DannyBoyinExile

I must admit that I’ve enjoyed working in the hallway for the past six or seven months. It kept me busy (I typically worked seven days a week!), it gave me plenty of exercise – and definitely made sure I slept well at night! It also felt good to have a job where I was EXPECTED to be polite and helpful to people, because that suits me. I even have the audacity to think that the halls were noticeably cleaner because of me, since I took the time to do the detail work that nobody else seemed to have the time for.
Some hallway workers are content to walk around with a broom in their hands – or even just stand in front of the rank’s office all day, to remind everyone who they work for. But not me. I kept myself busy by wiping bars, emptying trash cans, cleaning windows, scrubbing spills and scuff marks from the walls, and cleaning up the myriad puddles that form every time it rains.
Not to mention helping anyone I see who is carrying boxes, pushing carts, or needing things like coffee, water, rubber gloves, etc. The time has really flown by since I’ve been working out there. Unfortunately, I flew right into a brick wall. (The DannyBoy Way!)
I’m no stranger to getting fired, for sure. The difference this time is that, for practically the first time in my life, I’m completely innocent of any wrongdoing! I worked, worked hard, and worked every single day. I didn’t get into an altercation with anyone, or get caught doing anything I wasn’t supposed to be doing. But I STILL got fired.
Admittedly, everyone who ends up working in the hallway isn’t the same type of worker that I am. I just watched one of my coworkers get fired. Then another one got into an argument (with the Major, of all people!), which is a guaranteed method of getting not just fired, but locked up, too!
Then the Queen told ALL of us to go back to our wings – and not to come back to work until she sent someone to get us. I know better than to argue with a woman when she’s mad (I’m married, after all!), so I simply returned to my wing, like she said.
A week later I STILL hadn’t been called back to work, so I stopped the Queen in the hall. “Can I talk to you for a second?” She said, “Yeah. What do you need?” I told her, “I wanted to talk to you about my job!”
She told me, “You don’t have to talk to me about your job – your job hasn’t changed. I didn’t change your job, I just told ALL of you to go to the house, until I called for you.”
Well, that was that. I felt slightly optimistic that the Queen herself told me that I wasn’t fired – but she didn’t exactly tell me to come back to work, either.
So you can imagine my surprise when, a few days later, they are doing a roster count and I notice that my job says… Mattress Stripper? (Clearly, “Long Live The Queen” is NOT what I was thinking just then!)
I don’t know exactly what prompted her to change her mind, and change my job – but that’s exactly what she did. Ordinarily, we would receive a “job change slip” that we are required to sign, which is our notification of a job change. If I hadn’t thought to look at the roster, I wouldn’t have even KNOWN about it, until they started writing me up for NOT going to work in the mattress factory!
Now I’m back to stripping, which is the very bottom of the mattress factory hierarchy. It consists of using a box cutter to slice open used and worn out mattresses, to salvage and reuse the cotton inside. I could joke that at least it’s a White-Collar Job, if only in the sense that we ALL wear white collars here – but I’m in no mood to joke right now. (There are too many mattresses to strip!) haha…Jobs come, and jobs go. As inmates, we ultimately have no say-so over where we work, as I was just reminded. But I can control how I react to a situation, and in that way I can still control its outcome, to a degree – and maybe even control the future, if I’m persistent enough. We all go through hardships, and unfairness, so I might as well practice dealing with it now, because adversity will follow me anywhere. I try to remember that every dark cloud has a lining – even if it’s just a lining of cotton fibers, from the inside of a used mattress!
This, too, will pass, if I make the best of the situation, and be alert for opportunities that I can seize, to better my circumstances. I’ve lost plenty of jobs before – I just hope it’s not long before I can lose this one, too! =-) At least I’ve learned to control myself, and my reactions to negative situations – and that’s far more important to me than whatever job they give me. So says DannyBoy.