Now What?

Holy Shit!  I just walked out of my 15 year management job!  I just fucking walked out!  I sat in my car outside the store bawling my eyes out.  It was very surreal. Did I really just do that?  That was so out of character!  I felt so many emotions rushing through me:

scared
excited
liberated
free
proud
accomplished
terrified
crazy

All these feelings were swirling around inside my head and my stomach.  I suddenly felt sick.  Then I felt giddy.  I started laughing.  Laughing hard.  The store I was at for my little meeting with my boss happened to be run by my best friend.  She saw me booking it out of the store bawling my eyes out and came running out after me.

"What the fuck just happened?!"

I was laughing and tears were streaming down my face.  "I quit."  "I fucking did it!"  "I fucking quit!"  hahahahahahahaha.  My friend looked at me as if I was coming unhinged right in front of her eyes ( I kind of was....)  She got in the car and sat in the passenger seat and said "Oh my god, what are you going to do?!"  As my best friend she knew all too well how miserable I was and how badly I wanted out of that job.  I think she was cautiously optimistic but concerned at the same time.  "I don't know, but I feel friggin awesome!"  She smiled and we took a ride to get lunch.

When we got to the restaurant I had a beaming smile and my eyes were red and swollen from crying so hard.  Quite the oxymoron.  I went in and proudly told the cashier at the counter that I had literally just walked out of my 15 year management job.  LOL!  Who knows why I felt the need to do that but I felt like I was walking on air!  I was freeeeeeee!  For the first time in 15 years I was free!  I wanted to tell the world!  The cashier said "Wow good for you!  I think you deserve a cookie!"  And she gave me a free chocolate chip cookie!  I will never forget that moment.  The moments just after I had made one of the biggest and scariest decisions of my life.

The days that followed were a blur.  I had to make some decisions regarding healthcare and what to do with my retirement plan.  I called the company I had worked for and put in a formal complaint about the way I was treated by my boss.  I applied for unemployment.  I took tons of phone calls from the many friends I had made along the way during my 15 year career that had just found out what happened.  I SLEPT IN!  For the first time in a long time I slept in until whatever time I wanted and I did not set an alarm!  I can't even express what an amazing feeling it was for the first little while that my body would automatically wake up at my usual "ass crack of dawn" time and I would realize I didn't have to go back to that shithole!  I really don't have to go back!

I spent TIME with my son.  REAL TIME.  I sat down on the floor and colored with him and played play doh with him and we watched paw patrol and I took him to the park.  My son was almost 2 years old and I felt like it was the first time I really got to spend time with him.  My 2 year old son actually said to me "I'm so glad you're home mama"  That sealed the deal for me.  That's it.  I am never going back to a job like that again.  Never.  I am never letting someone else dictate how and when I can spend time with my son.  I am never again letting someone else determine my worth.  I am never again giving my blood, sweat, tears and dedication to someone who doesn't appreciate it.  I'm doing me.  Screw everyone else.   I'm going out on my own.  I'm starting my own business.

My Prison Break

I broke out of prison on March 28th, 2016.  Ok, I am sort of full of shit.  Sort of.  On March 28th, 2016 I got out of my own "proverbial" jail that was masked as a retail management career.  It was hell.  Pure hell.  I will rewind a bit to let you in on how I ended up as a slave to my miserable job, how I got to where I am now and where I am (hopefully) going.

The idea of this blog is to take you on a journey through the bumpy pothole ridden road I am currently riding down and let you have a little peek into my life and how I am handling those potholes and flat tires.  Do I have all the answers?  HELL NO!  But, I am honest and that is what you will get from me.  Honesty and raw emotions.  Someone to tell you like it is.  The truth with no sugar coating. (Although I do love sugar..........) 

