Chapter 2
ASH
One of the best parts about my main job for the last five years was the fact that I didn’t have to explain what gender fluid is to middle aged Karens every day.
I only interacted with my bosses and coworkers over the phone, and the clients very rarely had a reason to reach out to me through anything other than email.
It was perfect – until I tried to sign in this morning.
After several unsuccessful attempts, I went into my personal email to see if there was some sort of an outage with the servers. With me being in Pennsylvania and the corporate headquarters being in California, sometimes things happen out there that would affect connectivity for me.
Sure enough, there is an email from the head of human resources. As I skim through the first few sentences, my good mood evaporates.
“In light of our recent budget analysis, the work from home experiment will need to be converted to a hybrid or permanent in office arrangement.
For those of you who are outside of a twenty-mile geographic radius, you will receive two month’s severance as compensation. Your access to the company systems have been revoked as of this morning.”
I am too undercaffeinated to be able to deal with this level of bullshit.
My dark roast Colombian vanilla caramel special occasion coffee is warranted for this clusterfuck.
Pushing away from my workspace setup in the corner of my living room, I head to the coffee bar I built in my kitchen.
The cappuccino maker is calling my name, but I’m too pissy to be able to deal with using the steamer wand today.
Knowing my luck, I’ll curdle the damn milk and end up in the bathroom for the next twelve hours.
I fill the reusable pod for my Keurig with the grounds from the freezer and put my unicorn sparkles mug under the spout. I’m going to need all the bright colors and ooh shiny things to combat my foul mood.
With the way corporations run the world, the CEO of my company has apparently decided that working from home is no longer viable. By claiming it is restructuring, he is going to be able to pay for that second yacht and third mistress by cutting out long term remote employees.
Okay, so maybe I’m being a bit jaded about things. I highly doubt someone like him could get a single mistress, let alone three. No matter how much money he makes, he’s a douche canoe of the highest order.
I have to face the facts that I have to start my job hunt all over again. The last time I had to do this, no one was doing in person interviews because the world shut down for Covid. Now, I’m going to have to face the same rat race from before, only worse.
I hadn’t come out as gender fluid before.
I was still masking every day the last time I had an in person full-time job, and I really do not want to have to go back to that.
I mean, the bartender gigs I have don’t care what my gender is on any given day as long as I can check ID and sling the drinks.
But corporate America isn’t exactly friendly to those of us who are non-binary or gender queer.
Hell, some places still require women to wear skirts in the office.
With a sigh, I open the fridge to grab some cream for my coffee.
I guess it’s time to log into the department of labor’s website and apply for unemployment benefits – not that they’ll give me anywhere near what I was making.
I’ll be lucky to get about a third of what I was bringing in because my part time jobs at the bars will cut into what I can get from unemployment.
They don’t care that the job whose income is being replaced existed simultaneously with the others. They only want to pay me as little as possible after jumping through seventy million hoops on an outdated website.
Sitting back at my desk with my coffee, I open my phone to send a text to Eli, my boss at Mac’s.
Me:
Any chance I can pick up more hours?
Eli:
Yeah, sure. You can pick up Jace’s hours for a couple weeks
Jace needs time off? The big softie never takes time off. I think the last time he took time off was when one of his foster brothers was getting married in Ohio, but he was back within a day. What could make him miss weeks?
Me:
Everything OK?
Eli:
You can ask him when he gets back.
TB needs space with this one.
Alright, now I’m worried. And I can’t concentrate on my own shit when I’m worried about someone else. Scrolling through my contacts, I find the one marked only with a teddy bear emoji and open up the text chain.
Me:
I’m here if u need me
I don’t expect a response right away. With the way Eli made it sound, I figure Jace isn’t going to be very social right now. I nearly snort my coffee in surprise when my phone buzzes right after setting it down on the desk. Still coughing, I pick it up to read his response.
**:
fill u in when I’m back in town.
I’m not sure how I feel about not knowing what’s going on with my favorite coworker, but I respect him enough not to pry further.
Instead, I pull up the shared calendar to see what shifts I am picking up.
Jace is scheduled for the party at McKinley’s in a few days and two shifts at the DC for the weekend.
That will put me at doing a double on Saturday between the two locations, but they’re only about a quarter mile away from each other…
and from home – which is a good thing because I can’t afford to waste gas on unnecessary driving.