No matter how much I complain about my life now, my life really sucked four years ago when, just a week before Christmas, it was announced by upper management that not only was my job going to end but that I had to close up the store I worked at.  For three years I had landed myself a very sweet job at Godiva Chocolatier pimping out chocolatey goodness in the Grand Avenue Mall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  That year business was not exactly booming because there was major construction going on in the mall.  In our section of the mall, stores were closing down one by one.  It was utterly depressing, yet somehow my co-workers and I still managed to come to work each day with enthusiasm, determined to beat the odds and stick together.  I loved my job and my co-workers were like family -- there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for them. 

But good jobs don't always last forever.  With a district manager change came more pressure to increase sales -- yet how do you increase sales when there's no traffic?  The construction in the mall scared customers away and it was hard to do in-store treat demonstrations (like dipping strawberries in chocolate) when the air was filled with clouds of dust and the metallic screams of machinery interupted our sales pitches.  When the closing announcement came, it came without much surprise, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back.  We had ourselves a good cry.  The other employees, with the exception of one, left.  There were days when I would have to work 12+ hour days, especially after my store manager fell ill with a kidney infection and spent a few days in hospital.  Then I fell ill with a bad flu.  Christmas Eve had us both doing our best to carry on, each of us taking turns sitting on a stool with a bucket between us in case we couldn't make it to the restroom to barf.  Customers were sympathetic, often buying an extra box of chocolates because we were so pathetic!

It was two days after Christmas that we had our store closing and it would take us a week to literally tear everything apart and pack up.  Upper managment was not sympathetic.  I was facing unemployment and wasn't going to take it lying down.  The last day I worked for the Grand Avenue Godiva was on my birthday, December 30th, made especially even more depressing because the guy I was seeing that year (whom I had a quick fuck with on Christmas Eve after an especially grueling day at work) cancelled our date for the evening and soon I would no longer see him as often considering he was moving to Minnesota.  So I came to work dressed up for a night on the town after what I thought would be a short work day.  So while I was breaking down boxes (while in a black velvet dress and in four inch heels grumbling to myself about the pack of very expensive condoms I had bought that were never going to get used), I overheard management talk about us "underlings" in a way that further distressed me.  The store closing was considered a relief to the district manager who had ambitions to move higher up.  The lower sales at our store had put her behind on her goal.  "Thank God this place is finally going down!  I am not going to miss this place," she literally said.  My temper flared.

I confronted her.  I still had a box cutter in my hand.  I must've seemed a banshee out of a horror film.  I must say I surprised her, but she reacted in that mocking kind of way, like I was a child having a tantrum.  How dare I, really?  But I felt obligated to defend the store and my co-workers.  Sure, we had a rough year, but there was no reason why upper management needed to make it worse for us, much less belittle us.  My protest earned me enough fire to fuel my ambition to keep working for Godiva, but in order to do so, I would have to endure being relocated to a different store in a different mall.

After a two week break, I went back to work in mid January 2004, to the Godiva boutique in the Mayfair Mall.  Even though I would continue to prove I was a passionate salesperson, I was not welcome there.  The employees at Mayfair hated me because I was a threat to their jobs.  The next straw to break my back was finding out that an employee who wanted a managerial job forged my signature and handwriting on the time sheet to get me fired.  This person made it seem like I was lying about my hours and since this happened while Mayfair's store manager was abscent, she took their side and not mine.  I couldn't defend myself.  On top of the forgery, numerous complaint phone calls from the other employees were made to management.  They claimed I was trying to tell them how to do their jobs and that I was stealing.  Not true.  But who's to say what was true?  I went from being a valuable employee loved and appreciated by my co-workers to an outsider underappreciated and far from loved.

You can imagine that I would eventually quit.

I did.

Who wouldn't?  Sure, I could have hung in there, but I had enough of trying to go out of my way for people who didn't care about me.  It even extended to the guy I really wanted to date.  He, too, treated me like a whore.  Thing is, no matter how much I admire people who can go from one job to the next or from one man to another without feeling, I cannot force myself to do anything without feeling love for it.  If I don't love what I do, I don't do it.  If I try to continue to do a job without love, it's going to wear me out into nothing. 

So when I look back at holiday seasons past, the Yuletide I survived in 2003 comes fresh to the mind like it just happened to me.  The memory makes me appreciate the blessings I have now.  I'm in a much better financial situation, my medical bills are paid, my rent is paid, and I've got a full fridge of food.  I don't have the dizzying desire to date anyone and, with that said, I'm filled with a less desperate need for attention from men.  I'm filled with some other kind of love, something like friendship for my fellow human beings, the sort of kind that I usually feel for animals.  I start to find other people nice or cute, but ultimately I'm still rather isolated.

The hardest thing for me this Yule is living in an apartment complex where a lot of my friends from college used to live.  The memories flood my mind with a peculiar sadness.  There are times I wake up thinking it's still 1995!  So no wonder I'm prone to dark moods lately.  I miss my old friends.  I also miss my Milwaukee friends, the ones I left behind so I can be closer to my family.  My mother is in a nursing home, my brother needs me to help him out at home, my nephews would cry if I moved back to Milwaukee...

This Yule I just want to extend my thanks and love to all my friends, past and present, and my family for accepting me, flaws and all, through break downs and break throughs, these past five years.  Your love has lifted me higher, higher than I've ever been lifted before.  I've checked my astrological calendar for next year and it looks like jolly ol' Jupiter is making a year long pass in my direction.  Whatever happens, be assured I plan on sharing more joy with you in the months to come.

Blessings to all of you!