I’ve been trying to figure out what to write for the past few days. I’ve had my hearing in unemployment court. It was a blood bath. They sent three people to fight me and protect the interests of USHG; at the hearing there was a lawyer, my old GM (Graceanne) and an HR representative (which remained silent). It was basically three people against me. They made their case, that I was an at-will employee and that I violated restaurant policies. I was completely unnerved. I didn’t ask any of the right questions. I could barely make my case.
I should have asked a simple question, to Graceanne that was sitting across from me. “Have you ever been accused of being rude?” The answer is yes. I’ve heard her accused, by guests of being rude and abrupt. I simply lost focus. I didn’t ask that question.
Apparently the guest called back the day after my termination to request that her entire check be refunded and that the restaurant pay for her baby-sitting (because she felt sick). The guest that ended my employment at The Modern basically wanted a free meal and was willing to do anything to get it. I was not allowed to enter that evidence into consideration and it was maintained that I was rude. I was not allowed to show a pattern of the restaurants behavior (at this point they've fired a few people and a few people have been encourage to quit).
The lawyer that represented the Modern said that the question of my termination should be brought into another court and that the unemployment court should not hear the legal question of my termination. I'm very very confused. I feel like my only recourse is filing a real lawsuit. It's so wrong. I don't want to. I don’t understand why they want me to sue them. I should have gotten a lawyer, yet I don’t have money to hire a lawyer, so I’ve lost.
To make matters worse a rent check that was promised me did not arrive and does not look like it will arrive any time soon.
So again, I am confused by people; my own actions and ethics, my core is being questioned, how people make their decisions has always puzzled me and fascinated me. How love factors into our lives as well. I’ll tell that story another time, in another form.
In times of trouble friends are likely to desert not because they don’t want to support but because they are scared that the troubles faced by a once strong person, might somehow become their own. That they’re perceptions are shattered. I also don’t have a tendency to take the easy road. I’m a calculated risk taker. So the risks that I take, very much out of the norm. Like approaching a temp agency and working for them, my loyalty to a just started job, that isn’t even permanent, is also questioned. My risk to write literary fiction. To balance everything, I have questioned my core beliefs.
Trying simply to understand the path that has led me to this moment. Ninety nine percent of what is happening to me right now is beyond my control. I came to that realization because I do try to control and stop problems from happening and I try desperately to make the right decisions. Who I ally myself with is also vastly important because my allegiances are strong and I give everything I can to a relationship.
I have done much meditating on the act of waiting. As I wait for a rent check, as I wait for the judge’s decision to come in the mail. As I wait to be interviewed. Waiting breeds much uncertainty and much doubt. Much of my actions are carefully researched and pondered. Yet even the best laid plans are now asunder.
I can’t help wondering, if my lesson to learn at this moment is to master the art of waiting. To balance the waiting properly with action. To achieve results through compassion. When compassion does not work – I do not have experience in these areas, to understand that people can forgo their compassion for others.
Even, I question my passion to be a writer, to dedicate myself to working at my art. After all, our society does not encourage the financing of art. To do something and not get paid, is an alien concept to many. To call it ones life work and be content with making very very little money doing that action – is well, simply not understood by many who tie money to self worth. Because frankly numbers are easy to understand, yet the true value of an action is unquantifiable.
So I ask, what is more valuable, buying a BMW or helping an old lady select fruit in a supermarket, the two actions are the same to me. So why is one more valuable in our society then the other. One action lives on for the world to see, the other melts away and simply puts a smile on someone’s face. I am simply left with wonder. Why the two are not equally valuable.
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