It All Started When...

I recieved a mysterious phone call at work early Tuesday afternoon. The person on the other line did not have good news for me: and they weren't very nice about it either.

They told me that I was about to lose my job.


And then they hung up.


I sat for a moment in complete bewilderment, unsure as to how I should process this information. After all, it's not everyday you are forewarned of something like this. Was this person serious? Or was someone just playing a horribly mean practical joke? I was hoping for the latter, but didn't quite feel I would be so lucky.

I marched into my supervisor's office to share with her the disturbing news that I just recieved, and I could almost see the blood drain from her face.

"I... uhmmm... I'm going to call the owner. That's ummmm... really... uhhh.... really wierd."


Yeah. Real wierd.


I knew right then and there that something fishy was going on, especially when I found out that the boss man was coming in right away. He's never there during the day.

I should have started packing my stuff right then and there. But in a desperate attempt at salvaging my job (and my dignity), I kept on trucking. I worked until the very last second. Well, suffice it to say, that didn't help me very much, because at 3pm I was packing a plastic bag of what little of my personal items that I actually kept at my office.

Yes friends: I lost my job.

I wasn't expecting it - AT ALL. Just two weeks ago, the owner and I discussed my raise. He said there were a couple of things that needed some tweaking but that overall, I was exactly where I should be in terms of my progress: and that we could revisit the raise in a month - or in two weeks if things were going well. Even at that point, the "things" that needed tweaking were vague. I did my best from that point on to make sense of it and "correct" what I thought might be the problem.

But apparently the owner had other plans. From that point on, he had been looking for someone to replace me.

In the end, he gave me not one good reason as to why he was letting me go other than, "you weren't quite meshing with the manufacturing end of things".

Whatever that means.

He said that I ran a really tight ship in the administrative side of things, but that I wasn't quite "getting" manufacturing.

Hmmm.

Does this add up for any of you?

Yeah, me neither.

So, I took my plastic bag filled with all my things, and gracefully began "The Walk of Shame" out the door.

********************************

I got into my car, quickly started the engine, and it took everything in me to keep from peeling out of the parking lot at four hundred miles per hour.

I grabbed my phone, and dialed the only person in the world I would have trusted to handle me in my delicate state of mind at that very moment.

My wonderful friend Katie.

"Hey girl, is everything okay?"

As you can imagine, I turned into a blubbering mess within 2.5 seconds. I told her what had just happened, and as I suspected, she did a marvelous job at calming my fears. She reminded me of God's plan for my life. She reminded me that no matter how awful I may feel the situation is, or how grim the potential outcome, GOD is the one in control here. HE has a plan for my life.

"Oh my goodness Katie you are totally right!"

And that's when it hit me: I had been praying for a new job situation that would be flexible around my school schedule come fall of this year. The program that I will be enrolling in is not a night/weekend type of program. I need my days: and a fourty hour-a-week day job just wouldn't cut it. So I had been hoping to possibly be cleaning houses and working at Starbucks by fall so as to have the majority of my daytime free to work on my bachelors degree.

Okay God, aren't You a little early here? It's only FEBRUARY!

"GOD is in control. HE has a plan for my life".

After I got off the phone with Katie, I called my friend J. who cleans houses part-time to supplement her income as a massage therapist. I got her voicemail:

"J.... it's Stephanie. I need a favor."

**************************************

...TO BE CONTINUED.

I'm off to visit a friend of mine this weekend from college who's now living in Minnesota. It's her birthday and we are going to have lots of birthday fun! Road trip baby!

In the meantime, you all have a WONDERFUL weekend, and if I don't get to blog with you before then... see you Monday!