Protect Yourself, Capital One

Capital One called me yesterday, the same nitwits I wrote about here.

It seems I never enrolled in their glorious panacea called "payment protection program". I stopped this pathetic excuse for a telemarketer dead in his tracks.

Capital One: Now I'm not trying to sell you anything...
ME: (Yeah, right)
CO: This is meant for your protection should you ever... blah blah blah
ME: (Interrupting) Sir, with all due respect, I've already lost my job so I don't even qualify to sign up right now. I've read all about your program apparently too late in the game since I was to sign up before I was notified of my layoff. Thanks but no thanks.
CO: Um, (loooong pause) (I can imagine him scanning his notes for the correct response line) okay, you're correct. Um, well, thank you for providing me that information.

THANK YOU??? WTF? I basically told you about your sorry-excuse-for-a-company's "protection" plan and you thank me? Get real. A nice "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that" or "My condolences" would suffice. Apparently Capital One is intent on calling those lucky people with jobs... and have not adjusted their calling dialogue sheets to reflect the changing times with respect to unemployment.

After hanging up after an awkward pause, I felt all puffed up and empowered. I told him ... except for the fact that he said "for providing me that information" ... Yikes... are they going to put that down on my card record and raise my interest rate or lower my limit? I had put off informing any cards on the likelihood I would be gainfully employed before I had to.

This only gives me more reason to pay off my cards as soon as possible.

Still, some idiot stranger somewhere has information on me that I'd rather him not.

Life Gets In The Way

I have been laying low recently, hence the no blogging. I actually forgot I had a blog. Strange, I know.

I've been dealing with family issues and a family friend's death. I have experience with much family death, but each loved one's death I experience takes me back to the previous ones. And then I am mourning for them all. All over again. It's an exhausting process and grief is just something you have to go through to get through. This is the time that I yearn for my childhood - the time before any of my relatives passed away.

Death is so definite. One day you're talking and planning and yearning and the next you're not. I'm not goth or obsessed with death. It's been a part of my life for a while now and I am still searching for its meaning. I have listened to "On Death and Dying" twice in my car a few years ago. I'm thinking about putting it back on in heavy rotation.

Losing my job has been a grieving process. Now with these situations lumped on top, it's difficult to take on both every single day. Meetings at work where people gently tiptoe around the fact that I won't be there in a month's time make me feel more dead each day.

In Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grieving, I believe I'm at depression when it comes to my job. I'm hoping acceptance will come in the next five weeks, but we shall see. I've been here for a while and now I'm depressed on a personal level.

And So It Goes...

I've had a rough week. Meetings that I am normally involved with are not including me. I feel shunned and rejected. My superior originally told me not to tell anyone of my impending doom and now it's all but obvious to the casual observer that my position is being phased out. 

I feel like those computer monitors at my last job that had painfully-jubilant "Y2K Ready!" stickers practically glued onto them years after the non-event. Once flat screens arrived, those dusty old monitors were toast. And I'm feeling burnt already.  I feel betrayed for having this "secret" be so apparent now. Everyone else in my division gets to stay - only I will go. It's tantamount to being picked last for kickball each and every day of grade school. I'm finding it harder and harder every day to drag myself to the office. I'm internalizing (nothing new) and need to "reframe" the situation, as they say. 

 

Or maybe I'm just bitter because some of my co-workers act blissfully ignorant of the economy and our company's position. While my priorities and decisions have changed radically, theirs seemed to have stayed on course. They still go out for lunches, still chase happiness with money in their fists, still need the newest, best and top-of-the-line items that the Jones' just bought. 

I drove home crying yesterday, feeling stripped of my duties at work and as though I were carrying the weight of the world. I felt sick that a simple job could make me so darn emotional. But I made a few calls, sopped up my tears and realized the more time I spend pitying my current situation, the less time I will have for making it better. 

Even though it's not like me, it's so much easier to have a pity party than to pick myself up by the bootstraps. 

Revving the Engine, But There's No Fuel

Knowing I am going to be unemployed is a bit like nausea. Some days, I will forget it's every going to happen [okay, maybe not forget, but I distract myself enough to not notice it]. Other days, it's like staring down the hall of death row. The end is near and my fear is palpable. I can't sleep, don't exercise, and won't clean. All I can do is job search, cook and eat. Oh, and watch reality tv... while I can still afford cable.

This past weekend was a bad slump. I became emotional about everything and couldn't even put my mind at ease to sit down and edit resumes and write cover letters. I got a [much needed] haircut from a new-to-me [also much needed] stylist who got rave reviews. He couldn't style my hair to save his life. I didn't think he would change my entire look, but I went in thinking my mostly unmanageable hair would come out much better and it just didn't happen. My sky-high expectations were not met and I spent a lot of time and money there. I cried as soon I left the salon and most of the rest of the day and was just angry about everything and everyone. Weak, I know. I rolled everything I have been feeling in a newspaper and took it out on him and my hair. Thankfully, he did cut it well. So I styled it my way for work this morning and I think I'm over it. It just really scared me to think that a haircut could get to me so much. I just want a huge change - a new me - to appear and take over so I don't have to go through the rest of my life. Let someone else deal with the rejection and constant worrying. Let some other hack stay up all night for fear of the inevitable, only to have to rise and shine and go through another worthless day at the office.  

Nine weeks of work left. That reminds me of high school. I wish I could go back in time and only have nine weeks to go until the end of school; I would be on the completely opposite end of my feeling spectrum right now. But instead, I have that long until my position is collapsed into other employees and I am all but forgotten as a unique talented individual who added value to the firm.

Ten Weeks and Counting...

As of today, I am officially ten weeks away from my permanent vacation. 

Hence the blog. 

Like millions of other people out there, I am starting my blog due to an impending lay-off. And while at first I wanted this blog to be all about my job woes and subsequent employment search, I thought I could encompass the whole lot of issues I am dealing with right now. Mainly that I don't feel like an adult yet, even though I'm in my late 20s. My peers seemingly float through life making (what are to me) huge decisions flawlessly, while I'm the indecisive jellyfish who still hangs out in the wading pool. 

This job loss hit me hard and even though I know there are countless others being affected in similar ways (I am reading all of your blogs!), I can't help but still feel alone. And afraid. Very afraid. Losing a job in this economy is forcing me to grow up and out of my comfort zone. I would really rather just stay in my jammies all day and eat Pop-Tarts.   

I'm Auditioning for Adulthood: I hope I get the part.