- I went to work, hoping against hope that I wouldn't be doing a lot of bending today. I've been working on a different crew for 2 weeks and the new movements and repetetive actions have put my back and legs into severe agony. It hurts to lift my own weight, much less sit down or walk... I hoped my muscles would be adjusted by now but I spent all day yesterday bending and turning to set pots on the greenhouse floor and that just took a major toll. Anyway, sure enough I was scheduled for the same job today... *groan* It didn't last long, as I was called away to do something else, then something else again, and I was thinking it was going to be a good day after all. I could deal with the pain as long as I could move around and stretch now and then.
- I was called to the bunker after an hour or so at work. The site manager handed me my paycheck, explained that they had too many people and not enough work, and asked me to leave the site immediately, and I'd get paid for the whole day. Okay, so I'm laid off... at the time, my poor legs were imminently grateful.
- The company can't lay off an employee who has vacation time on the books. So they cut me a check for the vacation and then deducted the next 3 weeks' worth of health insurance co-pays and taxes from it. After that I have to pay the premium every week to keep it. Now, when I get called back, I'll have no vacation time left and will have to start my accrual over again. (This, after I shorted myself over Christmas break so I could carry some time into the new year...)
- I was told that I could collect unemployment benefits during the layoff. Great, except I had to open a new claim and this week is counted as a "waiting" week (that means an unpaid claim week which is mandatory for a new application). I can open the claim next week, but it will be 3-4 more weeks before I'll see a check, and that will be 50% of my gross pay less 10% taxes. If they'd told me (or all of us, for that matter) that layoffs were coming, I could have already had the claim open and the waiting period over with, but it came as a surprise to everyone. Therefore I have a week's worth of pay to last me for the next month. Yay.
- My mom didn't have such a great day either. Her car broke, I believe the clutch finally went out, and she doesn't have the $ to fix it right now. She was also off over the Christmas break so she doesn't have any time off either. The pharmacy didn't have a prescription she needed, she had to cancel some appointments... if she wasn't 800 miles away B and I could fix the car for her, but she doesn't even have a reliable mechanic in town she can trust. Toyota is a bit proprietary when it comes to parts too, so I have a bad feeling she's going to wind up getting soaked at a dealer service center.
And that's our day. Everything will work out, I have faith in that. None of it is life-threatening (maybe quality-of-life, temporarily, but oh well, not like we haven't seen worse) and nobody is going to be anything more than inconvenienced for a while. In the grand scheme of things it isn't worth stressing about too much. But if anyone would like to send up a few prayers for us, especially my mom, we would greatly appreciate it. I hate not being able to help her out.
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