – kind of like a nurse for bloggers. Thank you for all you have done for me. All the best finding yourself once again.

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