Funny word. One I heard for the first time after I was fired from my position as a software engineer. I wasn’t even told the actual reason as I was fired via voicemail, nor during the phone call I placed to my supervisor after finding out my remote accounts were locked out. I found out in a letter in the mail which came a few weeks later (which is now gone).
One day during the pandemic while I was working from home, I woke up with a cloudy brain and what felt like a pulled muscle in my back, near my left shoulder. I found that my body was tiring easily; too easily. Every movement I made it felt like lactic acid was exploding inside my body. Getting up to go to the bathroom was a chore. After a month my back still had not healed. It didn't feel like the process had even started. At the time, I didn't think too much of it. It took 2 full months before my back started to feel better. Something else that I took note of, but did not think too much about at the time was my significant other started having severe gastrointestinal issues out of nowhere. It was bad enough that I suggested she visit a hospital on multiple occasions.
Years earlier, back when I was working on the production floor as machine setup, I bargained with my supervisor. I wanted to use a vacation day; he didn't want to let me. He said if I come work out with him after work, he will let me use my vacation day. I obliged, wanting to exercise more anyways. I walked away from the gym (owned by my employer) after about 30-45 minutes with rhabdomyolysis. I ended up working while feeling like my body was literally dying and peeing brown/black sludge a few times an hour for the next few days.
The cloudy brain and feeling of lactic acid now reminded me of being sick and working my way through years earlier.
I told my employer during this period that something was wrong with me medically, but I did not know exactly what it was. I just assumed it would get better with time, like my back did. I could still perform all my duties but getting into work physically was becoming an issue. It would take all of my energy just to get myself there, and then once I was there, I dreaded having to physically move from my spot at my computer. This would wax and wane over the course of months. The cloudiness in my brain making it hard to concentrate endured. I have struggled and survived with ADD through my teenage and adult years, but this was on another level.
Instead of signing another year lease with my partner, we moved back into my parents’ house to keep it afloat because they left for South Carolina. They left my 2 younger brothers behind (both adults) but unemployed. The house needed work; a lot of their belongings left behind for me to deal with. This all happened unexpectedly and was a major life event for my entire family.
My partner had taken care of most of the cooking and cleaning at our last place while working full time. I foolishly offered to take that off her plate as we moved back home to give her a break. I didn’t want her to have to clean up after three grown men. Things at the house started to deteriorate with me single-handedly holding everything up. The grass didn’t get cut for a period, and family had stopped by to remind me to cut it. That’s all the advice or assistance they had to offer me.
While working from home I was used to putting in 10–12-hour days during the week and 12-14 during the weekends with no complaints. I was on salary, so I did not receive any overtime. Granted this wasn’t every single day seven days a week, but it happened more often than I care to admit. It affected my relationship in a negative way.
When I was fired, I was actively working on assigned tasks and answered any work-related call no matter the time. I often took calls from 2nd shift maintenance, other facilities and other employees within the company unrelated to my supervisor. My vehicle had been repossessed for the first time by Kia Motor Finance because of a missed payment causing the termination of my online account and auto-payments combined with the only method of payment being via phone where it often took hours to get ahold of a human. I had just gotten it back around the time the voicemail came in.
I was not given an opportunity to discuss my termination and was not given an exit interview. One of my brothers got a job and moved out to save himself. My other brother lived in the basement and didn’t really interact with us much. But it was still my responsibility to keep food in his mouth.
I imagine this period to be one of the darkest I’ll have to endure in my life. I nearly died stretching myself so thin. But thankfully, someone was able to bring me back. Not long after, my parents came home. They weren’t able to make things work in South Carolina and moved back into the house unannounced with most of their belongings still in place. They did not take any pity on what had happened to me, and in despair I left with my partner to live at my grandpas. I could not take the verbal abuse, and my partner did not feel comfortable or safe there.