Fired!

About a year and a half ago, my husband, ahem lost his job. Not too long after that my brother left to join the Marines. He worked at a small, local diner for years as the weekend dishwasher. When he left, John the Proprietor was out of a dishwasher. My family needed a few bucks, so I took the job over.

The Voorheesville Diner, located in Voorheesville, NY next to the railroad tracks. It is a little county diner where the patrons come everyday, sit and drink cup after cup of John's coffee, and talk about important local news like the opening of deer season, the weather, purchasing land in various areas and of course gossip. It is filled with the same characters. The old guy who hits on the waitresses. The guy who comes in animated to protest the latest Bush-crime from his political view. The lady who reads palms and gets her info all wrong. The younger guy who brings his young children in for attention. The food is awesome.

I started working there about a year ago. The work is really labor intensive, and was downright horrible in the summer. But at first I enjoyed going because the stress was easy to deal with-just do the dishes. If I fell behind, my home was not in a horrible condition, the kids did not miss a lesson for a day which left me with sleepless nights imagining them to become drug dealers do to poor reading skills, nor did I have to worry about dreaded meal planning-for the moment. I just washed dishes, listened to the latest local 'news" and acquired a taste for country music. I also had a connection to my brother as this was his family away from home-whom I miss terribly.

In March I got pregnant (surprise!-yawn). I worked doing dishes through horrible morning sickness and hypoglycemia. Lately, the job has become very much of a chore as I ahve become big and tired. I would come hom and crash until it was time to go in the day day. Every week my husband would ask me to quit because "you don't need to kill yourself" and every week I would say "we'll see". I was worried about money, I was worried John would not be able to find a replacement.

Saturday I went into work and John asked me "So, how much longer do you want to work?"
"I'm not sure, I was kind of playing it by ear."
"Well, I got someone lined up and you can quit at any time."
"You do?"
Sure, so you don't have to worry about that. Just let me know.

So I called my husband and he told me again, he didn't want me killing myself for the job and it was up to me.

"OK, John, I'll give you my notice then. What do you need? Two weeks? Three weeks?"
"This could be your last weekend, Hon'."
"Um, OK"
"Do you want to work tomorrow? You don't have to."
"Um, since you ask, I have a paper due, and I am going to stay home then."

I mentioned to a waitress it was my last day and she said they all have noticed how tired I look. They fully expected that I would not show up to work each week at this point. And they noted I hated Sundays (sorry, I do snap at people on the busy days).

When the day ended, John gave me a big hug and I thanked him for being a good boss to me, to which he replied I was a very good worker.

Sunday morning, I was happy to get to Mass at Auriesville on a more leisurely Sunday morning schedule (you know, after laundry and whatnot), as opposed to trying to cram in the Saturday Evening Vigil...or not. Then I came home laid in the bed and watched Flavor of Love reruns (which I find vile and not sure I can't seem to look away), and the Law and Order:SVU marathon on USA. And that is all I have to do on weekends for now.