The Letter
- This was posted on May 31, 2010
Let me just start by saying that I come from a family with lots of girls, so it was pretty natural that my first job would be babysitting for other families at 13. By 16, I had my first fast food job. My best friend and I interviewed to work at a Wendy’s being built near our houses. We were employees #1 and #2. I stayed there long enough to wear through several pairs of bleach stained black high top sneakers.
Eventually I had an offer for a better job. Several of my high school art class friends and I were recruited to paint t-shirts for a woman who designed very gaudy expensive apparel that she sold to boutiques. We could all paint and draw and thought it would be great to work together, but the work itself was pure sweatshop. We inhaled so much glitter! We perfected applying neon slick paint from clumsy bottles in fluid straight lines. After hours hunched over shirts with cramped hands trying not to breathe wrong, this job was less fun. We were paid per piece. I made a comment, more like an observation, about the difference between piece work and hourly work before leaving on a family vacation. When we returned from our camping trip it was waiting for me in the mail—my first firing. The note inside said that I was no longer needed and my last paycheck was attached. I burst into tears immediately, crying hot and fast. It felt very personal.
I figured out why she let me go. She couldn’t afford any dissent and the mere mention of an hourly rate was too risky. I found another job that I kept for almost 2 years with a different kind of t-shirt company. I put letters and numbers on team shirts and took custom orders. My friend, employee #1, stayed at Wendy’s until she left for college.I think back to how it felt when I opened that letter. I learned so much about people and management from those early jobs. As my parents reminded me, I didn’t do anything wrong, not really.
With economy being the way it has for the last few years, there are many people who have felt the sting of a firing letter and the bewilderment of wondering what they did wrong. You may be in a position where you need a lump sum instead of your regular annuity payments. You can receive cash for structured settlement payments to help you through any temporary crisis, until that next job comes your way.
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