Wednesday, June 6, 2012

It Gets Worse

Alright, I have a nasty head-cold, which is probably why I'm too beaten-down to get suicidally upset at the moment (close to it, though)... I honestly worry about tomorrow and the next day, however, as whenever I get bad news, sometimes the initial shock wears off, I start getting a little calm or distracting myself, then when I sit and mull about it later, it hits me like a brick...

I just lost my job.  If you saw the rant about Disability below, you know it wasn't a particularly well-paying job, but I loved it.  I feel in my element taking care of animals.  I was apparently good enough at shoveling poo to keep the job for two and a half years. 

Last week, I quite probably saved a horse's life because I noticed signs of colic in him and alerted others to help.  I was thanked profusely for that. 

A couple of days ago, the horse colicked again and people noticed his water buckets were empty.  I don't know if it was the one day that they were in all night because of a storm or what - I either had overlooked his buckets when it came time to fill them up (and I'm really OCD about checking the buckets in the stalls, for just that reason) or, quite possibly, being a living creature and having stomach distress, he drank them down by morning but all my boss' husband noticed or cared about were "Buckets are empty! Bitch gotta go!"

Faithful service for two and a half years. Doesn't matter.  Saving the life of said horse during an earlier crisis. Doesn't matter.  I very well could have made one stupid mistake.  I may have become a victim of a thirsty animal being an animal - in which case my bosses really need to put extra buckets in the stalls like they do for some of their known to be particularly thirsty animals.  (I have come in when that horse has been in all day to find that he'd drained the water he'd gotten that morning by the time my evening shift arrived).

My job coach (the person who originally got me the job) came by with severance-pay (appreciated) and flowery words about how this is all "opportunity" or something (it took all my self control not to tell her to shove her words back up her anus).  Apparently, my actual boss bears me no ill will, it's just that her husband, who holds the purse strings in all this, cannot be reasoned with/just does not care.

I'm just sort of... I'm not sure I'm competent to work at all. I feel like my life is a series of failures and of it being pounded into me "worthless! worthless! worthless!" as soon I start thinking I'm "okay" in any way, or even "close to human." 

What's worse is that I feel bad for accidently almost killing a horse (unless this was just a misunderstanding and he did drink his buckets down, without a mistake of mine), and I'm worried about the horses there in general.  When they're in at night, they need more water. 

5 comments:

  1. I'm so sorry, Shadsie. That really sucks. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

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  2. I'm with Rainicorn. That does really suck. Hugs and prayers Shadsie.

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  3. Uugghhh part of me wants to say "at least your job coach found you a job that wouldn't kill you" because dh has been jobless the whole time he's been allowed to work in this country which is like 6yrs and VR wasn't even able to convince an interviewer not to reject an autistic for being autistic. Or find him a job that wasn't a physical and/or psychological hazard.
    This being a commentary on how the system sucks, not on how you are lucky, because you aren't. It really sucks what happened to you. knowing you just the little that i do online, i don't think it was your fault, probably the horse just drank it all.

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    1. As for physical hazards, I want to warn you about barns. Just because my job coach found me a job I liked and could do, it doesn't mean that it wasn't a hazard. In fact, I suffered a siginficant injury on the job two years ago, after I'd first started there (fell down the stairs from the hayloft onto a concrete floor). My boss actually paid my medical bills out of pocket because being classed as an AGRICULTURAL CONTRACT WORKER I was not entitled to legal rights in regards to on the job injuries! I'm serious! (I'm actually still getting some harassing phone calls from the local hospital's billing department over payment for the ambulance ride which was supposed to have been taken care of years ago, but that's another story).

      The major brunt of the bills... I would have been SOL if I hadn't had a boss who was both indepedantly wealthy and kind. (Like I said over the firing, it was her husband's word, not hers... from what I hear, I think she wanted to keep me...)

      Just letting you know that. At least in my state, (Pennsylvania) agricultural workers do not have much, if anything, in the way of actual rights - I think it may actually be across the U.S., too.

      All a horse farm, for example, has to do in the way of precautions and safety measures is post an official sign somewhere where people can see it warning them that they take on liability/risk. While I think this law was originally drafted to keep farm owners from behing sued by the bratty rich kids who take riding lessons from them, it seems like even the best of farms I've ever worked at applies it to their employess in that any job that is complicated and/or dangerous and common sense would tell you should be done by two people - gets done by one just becuase it's cheaper to hire/pay a single person and hope nothing bad happens and, well, if something does... they aren't legally *required* to be kind about it, and if your boss is, you luck out.

      So, barns, farms - take the job if you want it, but be aware of the risk.

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    2. Yeah, this parallels what i've read in immigrants' rights news. I should be surprised that it's not much different for citizens than for undocumented, but knowing even a little about working conditions at that end of the spectrum, i'm not.

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