forest in black and white
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Hello all.
I will tell you about my worst nightmare and that it came true.
In late 2009 I was working a great corporate job. Good wages, decent benefits and great people. In 2009 I had been working there for twenty two years and things were going well. I was working afternoons, 3:00pm to 11:30pm. And going to school during the day for graphic design. My plan was once i graduate i would transfer over to the web design department which i already knew a couple people there because my school had me and a few others shadow people there. Everything was great during the day of shadowing. I told them I already worked there just in the next building and that i was hoping to move over soon.

Then a couple months pass and a week or so before Thanksgiving my worst nightmare came true. I found out me and most of my group and about 100 to 200 others would lose our jobs. Our group worked together for about 20 years i was in the group for 14 years. We did nothing wrong they were just outsourcing several departments work to another country. We were given a couple months to look for jobs internally, which was not a whole lot. This shook me to my core. I had this job since i was 19 and i was now 41 and about to be looking for a job.
A buddy and were planning to go on a cruise that summer, so that was canceled immediately. I became depressed and in a bit of shock. But most of us were. I had my new job goal in sight and making it happen and then this happens. It was like a punch to the gut.They told us our last day would be January 30th 2010. Which would be the day when the company launched a new product and had a big party.

From Thanksgiving to the last day we had special meetings, seminars and town hall meetings to go to. All about getting another job and getting signed up for unemployment. That was scary. In 20 plus years of working i have never had to be on unemployment. The last day was as sad as we all expected.We all came in and worked as usual but at lunch time there was a big party launching a new product. Seeing so many people happy and having a good time while hundreds of us were so sad was odd.I went to the party to pick up my free food and went back to my cubicle. That day and the whole period of time from when we found out to the last day really stressed me and also my faith.
I prayed more than usual and after my last day i went to church more and was just in a state of shock. Now my job was to go to school and graduate with two AAS degrees and find a job as quickly as possible.
I thought the worst had already happened but i didn’t know what the future had in store for me.