laid off

I'm feeling pretty low today. I was laid off from my office job on Tuesday. It was completely unexpected, and they handled the whole thing pretty badly - I was given less than a weeks notice and a pretty shoddy explanation. They are fairly full of shit, and I am pretty sure there is some shadiness going on, but what can I, a lowly part-time receptionist, really do about it? I think it's best to wash my hands of them and move forward. They will be left with their bad karma and their mean little lives. I don't need that kind of nastiness in my life.

I wasn't really sure how to write about this turn of events. There is so much going through my head. I'm hurt and shocked and feeling more than a little put-upon - there is definitely this, "damn it, universe, what did I ever do to you?" feeling. I mean, I was, for the first time in my life, actually enjoying work. Both of my part time gigs, and my freelance work, were all pretty satisfying. I was LOVING the fact that I didn't get filled with dread every Sunday evening, as had been the case for pretty much my entire working life. And then the rug just got pulled out from under me. So there's anger. And then fear. A lot of fear. Like how am I going to pay my bills? I'm losing 60% of my income! And I was just making it before. So this means it's back to monthly panic attacks while I try to figure out where the money for my school loans is coming from. Where rent money is coming from. How I'm going to pay for food. And on and on. This means I have to lean way too heavily on Matt for financial support - and frankly, things aren't so good for him either, so I'm afraid he won't be able to stretch his money far enough to cover us both. So I'm terrified. Not to mention the job market is looking pretty bleak these days, so it's difficult to even pep myself up with talk about how I'll find some great job any day now. And on top of that, I'm fairly humiliated. I couldn't hold on to a receptionist job. Not to knock the job - receptionists and admins are the unsung heroes of the business world. Fatcat execs have hardly an inkling of what these people do for them every day. Without them entire industries would come crashing to the ground. BUT. I have two college degrees. I'm smart! And talented! And my reception job, in particular, was a total breeze. And I was going above and beyond what I had been trained to do. So it feels pretty shitty that with all my innate intelligence, all my fancy education, and all my effort to make a niche for myself, I was deemed not enough. Anyway, there's the self pity.

Okay, I honestly didn't know this was going to turn into such a diatribe. I'll get to the point now.

So I'm having to reassess things. Figure out my next step. And I'm thinking I need to re-focus on the illustration and design career that had always been my goal, but had kind of receded into the background a bit. And this is what I'm thinking: wedding invitations. I've played around with this idea before, but now that I've done my own, I feel like I have new insight. I have a clear idea about what it takes to put them together, and based on some freelance work I've done in that vein, I have a better idea of how to best run such a business.

So this is just to tell everyone - I'm going to be putting together a line of wedding suites in the next few weeks, and selling them on etsy. I'll be opening a new etsy shop, dedicated to this endeavor. So spread the word, and keep your eye out for the shop opening!

And here, to end, is a picture my father sent me the other day - some of my early work. Circa 1983.