Wednesday night

M. got fired today. It was a pretty unexpected time for it.. we thought he would be getting transferred to a retail store. We knew from the first day or two after he got the job that six months was pretty much all anyone got to work because they have such an idiotic policy about firing people if they don't make quota for three months in a row, after three months of training (hence the applying to transfer to retail). The people in the retail stores in this are aren't making quota, either, much less the outside sales reps, which is what he was. No one in his job in this district has EVER made quota consistently. Reception for cellphones is still somewhat bad here in places because of all the hills, and frankly, CellularONE's coverage sucks compared to Cingular, and their prices aren't all that hot either, plus the general incompetence of say, the billing system, which routinely overcharges people, and other factors. The whole thing was handled very badly, but I won't go into it now simply because they're not worth the time and energy it would take to bash them.

Anyway. Strangely, we've been somewhat cheerful about the whole thing. Maybe it's because we knew all along he wouldn't be working there too much longer, or because the job and the company really sucked to begin with and he was all stressed out over not making quota and related things. It almost feels like we're celebrating something, though we know that we probably shouldn't be. It might have sucked, but it paid the bills, and so um, now it's not paying anything and that is definitely A Bad Thing. Soo.. I've been pretty cheerful, but my mind keeps thinking about it all, and I spent a good portion of the day cleaning things that I don't normally clean that often, which is usually a pretty good sign that I'm stressed/upset/annoyed/angry.

And.. I know I shouldn't, but I feel so guilty about it all. M. had an excellent job in Sweden, and now he's been fired (fired!) from his third crap job (the previous two he quit, as they didn't pay actual money). His job in Sweden ultimately enabled us to live without working for our entire first year of marriage. Here, he couldn't even get a decent interview until he started applying for jobs with his middle name (Christopher. Christoffer, actually, but spelling it correctly would defeat the purpose.) If it wasn't for me, he would still have that job, or a better one. (He claims that he would have quit sooner if it hadn't been for me, but he wouldn't have actually done so until he had another one lined up.) And now he hasn't even gotten a response from anything he's really qualified for, and dammit, do you know how much more Alliance Managers get paid in the US than Sweden? A bunch!

I could go on about this, in a similarly feeling-sorry-for-myself way, but it's time for bed, and for me to stop thinking about it too much. I just wish that we could move past this point and into the next part.. you know, the one with a little house and a mortgage, a baby on the way and a station wagon. Right now, I'm feeling we're in the ramen noodle, orange shag carpet and goldfish in a too-small tank kind of life, and goodness knows, that doesn't sound like fun.