Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

So here's the deal.

On December 11th, 2009, I got laid off from a job I held for 15 years. As of today, I've been without work for 35 days. It seems like longer, and I'll tell you why.


My last day of work before a hard earned (and long planned for) vacation was supposed to be November 27th. I was supposed to leave for Walt Disney World on November 30th, return home on December 8th, and return to work on December 9th. Now normally, we would have not had to work on the day after Thanksgiving, but because one of us was going to have work to do, all of us were going to have to come it. Let me explain:

About 3 years after I began this job, a very good customer - turns out it's the best customer the business has - had so much work they needed done in such a short amount of time, that 3 people in my department had to come in the day after Thanksgiving in order to meet the customer's deadline. we grumbled about it, but came in and got the job done. And around 3:30 or so that day, the owner let the three of us know that since it was supposed to be a holiday, he was going to pay us double time for the day. This reduced the grumbling and made us all, well, happy. As you can probably guess.

About a week and a half later, the head of my department accidentally let this slip to a guy from another department. This guy, who we'll call Brian, since his name is Brian, just happens to be what we call a "whiny little bitch." And he immediately began complaining - loudly - that if he had known we were going to get double time, he would have come in and worked also. Well, the complaining got so loud (and the only person he didn't complain to was the boss, because Brian is not even close to being a man) that our boss let us know that from now on, if ANYONE had work that required them to come in on a day that was supposed to be a holiday, EVERYONE would be coming in, and working on straight time. It was good while it lasted.



So my last actual day was supposed to be November 27th. But that, as you will see, was not to be.