A shot of a small area of our work room floor
There were several titles floating around the house for this post. My husband threw out the following:
Postage Stamps to Food Stamps
Shipped Out Priority (or something like that)
Fourteen years ago, when I was 19 years old, I quit my job at Wal-Mart for the far better paying job at the United States Postal Service. It was a good move for me, I was in college and the pay was great. I made "career" status a year later and I was set. Secure employment, making enough money to keep me in school and living on my own. I met Rob there, and it provided us the means to have the house we do, the cars we do, and the lifestyle we do.
On April 2, 2009 (happy birthday to me!), the USPS announced that they were going to close our facility. We always somewhat knew that we were a temporary installation - but initially it was supposed to close after 5 years. We lasted for more than 14. Pretty good run.
This was my home (or one 500 or so just like it) for 14 years
The catch - we were always told we would have no problem just sliding over into a Phoenix installation. As it turned out, there were no Phoenix jobs extended to us. Instead we were offered the same job, located in either (our choice) Salt Lake City, UT or Wichita, KS.
!!!! Unacceptable !!!!!
We are not sure how it happened, or why the contractual language "within a 50 mile radius" was ignored, but it was. There were some type of loop holes that allowed them to extend the radius to 1500 miles, and therefore finding us jobs that we were "uniquely qualified for" and to them, problem solved.
So, for many of us, that meant we had to resign. Not by choice, but because the "solution" was unacceptable and a hardship. They did pay out any remaining vacation time we had, which was a few weeks for me. Our union is fighting at the National level right now to get us severance.
So, here I am. Unemployed. It's been three days and I'm incredibly bored. I don't know what the next thing will be in my employment future... but I'll keep you posted.