So here goes a brief synopsis of my life story:

When I got out of high school I went right into a career as a hairdresser.  I had gone to a technical high school for the past 3 years and that is what I had been training for, so that is what I did.  I considered going to college, but I was 17, I knew everything and I had a plan. I was going to marry my high school sweetheart and get our first apartment together (yada, yada, yada) I was going to make a ton of money as a hairdresser and we were going to have babies and live happily ever after (insert gagging sound here...) 

Whelp, that plan went into the shitter when my high school sweetheart cheated on me and just up and moved away to another state with the girl he was cheating on me with.  He left me in his parent's basement (where we had been staying) with nothing.  I was 19, I had not gotten my driver’s license, I had no car and I had just lost my hairdressing job and had taken a cashiering job making minimum wage (which by the way was about $5.85/hr. in 2001) at the local drugstore.  Fuck.  What the hell am I going to do now? 

My ex was the prodigal child and could do nothing wrong in his parent’s eyes, so it was an incredibly uncomfortable situation and I had no idea what to do.  I can remember laying in my bed in that basement for hours and hours just crying and crying and crying..........I cried every damn drop of water out of my eyes that I could possibly cry out.  My life was over.  At that point in my life I had never felt so desperate or scared or hopeless.  I literally felt like I would just shrivel up in that bed in that cold dark basement and die.  Nobody would come looking for me.  Nobody would care.  Nobody could help.  I was alone and fucked.  Absolutely fucked.

The amazing thing about looking back at situations in your past is that you can gain so much perspective.  All of this transpired about 16 years ago, if 16 years doesn't give you some perspective I don't know what does!  I can look back now and remember how I thought my life was over and laugh.  I literally crack up thinking about the despair I was in back then.  Why?  Because I didn't know then what I know now.  Crazy concept, but completely true.  I did not know 16 years ago, that I would be okay.  I just didn't.  I know now that I made it.  I know now that I am still alive and kicking 16 years later.  But, 16 years ago, I didn't know.  I was lost.

So, I did the only thing I knew to do.  I called my dad.  I cried and whined and belly ached.  Him and I had not been on the best terms and he didn't agree with a lot of my decisions (namely moving in with my boyfriend and his family at 16 and not going to college) Thank god for unconditional love (which by the way at that time I knew NOTHING about) because my dad put everything aside and talked me through it.

First things first, I need a license.  Then a car.  Then a better paying job.  Then I need to get out of this godforsaken basement.  It was a 4-step plan.  Operation get the fuck up and fix it.  And I did.  I got my license and my dad helped me out and got me into my first car.  It was a 1989 Chevy Cavalier.  It was a $600 car but the independence it gave me made me feel like it was a freaking BMW. 

I had been working at the minimum wage drug store job now for a little while and my boss had asked me several times about becoming a manager.  I saw what the managers did and I really wanted no part in that.  I didn't want that responsibility!  Why would anyone listen to me anyway?  I was just a 19-year-old kid!  I was determined I was just going to keep looking for a better, higher paying job.  This drug store gig was just to get me through until I found something better. 

Then I reached my breaking point.  I simply could not stay in that basement any longer.  I called my mom and begged her to let me stay with her for a little while.  She lived in Woonsocket, RI in a 1 bedroom apartment with her boyfriend.  Certainly, not ideal, but it wasn't that god forsaken basement.  She said yes.  So, I commuted from Woonsocket, RI to Natick, Ma every day to my crappy drugstore job.  It wasn't long before I was fed up with the commute.  So, I caved in and took the management job that my boss kept asking me about.  It was a HUGE raise in comparison to my minimum wage job and it would give me the opportunity to save some money and get my own place. 

That was a decision that would take me on a crazy, off the rails train ride through the next 15 years of my life.  I started making decent money and finally got my own apartment (ironically a BASEMENT apartment in a 3-family home) LOL I can't make this shit up!  But, it was what I could afford and I was out on my own, so YAY ME!

