You know when a friend’s loved one dies and you tell them the usual sentiments about being there for them, anything you need etc? But there’s rarely anything you can do, especially if you’re not in their immediate circles where you could be making food or helping with estate etc.

Friend needed to do some job applications quite urgently, but was obviously not in the right headspace to do a great job. Friend asked me to help review drafts (I write for a living) and between us we got out 3 very solid applications.

I’m proud my skills had real and immediate use to someone. This white collar shit can feel pretty ineffectual sometimes, but this was a tangible help to someone so I’m proud of myself.

Just about kept my shit together. It’s been a really shitty week.

Exercise. I went from 0-1 days per week to 30 minutes every day for the past 6 weeks, only skipping two days over that time.

I haven’t stabbed anyone!

Overcame my anxiety and asked a pretty girl out. We’re going out for drinks tomorrow night 😁

I went to the gym every day in the last 7 days.

I was fired in June for a mixed non-descript bag of reasons from my previous employer of 8 years. The reasons they told me were not what they told the DOL. They told the DOL that I was fired for attendance issues, which is weird since I hadn’t been absent since March, and the company’s on-site nurse told me not to come to work. I used 2.5 days of my yearly allowable 6 days of sick time within 6 months. They also told them I falsified records.

What’s really weird is that it happened to coincide with my complaint of workplace harassment by a former boss.

The worst part was they lied to the DOL and told them I admitted to falsifying records. Little did they know, I recorded audio of my HR meeting so I could prove that I didn’t admit to falsifying records.

Anyways, after months of fighting for unemployment benefits (they didn’t even give me a severance), I won my appeal hearing. My previous employer didn’t even give the DOL an in service phone number, so they didn’t even attend the hearing.

They really were banking on me not trying to fight them. After months of me sounding like an insane person to everyone I talked about it to, I finally got vindication.

And before you think this must be some small operating business where my boss just didn’t want to show up to lose, this is a large publicly traded company with thousands of employees and is an industry leader in the field. The site I worked for was a drop in their revenue bucket with a mere 70 million in net revenue.

I may be jobless right now, with 5 kids, a mortgage, and had my name dragged through the mud, but I’m so fucking proud of myself for sticking up for myself and proving that I was fucking right the entire time.

They still haven’t been able to fill my position, have had more people quit and are in dire straights according to an inside source.

Oh and the kicker? Turns out the last woman they fired complained about the same person, but they gave her a giant severance package even though she was only employed with them less than a year.

Can’t wait to see that place bleed itself to death.

I got called into a work meeting yesterday. Apparently they are very pleased with my progress.

So that’s nice. I have no idea what they’re talking about, but it’s nice.

I wrote a song and have been recording it for like the past year. Kind of got too complicated so I just ignored it for the last few months. This week I said I would finish it by the end of the month and today I have the final mixing sesh at the studio 👐

Learned to sew!

I traveled 12 hours to an isolated lake to spread my father’s ashes as he requested.

First time at a personal trainer.

I am writing this from the grave.

Technically just over 7 days but I’m saying it. I started a Bachelor’s in Cyber Security at a big university.

I’m the first in my family to ever seek higher education and my nephew (who lives with me) has already been asking questions about how he can go to college someday as well.

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I wrote 14 pages of a masters thesis.

Went to a nudist beach for the first time!