Out of Work

Out of work

I chilled out, unloaded my stuff, ate some cooked food that Michele had kindly left in the fridge for me, and felt my way back into my house and my NY life over the next eight hours. I was too anxious to rest and it was too cold to go out. It was wonderful to hug Michele again, and know that this part of the journey was done. Seeing Cliff would be next. Once that was done, I could move on. Even split again. Later that evening, I began to sort through the GRE materials. I had about thirty six hours until my exam.

I awoke early the next morning, opened the books and struggled through the materials. I crammed, I read, I did sample tests and fretted a great deal about my capabilities in Math. The test came up fairly quickly, and I felt marginally prepared. The center was cool and the other folks seemed far from my reality. The proctors were all grounded, kind yet unyielding black women. Twice I was told that my Identification and locker key were not visible and could be grounds for disqualification. I had come too far and paid too much to lose it that stupidly.

I finished in a sweat, knowing that the essays had not come together to my satisfaction. In this techy era you can view your multiple choice scores immediately after you complete the test. Neither my Verbal nor Math scores were great. I felt like crap. To complete the picture I had scheduled a meeting with Ram directly after the exam. I took the bus north on Third Avenue from the GCT neighborhood and walked into Kidville in the middle of their Halloween party. Shazaam that was a culture shock!

I had a calm discussion with Rammy, talking shop, profit and loss, learning the foibles of the new Maryland store, and other blather before he finally told me that my job was toast. Layoffs had occurred the previous week. When I heard the names of the others, I realized that as bad as it was they were all ancillary employees, janitors, coatcheck a front desk secretary or stock person. Not anyone in management really. Quietly I raged, but I had seen it coming. The room outside of his office was awash with costumed kids and Dads, usually the Dad’s were more done than their children. To fit the model, the Mom’s had the requisite fashion statement status ensemble goin on. A few looked appropriately homey. Everyone was glad to see me, and I wanted to puke. I walked over to Madison, took the bus home and had a drink.