Fifth Man at the Table

I guess this all starts back in September of ‘17, or thereabouts. I was working at a call center handling customer service for a phone company and I was good at it. Not really amazing, I wasn’t a top performer, but I was always among the best on my team. But then I got sick... I thought I had pneumonia. I couldn’t make it into work as often as I should, but I also couldn’t really get medical attention, so I didn’t qualify for a leave of absence either. Eventually, in December, I was let go.

So I moved to a new city and started over! Things were great for a couple months, but I was still sick and it was catching up with me. I kept missing more work because I just wasn’t healthy enough to make it to and from work.  Finally, in either April or May of ‘18, I had my wisdom teeth pulled and my dentist prescribed antibiotics to make sure they didn’t get infected. Suddenly my chest was clear and I was healthy! Things were turning around! And then work decided I had already missed too much time and sent up the paperwork to let me go. I was blindsided. My attendance was nearly perfect after I got better, and they let me go seemingly out of nowhere.

I was out of options, I moved back home. 

This is where things take a turn for the worse. Late September, I start working at Hobby Lobby. Not a bad job, but I’m not getting enough hours, plus I’m only seasonal. Things are going alright for about a month, but business isn’t picking up like expected and they have to start looking at letting people go. I was one of the most recent hires, my position was the most overstaffed, so I was the first to go. They did make sure to say it was because I was working too slow (which is bullshit, I was as fast as any of the other guys) but the real reason was the lack of business.

So now, I’m sleeping on my dad’s floor, looking for work again. Finding nothing. The month is starting to wind down, and my best friend is gearing up to move out of state. I’m sad because I won’t get to see her anymore, but (other than being stressed about it) she seems to genuinely be happy for the move, so I’m happy for her. But I still end up making an ass of myself at her going away party. She hasn’t spoken to me since, and it hurts, but I see her posting on Facebook, and things seem to really be going well for her, so at least I can be happy for her. I still miss her influence in my life. Maybe she’s tried texting me, but that phone is turned off now, so I don’t know if I’ll ever find out.

After she moved, things started to spiral out even worse. Still not having any luck finding work, my family decided I was just being lazy. Nothing I did around the house was good enough, they found flaws with everything. My dad bought a house in that time frame, and we moved to a neighboring city. I helped back, I helped load, I helped unload, I cleaned the old house, but somehow it wasn’t enough. The last week, as we were finishing up, I was at the other house, everyday, alone for many of it, and the final day the first thing my stepmom said to me when I got there was complaining about how I hadn’t done enough, and how now she had to work on it too. At one point, my dad got my stepbrother a job, but since I didn’t beg him for one, he decided I would be an embarrassment, and didn’t even ask.

Things have continued like that since, and it’s getting to be too much for me. At the start of March, I was moved out to the shed in the backyard. I’ve been told I’m not allowed to shower/bathe everyday, and I have to be out looking for work from 10-4 everyday. There aren’t really enough businesses to do that, but whatever. I’ve been out looking for work, and getting nowhere, I can’t talk to my family about anything, if I mention I got an interview, they immediately ask me what else I’ve done today. They’ve also decided I’m not doing enough around the house (the house I don’t even technically live in anymore) and have started putting me to work around the house.