The Job

I had plenty of time to think. Four hours of enforced aloneness, during the commute to my new job. One hundred miles each way, two hours in the morning and two more in the evening. Add that to an eight-hour work day, and I worked twelve hours a day, five days a week.

I borrowed a motivational tape from work. As I listened, the speaker talked about identifying my chief purpose in life. Instinctively, I thought about my family. My chief purpose in life is to be part of their life. My vocation is to make a haven for them where they feel safe and loved; a shelter from the storm. Not that they always get my best, but they have the top priority in my life. I owe it to them.

Without my family, I would be lost. I depend on their emotional support for the courage I need to face the world outside of our home. I have a life, a career, things I care about besides them. None of it would have the remotest possibility, if I was not part of that life-raft I call my family, and little of my life would be as pleasurable without them as it is with them.

After deciding my chief purpose in life, I questioned how I fulfilled it. The motivational speaker made no bones about it. If I did not consciously work toward my purpose, nothing else was going to work out. Hmmm, let’s see, my purpose is to take care of my family. I spend 12 hours away from them each day, and when I return, I am not always fit company, after dodging the assassins on the freeway. How does that jibe with my purpose in life?

The plain and ugly truth lay before me—it did not. While it might be heroic of me to continue in that job, I worked at cross-purposes with myself. I could have rationalized that my work brought in money we needed. No one ever complains when we have surplus money. On the other hand, we have gone through thick and thin, and mostly it has been thin. We would survive fine without my job.

I persisted in the lunacy for four months—the four longest months of my life. Homesick on a daily basis, I began looking forward to the Mom-tell-her-to-act-right phone calls, because at least I could hear their voices.

Arriving home at 7 p. m. to find supper uncooked never seemed to bring out my best. I made it clear that I was not going to cook when I got home. Sometimes, they still failed to cook. I left them in the middle of prime family time to go to bed each night, so I could get up at 4 a. m. to do it all over again. I was not a happy camper.

Then one day, the second boss came in and fussed at me for some infraction and informed me of the policy that she had implemented to teach me not to do it again. I thought to myself, I don’t want to work here anymore.

Two hours later, the third boss came in to tell me of another sin, and the measures he had implemented to teach me not to do it anymore. This crime, however, was bogus. I proved my point, then told him I was going back to work. I let him know I thought he was wasting my time (which he was). He fired me on the spot.

I had gotten my wish, but it took a while to see it that way.

I had plenty of time to think while I got over the humiliation. I decided not to work for someone else. I would rather be poor than disconnect from my lifeline. And I decided I was worth whatever it took to establish myself as a freelancer who got to spend the most important moments of her life with the most important people in her life.

My children have told me that my decision has helped them stay out of trouble. I can believe that—most teen pregnancies begin between 3 and 5 in the afternoon, while kids hang out unsupervised waiting for parents to get home. They say I was a bear during that time; but the most interesting thing they ever had to say about my foray into cubicle-ville is that they are glad I got fired. We didn’t need the money that much anyhow.
© 2005