I just kept traveling down the safe path.  I kept taking on more responsibility, moving up in the company and making more money.  I never actually liked the job, but it was safe and it was providing me a paycheck to pay my rent.  I always kept telling myself "I'll just keep sticking with this until I can find something better" 

Something better never came.  I fell victim to routine and the mundane reality of just going through the motions every day.  I stayed safe, and safe got me nowhere.  Staying safe put me right in the middle of a scene from that movie Groundhog Day where the same day just keeps repeating over, and over and over again.  I was stuck in the proverbial rut. 

As I climbed the ladder my responsibilities grew and before I knew it I was in over my head.  I had ended up one level below store manager and I was (for some crazy reason) working my ass off to prove myself to someone.  To whom, I am not sure but I found myself in this crazy tornado of needing to prove to everyone around me that I could get promoted to Store Manager.  Looking back if I am honest with myself, I never wanted to be a store manager!  I hated the job I had already and Store Manager was my current job on steroids.  At this point I had been with the company for 8 years and I guess I felt like I had put in the time, blood, sweat and tears and had made so many sacrifices in my life for the job that I had to go for it.  I just had to.

In 2009 I got promoted to Store Manager.  Yippee!  Hooray!  Shit.  This sucks.  Let me tell you a little bit about retail management.  Now, I can only give you my version of retail management as that is what I lived for 15 years.  I have heard from some people that retail management isn't that bad (cough, cough, BULLSHIT, cough, cough....) but to each their own.  Here is a rundown of the perks of being a retail manager.

• ·         You are now an unofficial slave
• ·         You now get to work 60-80 hours per week (minimum)  Oh, and you're on salary so your pay never changes!!
• ·         You will hate all the major holidays for the rest of your life
• ·         You will miss pretty much every single-family obligation that ever comes up in your life again
• ·         You will leave the house when it is dark, and get home when it is dark (again)
• ·         People will be unreliable and drop all their shit in your lap
• ·         Everything is your fault
• ·         Everything is your problem
• ·         You will get phone calls and texts at home EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and EVERY SINGLE DAY OFF.  Nobody knows how to do anything when you are not in the building
• ·         You will get abused by nasty customers pretty much daily
• ·         You will be given 4,386 company initiatives to follow through on.  TODAY.  Tomorrow you'll be given another 6,784
• ·         People will quit and it’s your problem to figure it out.  Example:  it is 9pm and your night manager calls you and says they quit.  You must then stop what you are doing, get dressed and get your ass down there to close the store.  Oh, and make sure you are back in the morning again to open the store.  Oh, and spend the rest of the day scrambling and begging to find people to cover the shifts for the rest of the week for the ass hat who walked out.
• ·         Most employees suck and do not want to work making your life miserable
• ·         Sick days are not an option.  Suck it up buttercup.
• ·         You will get visits from the corporate office that put you into such a frenzy that you are doing everything shy of scrubbing the floors with a toothbrush to impress your boss
• ·         You must get to your store and make sure it is open no matter what.  24 inches of snow on the ground?  Tough shit, plan for it and stay in a hotel if you need to just get your ass to the store and open it ON TIME PLEASE.  State driving ban?  Tough shit, drive anyway. 
• ·         You will be able to pay minimum wage to the employees you hire.  Never more.  So, you basically never have competent employees to help you actually run the store.
• ·         Vacation?  Don't bother.  The store will be such a shit hole when you get back that it isn't even worth it. 
• ·         You will have 10,567 goals that you are expected to reach.  If you reach 10,565 of them, that is not good enough.  What the fuck are you doing to get those other two numbers up?
• ·         Empty spots in your store because the warehouse can’t get their shit together?  You better go take a walk around the store, make a list and drive around to every store in a 50-mile radius to pick up everything you are out of.  If you don't, you suck.
• ·         You can be transferred at any time.  If they want you in a store that is an hour away, then off you go........no questions asked.
• ·         You will routinely work 12-15 hour days
• ·         You will routinely get 1 day off a week
• ·         During the holidays, you can forget having any time off. 
• ·         You will be micromanaged into oblivion until your head explodes.  Oh, you wrote your notes in blue pen today?  Shannon, you know you are supposed to write your notes in red pen on Tuesdays....
• ·         It is expected that your job is more important than ANYTHING ELSE IN YOUR LIFE.  My dad was dying in hospice and I was at the store stocking Pringles on the shelf. 
• ·         You will be held to ridiculous standards and be forced to make decisions that make your employees lives miserable, in turn making your life a living hell.
• ·         You will learn to hold your pee.  And poop. 
• ·         You will learn to eat your lunch in 3.2 seconds (if you eat at all)
• ·         Your feet and back will hurt like hell every single day from walking all day on the hard-concrete floors.
• ·         You will be sore from unloading warehouse trucks and trying to restack all the 50 lb boxes of laundry soap in the stockroom because some ass hat minimum wage employee that doesn't give a shit stacked it all wrong.
• ·         You will never have enough payroll hours.  As a matter of fact, they will get cut at least monthly.  Then they will demand more work out of you with less payroll hours.  Guess who gets to pick up the slack?!
• ·         You will be forced to ask your minimum wage employees to go above and beyond for you on a constant basis.  Nine times out of ten they tell you to go fuck yourself and you end up having to do everything yourself. 
• ·         You will be told to do something.  The next day you will be in trouble for doing it.
• ·         You will be expected to perform miracles daily.  Seriously.
• ·         The snow-plower didn't show up?  Better get out there and start shoveling. 
• ·         Your parking lot cleaners aren't doing their job?  Better get out there with a broom and sweep up that parking lot by hand.
• ·         People will call your name 4,598,288,404 times a day.  Seriously.  Every minute of the day someone needs something from you.  I'm not kidding.
• ·         If a customer is mad, it is your problem.  End of story.  You better fix that shit!
• ·         An asteroid came from outer space and obliterated your store?  Your fault.  How are you going to fix it?

