Fired

Yeah.

I was fired today.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it, but I understand it enough to relate it to you.

During the Christmas holiday week, I made a bad decision. I traded a frapuccino (Glorified milkshake) to an employee of a local Chinese food restaurant for a bowl of Teryaki. I didn't approach him, he came in and offered. While I knew that Starbucks frowns on that sort of thing, I've seen trading done in so many other restaurants over the years, that I thought that at worst, I'd get a slap on the wrist. I was hungry and I let my stomach do the thinking. Bad idea.

A few days later, I got a written repremand. The worst of what I expected. I changed my thinking about the subject and said to myself "Well, if it's wrong for Starbucks, it's wrong for me..." and moved on. Until Tuesday. On Tuesday, I was asked to sit down with my District manager and explain what happened. I did, and I wrote out an explanation of what happened, and how I felt about it, and they sent that in to corporate, where the decision would be made about what to do with me. They then, on orders from corporate, placed me on suspension and told me they'd call me. Today, I got the call to come in for a follow up meeting, which resulted in them telling me that corporate had decided on a no-tolerance policy, and that they're hands were tied. Both guys are great guys, and were kind and offered to be personal references in the future... all the same, it is adding to an insane week of things going wrong.

In the midst of all of this is Kiah, and I am so happy to have the good news of what our baby is. It would've been good either way, but I am happy to be able to call it "he" instead of "it" and "Kiah" instead of "the baby."

I know that much like our crisis of past, this too will work out for our good. God is so faithful. I have an option to go back into graphic design... The Navigators, a xian group out here in the springs is looking for someone with my qualifications. I think that it's been long enough since my last design job, and I think I'm ready to go back. I dropped off my application, resume and portfolio today and hope to hear back soon. Please be praying.

Jim