I want to hear your unemployment stories. So, send me an email and tell me your work woes, your struggles, your inspirational moments. I want to hear them. It doesn’t have to be profound. It doesn’t have to be long. I just want to know.
I can use your name if you want, but I’m also happy to leave the details out. Sometimes we just need a place to rant and you can do that here. Send me an email at ladyunemployed@gmail.com to share your story.
Have advice to share? Have a success story? I DEFINITELY want those. So send me an email if you have anything you want to share.
Nicole, Lady Unemployed
We were living in Flagstaff, Arizona . Not married yet , staying in an airstream trailer in a mobile park in East Flagstaff.
We were the minority as most of the residents were Indian and we came home many time to find someone sitting on one of the benches with a pint of Thunderbird wine , wrapped in a blanket chanting.
I was working at Safeway while he attended NAU , I was laid off out of seniority. I didn’t realize that was the case until almost a year later.
He received the GI bill for tuition but I needed at jobs for us to exist.
I took one as a waitress at a motel/restaurant. The sign was neon and had a stagecoach with rolling wheels and the horses legs moving.
The uniform was Levi’s, a red and white checkered western shirt. The order pad was clipped to a little holder than fit in a holster as a belt. 😳🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
My third week there I went into the lobby to punch the time clock when a hand reached out from the fake ficus tree hiding the clock and pulled me down on the bench there.
There was no doubt what the cook had in mind for the hour we would be by ourselves until the manager came in at 6 am.
So I do what any girl would do, gathered up my courage and looked him straight in the eye .
I told him if he didn’t let go of me I would tell my “husband” what happened and that he’d be dead if he didn’t leave me alone , then I assured him I wouldn’t tell the manager once he let me go.
The second the manger got there I told him and the cook got fired on the spot.
When I told Steven what happened that was my last day too and fortunately Safeway called me back later that week and I had my previous job back.
Bonus came several, months later in the form of a check for a couple thousand dollars since someone filed a grievance to the union for all of us laid off out of seniority.
The lobby incident was scary as shit though.
It opened my eyes how vulnerable I was and it taught me a good lesson at a young age.
Hi Becca! Oh I am so thankful ou shared your story. What a moment!! I’m glad you got out of there.
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Hi Nicole,
When my husband and I moved from my home state to Ohio, my job as a researcher ended. It would have been difficult to find a position as rewarding and lucrative as my previous one. So, with slight alterations that included increasing my activity as an at-home piano teacher, I decided to go into quasi-retirement and gave myself permission to become a writer. This was eight years ago. Since then I’ve published a poetry chapbook (at Prolific Press) and my first full-length poetry collection (with Kelsay Books), COLOR AND LINE, which goes on sale at Amazon on January 1, 2021. This, along with publishing more than 100 works in literary journals and anthologies, and becoming book review editor with a major Canadian journal, allowed me to meet wonderful editors, poets, and authors and affirm myself as a writer. So becoming unemployed was indeed a blessing. I appreciate your blog which has allowed me to share this.
Thank you so much for your story! I love it went an unemployment story becomes a blessing!