Needless to say, after 15 years I was haggard, stressed, depressed and trapped.  I was making good money and I had adjusted my life accordingly.  My mom had become disabled, my dad passed away from cancer and my brother was also disabled from a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed and brain injured.  I had bought a house and brought my brother home from rehab and my mom moved in to help care for him.  He requires 24-hour care and I was working 5,693 hours a week.  I got married in 2012 and then had a man child to care for as well.  So, I was basically providing for 3 adults and myself.  A lot of pressure. 

Then my son came along.  And history repeated itself.  My husband cheated on me (had been cheating since before we got married) and walked out on me to shack up with his mistress when my son was 4 months old.  Literally packed a duffel bag, walked out and never came back.  Left all his shit in my house.  Yup, ladies and gentlemen.  This is my life. 

So, to say I was stressed out is putting it mildly.  My anxiety was through the roof and the bullshit I was dealing with at work was literally making me sick.  I just couldn't deal.  I would cry on my way to work.  Literally cry the entire 45-minute commute to my store.  I just didn't want to do it anymore.  But what choice did I have?  I have all these people depending on me.  I told myself I had to put myself through the misery because I had an obligation to my family.  I was in prison.  Trapped like a rat in hell.  I would have panic attacks in the parking lot of my store thinking about going inside and being trapped in that dungeon for the next 12 hours.  I would go to the bathroom just to escape the stress and anxiety. 

Things within the company started to change.  There was a lot of restructuring and with that came a new management structure.  Thanks to that new restructuring towards the end of 2015 I got a new boss.  This guy was my peer (fellow store manager) one day and my boss the next.  Oh, and apparently, his shit smelled like roses and lilacs!  Imagine that! 

At this point things started to get even worse (as much as I thought that was impossible) I had this guy on a power trip breathing down my neck like a freaking dragon everywhere I turned.  "Oh, you sneezed?  I thought I told you sneezing was only allowed between the hours of 9am and 10am?"  Ok, I am being vicious but that is how it felt.  For some reason, I had a target on my back and this guy was out for blood!  I had always been the girl who played by the rules and made herself crazy trying to make her boss happy.  I did what my boss said.  I was a rule follower.  I didn't rock the boat, I didn't speak up for myself, I didn't share my opinions.  I just did what I was told.  Period.

