It's Hard to Ask for Help
Donation protected
I’ve never been good at asking for help.
I was recently laid off from my job—a first for me, to be involuntarily unemployed. A little over two years ago, my sister, who was pregnant with her third child, called me up and asked if I’d be interested in coming back to a company I had previously worked at with her as a remote agent. She was going to be going on maternity leave soon, and the company had given her supervisor permission to hire someone to help fill in during her absence and stay on once she returned. She had suggested me as a candidate. After all, I was already trained in the process of what they did, I knew the documents and would be able to jump right in.
After a year and half of working from home, with the convenience of services like Lyft and Uber, I decided to sell my car. Why pay monthly insurance, gas, maintenance and installments on something I was rarely using? It seemed like a great exchange. I often worked late nights and some weekends, so I was making more money with less expenses. When I twisted my ankle in a freak accident while jogging down my front steps late one night—because the plague of Murphy’s Law has followed me my whole life—all of my savings got eaten right up by the medical bills. So there I am, savings gone, hobbling like an idiot to and from my office every day, tripping over furniture, but still happily clicking away at my job. A month later, when it was announced that our supervisor was switching departments and my sister would be receiving the promotion, I was overjoyed. She had three kids, and the pay increase would help her and her family financially. I was informed that they would have to adjust some things around, because she wasn’t allowed to be in control of my payroll, but that made sense.
A week later, I had a meeting with the Human Resources director to discuss the fact that she’d recently been made aware that my sister was now my supervisor. This shouldn’t have been a shock, we had disclosed the information that we were related when I was hired two years prior, but she informed me that due to the fact that my sister had been promoted as my supervisor that they ‘unfortunately’ would be letting me go at the end of the year. I was stunned. I had been a good worker, taking the position to help them when they needed it, going above and beyond for this company, working weekends and sometimes overnight and early into the morning, and they were taking away my job because they had promoted my sister? They wavered several times, discussing the possibility of keeping me on a few extra weeks, but on the day of December 31st, I was informed that it was my last day.
No car. No savings. And now no income. What a way to start the New Year off, right?
I’ve been applying for jobs non-stop, I’ve filed for unemployment, scaled back all my bills to the bare necessities, cut down my grocery budget to ramen noodles, eggs and grilled cheese and I’m praying I can scrape by until either my unemployment kicks in, or my meager paycheck for my last two days of work arrives. I’m broke. Worse, I feel broken. Scared of this situation I’m now in, worried that the automatic payment of my bills are going to overdraft my account and dig me so deep in a hole that I’ll never get out. I’m panicking.
I’ve never been good at asking for help, but I’m asking for it now.
And I don’t know how to ask, except to say that any help would be appreciated at all. I don’t want to ask for much. Just enough to make sure the heat stays on and the water keeps running. Just enough so that I can afford to keep putting food in my stomach, and have the funds to go to interviews for jobs until my unemployment kicks in, and so that I don’t end up homeless on top of it all. Just a cushion to help me not fall into this hole I feel myself slipping into, and so that I can function like a semi-sane person, instead of the neurotic wreck I’ve been the last two weeks. Sometimes life gives you a round-house kick to the chest, and while I know there are so many others who have gone through this exact same thing, this has been mine.
All I can say is that I am humbled by any generosity that I may receive and I cannot begin to thank you enough.
I was recently laid off from my job—a first for me, to be involuntarily unemployed. A little over two years ago, my sister, who was pregnant with her third child, called me up and asked if I’d be interested in coming back to a company I had previously worked at with her as a remote agent. She was going to be going on maternity leave soon, and the company had given her supervisor permission to hire someone to help fill in during her absence and stay on once she returned. She had suggested me as a candidate. After all, I was already trained in the process of what they did, I knew the documents and would be able to jump right in.
After a year and half of working from home, with the convenience of services like Lyft and Uber, I decided to sell my car. Why pay monthly insurance, gas, maintenance and installments on something I was rarely using? It seemed like a great exchange. I often worked late nights and some weekends, so I was making more money with less expenses. When I twisted my ankle in a freak accident while jogging down my front steps late one night—because the plague of Murphy’s Law has followed me my whole life—all of my savings got eaten right up by the medical bills. So there I am, savings gone, hobbling like an idiot to and from my office every day, tripping over furniture, but still happily clicking away at my job. A month later, when it was announced that our supervisor was switching departments and my sister would be receiving the promotion, I was overjoyed. She had three kids, and the pay increase would help her and her family financially. I was informed that they would have to adjust some things around, because she wasn’t allowed to be in control of my payroll, but that made sense.
A week later, I had a meeting with the Human Resources director to discuss the fact that she’d recently been made aware that my sister was now my supervisor. This shouldn’t have been a shock, we had disclosed the information that we were related when I was hired two years prior, but she informed me that due to the fact that my sister had been promoted as my supervisor that they ‘unfortunately’ would be letting me go at the end of the year. I was stunned. I had been a good worker, taking the position to help them when they needed it, going above and beyond for this company, working weekends and sometimes overnight and early into the morning, and they were taking away my job because they had promoted my sister? They wavered several times, discussing the possibility of keeping me on a few extra weeks, but on the day of December 31st, I was informed that it was my last day.
No car. No savings. And now no income. What a way to start the New Year off, right?
I’ve been applying for jobs non-stop, I’ve filed for unemployment, scaled back all my bills to the bare necessities, cut down my grocery budget to ramen noodles, eggs and grilled cheese and I’m praying I can scrape by until either my unemployment kicks in, or my meager paycheck for my last two days of work arrives. I’m broke. Worse, I feel broken. Scared of this situation I’m now in, worried that the automatic payment of my bills are going to overdraft my account and dig me so deep in a hole that I’ll never get out. I’m panicking.
I’ve never been good at asking for help, but I’m asking for it now.
And I don’t know how to ask, except to say that any help would be appreciated at all. I don’t want to ask for much. Just enough to make sure the heat stays on and the water keeps running. Just enough so that I can afford to keep putting food in my stomach, and have the funds to go to interviews for jobs until my unemployment kicks in, and so that I don’t end up homeless on top of it all. Just a cushion to help me not fall into this hole I feel myself slipping into, and so that I can function like a semi-sane person, instead of the neurotic wreck I’ve been the last two weeks. Sometimes life gives you a round-house kick to the chest, and while I know there are so many others who have gone through this exact same thing, this has been mine.
All I can say is that I am humbled by any generosity that I may receive and I cannot begin to thank you enough.
Organiser
Kathryn Farley
Organiser
Lexington, KY