Monday, January 31, 2011

Coming Out of the Dark

Last week I made a tough decision.  I decided to quit the job that I had started a few months ago.  The job was hard to get used to, but I was still optimistic...  until things started to fall apart.  What I had agreed to during the interview was a part-time job, 30 hours at most in a week.  The job was supposed to be easy, the people were supposed to be nice.  The bosses assured me that if I needed to miss work or leave early somedays that it was no problem.  I was happy, I thought I'd finally found a perfect, flexible, part-time job to fit into my busy life.  Two weeks in, half of the crew quit.  That should have been my first warning. 

The job spiraled down until I was working 8-9 hours a day, everyday, alongside people who were getting more and more frustrated and gossipy and for bosses that became more and more unreasonable.  I realize there are many, many people who work full-time or more every week, but with my college classes, my horses, and various other committments, I needed to stay at the part-time hours I'd agreed to. 

Right before New Years, one of my horses used my right foot as a launch pad, badly crushing it.  The foot ended up being not broken, but has been so bruised and swollen over the past month that I could barely walk on it much of the time.  Still I soldiered on, hobbling to work every day.  I finally missed two days to go have it x-rayed and to see why I was getting sicker every day for a week.  It turned out that I had bronchitis on the edge of pnemonia(sp) and the doctor wanted me to rest and stay off my foot for a few days.

Remember how they told me that if I had to miss work for something it would be ok?  No, I had to bring in a doctor's note, as if we were all in elementary school, and I caught crap for taking those days off.  Had anyone realized that I had been at work everyday since being injured, though I could barely walk?  Of course not.

Finally tensions came to a head and ended one day with members of the crew yelling at each other and one of the bosses lecturing us and playing referee.  I stayed out of the shouting match, but was singled out by the boss and scolded in front of everyone for something that was not my doing. 

The camel's back had broken.

I lasted a few more days and finally decided that for my health, my sanity, and my future, I needed to leave.

In addition to my previous Studio plans, I now have another bright and shining star on my horizon.  I'll post more about that in the future... 

More to come, I feel this post is too long already.  My Etsy and Artfire sites have been faithfully selling items over the last few months while the lights have been "off" in the Studio.  Short of mailing out sold items, I haven't touched anything to do with the Studio in a little while now.  I'm hoping I can more or less pick up where I left off before in building up the Studio's online presence - and get back to enjoying my days, instead of dreading them.