To sum it up, I had my first tastes of a relationship, but that was ended abruptly. It revealed my emotional immaturity as I saw how I reacted to the bad news and how it had negatively impacted friendships. I started my first full time job and managed to learn about work, time management, leadership, and responsibilities. I restarted schooling online at a community college as a cheap way to get back into it and to try a new field to hopefully find some career calling for myself. And I was also fired for the first time in my life, and boy does it suck.
For context, starting mid-September, so really only 2 weeks ago (at least in reality) every Tuesday morning there was an order to be prepared for some local school and to feed the entire school. And it's a large order, but because they listened to me and got the prep work done, it's just a time-consuming task more than anything. Then this week there was a second large order (not quite as large but because of its pickup time, it was large enough). The plan was to start the weekly order first as that's due earlier anyways, then move on to the second one off order.
See, that was the plan. Until I overslept past my alarm and woke up 2 hours later than originally planned, already setting me 1 hour late to my shift. I figured I would try to get ready as quick as possible, get some breakfast in as it's work on my feet all day and I probably wouldn't get to a lunch break until 2pm anyways. Then I get called saying I shouldn't bother coming in. There seemed to be some frustration or anger that came through, and it sounded like the perceived action of my tardiness was an attempt to actively sabotage the business and make it so that orders are completed late or what have you.
So I stayed home. And when I was just chilling and looking at school assignments, I eventually get a call hours and hours later saying I should return my copy of the store key at my convenience. It seems odd considering I am one of two people trained to open at my store's location, but what can I say? I talked with my dad over the phone and we decided I should clarify if this means I am terminated or what since the original schedule had me set to open the store tomorrow and Thursday. The answer was termination. Over one day that I slept in.
It is ultimately a disappointment for the way things are. I've been told that I am the best worker, the most efficient, that my hard work is appreciated. I've also been in charge of countless shifts and been told to open the store solo literally hundreds of times in my 20 months, meanwhile no one else does what I do to some extent unless they either have been full time for longer than I have or they hold a higher position than me being a former shift leader. To think that all this praise and glory would make me think I was set to have a job consistently for a good while and that I'd only stop working there if I had something greater calling to me. That I would leave on my own terms rather than theirs. But alas life isn't always perfect and sometimes the unexpected happens.
To provide some context, here are some stats that I've been keeping track of for my own personal record, but also so that I can some day tell them how much they needed me, and honestly how much they still need me:
220 openings
33.52% of all opens in 1st year (February 12th, 2020 to February 12th, 2021); 120/358 days
-366 days for leap year, 3 days closed for holiday, 3 days closed for power outage (August), 2 days closed for snow
46.30% of all opens during 1st year of opening (June 2nd, 2020 to June 2nd, 2021)
169 openings out of 365 days possible
Now the written out data set is incomplete because my next written update aside from number tracking would've been on February 12th, 2022, as that would close 2 years of being open, and then I can compile and crunch some numbers, otherwise it wouldn't be until June 2nd, 2022, to mark the 2 year anniversary since starting to open. Alas, I won't see either of those dates, not as a Jersey Mike's employee anyways.
But looking at the raw data, the first year the store was open, I didn't even start opening until June which was almost 4 months in. And with that I still do just over a third of ALL OPENINGS. Pre-pandemic, there'd be 5 or 6 openers that I could think of, so in reality most would only have to do 1 open maybe 2 per week, leading to 14-28% (give or take). I am 1 person who didn't start until 4 months of business and I still claimed a third. Then when you track from the day I started opening to 1 year later, that number is just shy of 50%, sitting at around 46%. That's almost a coin flip and I probably opened that day. I am, or was, a One Man Army.
As you can see I am mildly bitter about it because I don't think I did anything wrong. Sure there was a lot of food to be prepped for the orders, but it's not like I deliberately chose today to oversleep. That's the thing about it: it just happens. Obviously if it is a regular occurrence then it's an issue. But a one off? Considering all of the hard work that I put in and kept being praised for? I guess it's just as most people see things (myself included) that you could do 1 million good things, be mildly praised for each time, but the moment you do 1 bad thing, it's noticed and blown out of proportion no matter how much good you may have done or are capable of doing. It's certainly a character flaw for many, but I'll only focus on my own flaws for the long term.
All in all, this blows. Being fired for the first time is tough, but I'll make it through. This wasn't my final destination and I learned all that I could about being in the workforce and being more of an adult than I was before. Does this mean I am finished or done maturing? Absolutely not. I'm only 22, I have plenty of time and lessons ahead of me, and I'm just slightly more prepared for it now than I was before.
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