Well, it must have been a combination of this new guy's rose scented shit and the last 15 years of the responsibilities of the job sitting on my shoulders because I started to change.  In the past, all the bosses I had I respected.  Although what they were asking of me sucked if I was honest they were just delivering the message from the powers that be.  My direct bosses weren't the rule makers.  My bosses over the years were a pain in the ass, but respectful.  This new guy was not respectful at all.  I started feeling disrespected, degraded, humiliated and belittled.  He talked to me in a way that made me feel like I was about 2 inches tall.  He talked down to me like I was an incompetent idiot.  He didn't listen to anything I had to say and didn't care at all how I felt.  I put up with a lot over the years but this blatant disrespect was the end for me.  Something inside me was changing. 

The new boss continued to target me.  He would set up little "traps" to try to catch me doing something wrong or he would sneak around and try to find ways to get me in trouble.  He had all the power as my boss so whatever he said I just had to suck it up and go with it.

March of 2016 rolled around and it was time for my mid-year review.  Great.  I can't fucking wait for this!  I had my yearly review in September-ish of 2015.  The new boss had only been my boss for a week so the review was done by my previous boss.  I got a good review.  Now, 6 months later it was time for this new schmuck to give me my mid-year review.  Because of a misunderstanding, he refused to come to my store to conduct the review he made me drive to a store that was an hour away from my store near the New Hampshire border.  I come in to the room and he starts droning on about things that are just ridiculous.  I speak up to defend for myself but he is just not having it.  I am trying to have a back and forth conversation with him but he is just ripping me apart like a rabid bear.  We get to the end and he says to me "you haven't taken any notes” I looked at him wide eyed.  Like I really needed to take notes of this heated discussion!?  You have my review right there which I am going to take with me.  He then says "Well, Shannon since you aren't taking notes it doesn't seem like you have any interest in making any kind of improvements so I am going to have to put you on a performance improvement plan” (basically a 60 day shape up or ship out situation) I will never forget that moment.  There was such a fire inside me like I had never felt before.  I don't know if I had ever been so angry.  I had been cheated on by my high school sweetheart and my ex-husband, walked out on by my husband with a 4-month-old baby at home, bullied as a kid, lost my dad, saw my brother become brain injured and paralyzed...........but nothing compared to this fire I felt inside me at that moment.  I had just had a positive review less than 6 months ago.  This is fucking bullshit! 

That was the moment I took the leap.  I broke the fuck out of that prison like a crazed monkey on crack.  All the years of blood, sweat, tears, anger, frustration, stress, anxiety, disrespect, unappreciation just raged inside me and I took my store keys out of my pocket book.  I could feel myself getting hot.  My face was on fire.  I took the key ring off my keys that had the store keys on it and I chucked them across the table to the shit head on the other end. 

He said "You're quitting?"  I said:  "Yep, and you can explain to your boss why a 15-year dedicated employee walked out on your watch."  and I walked out.  I fucking walked out!  I bawled my eyes out as I stormed across the front of the store trying feverishly to get the hell out of there.  March 28th, 2016.  The day I got out of prison.  The day I started my life over.  The day I took my life back.

So now what?  BAAaha!  Damned if I know!  But lucky for you, you get to come along on the journey with me!  I’ll spend the next couple blogs getting you caught up on what has been happening in the months following my epic walk out from my shit hole career and from then on, I will be giving you a play by play on how my life is unfolding.  Maybe you can live vicariously through me, or maybe this will help someone realize they are not alone in their dead end, miserable job.  Maybe someone who reads this has all the answers and will solve all my life problems?  Who knows but either way I invite you in to my bat shit crazy life to come along for the ride.  Flat tires and all.

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