It’s hard to approach this subject without my blood pressure rising again; recurring memories from a few years ago welling up like the rancid odors of a trash can that had been sitting outside all day in the Summer sun. It just stinks.

Images kept popping into my head at 3:00 AM, as did a trail of emails and phone messages that took over my life and changed the course of our financial and health care security more than three years ago. That feeling of being taken advantage of; stuck in a helpless position. The angst of not knowing how to protect myself or my family. Once again, I could no longer get back to sleep. The anger simply took over and unpleasant scenarios started to play back inside my head as if an old VCR player was set to auto-rewind. Younger people reading this are now asking, “What’s a VCR?”

I know enough to know that these old memories don’t just show up without warning. They are usually triggered by external events or disturbing news. Any time people are being taken advantage of, or have suffered at the hands of banks or bosses or bullies, or find themselves to be victims of violence, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. People who claim to be Christians celebrating the violence being perpetrated on other human beings in Minneapolis. People anywhere who are denied their basic human rights much less the rights afforded to them in the US by the first through the tenth amendments in the bill of rights. I don’t like it when people are being taken advantage of, or beaten, or killed, especially when others celebrate or deny that these things are even happening. No, not very Christ-like behavior at all.

Maybe this was my 3:00 AM trigger.

I was terminated from my employer in August of 2022. In order to receive any final meager settlement, I needed to sign a written agreement not to disclose the terms of the dismissal or to disparage the company in any way as it would result in non-payment of those funds. After all, my position was simply being eliminated shortly after they acquired another company and a huge staff. I became extraneous. No biggie. These things happen. And so I signed and kept my mouth shut. I still won’t talk about the company or talk smack about individually named people there, but what happened after the “involuntary separation” is what bounced me out of bed again this day. Actions are always accompanied by consequences. The consequences that followed my “separation” were what had me red faced and fist-clenched again this morning.

The final severance payment never came. At first I figured that it must take some time to set up whatever changes were needed inside the payroll system to process that one-time, last-time payment to an employee. Two months went by and I found myself writing twice weekly emails to the HR department and to individuals who were charged with being my primary contacts to ask “what’s up?” After writing that last sentence my head was filled with the image of Keenan Thompson from SNL doing his famous “What’s Up With That” sketch, with Jason Sudeikis doing the hype dancing in the background.

I had to be a pest. I was required to author numerous email and phone messages during that two month stretch before somebody actually responded. Without an income now, the final check was important. Living off our savings account was not preferred. Once I got a human being to actually answer my call directly, (I called their cell phone 5 times within one hour), they agreed to look into it and the final paycheck was finally received in the third month post employment. Why didn’t anybody respond to any of my correspondence or calls in the first place? I wondered back then if I would have to involve the state’s Department of Labor or a lawyer to help. In the end I didn’t. I guess that’s a win.

COBRA and CANCER

During this same two month stretch following unemployment, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time. She had beaten TNBC cancer a few years prior with a year long series of procedures including surgery, chemo therapy and radiation treatments. This time it had returned in a different form and the safest path to eliminate all future risk was to agree to a double mastectomy. This was devastating.

So now that we had to pay for our own health care through an expensive post-employment COBRA plan and knowing that my wife would be needing medical coverage, you might think we were diligent in making premium payments on time. We were. Immediately following her diagnosis, our insurance plan was canceled. Now, I can’t blame my former employer for that one, but the third party administrator of their COBRA health plan is a predatory scum bag of a company. I’ll unfairly apply some guilt by association. They claimed we missed a premium payment date. They never notified us that there was a problem. We simply received a cancellation notice in the mail right about the time the hospital called us to tell us we had no coverage for the surgery that was already scheduled. Hmm. That timing was convenient, no?

After another month of fighting with the customer service people, we got one of them to actually look online to see that our check was received before the due date and that the policy should have been fine. So why was the policy canceled?

“I can see it was paid, but I can’t change the status now. You’ll have to talk with our legal department.”

We did. Despite their own records showing we paid all our premiums on time and their own agent confirming payments were processed inside their own system, WE had to show proof that we paid them? It took another two weeks of assembling deposit images from the bank, where we had digital records of the COBRA company physically depositing the checks into their own account. At that point I guess they realized they would lose that lawsuit and decided to do what they should have done in the first place. Cover the prepaid policy health care needs of a cancer victim.

I’m getting pissed off all over again.

With no money coming in we began to realize that we were not prepared for this sort of early retirement plan. Nobody my age was being considered as a welcome new hire worthy of a long term employment relationship, especially in the computer technology field. After all, young people are smarter about new technology, right? They’re cheaper, anyway. But, we were forced to draw on savings to pay bills and invoke some retirement fund payments to offset those medical and other living costs. We had been lucky in the previous decade, able to cut our housing expenses and squirrel away some extra cash for retirement, but we were not expecting to start spending that money now. Then 62, I decided to lean on Social Security early to take the pressure off our savings withdrawals though it would be another three years to find some relief on medical insurance coverage. That alone was our biggest single monthly expense as many of you already know and experience yourselves. When you lose your income and forced into an early retirement, you’re never quite prepared for how expensive things really are.

Work Friends or Maybe Not

Throughout my career, I’ve always really, really enjoyed working with people. I’ve made some pretty great friends all along the way at different companies and even with customer companies I visited while traveling. I’m sure that I’m a flawed individual and that my personality might not be to everyone’s taste, but I think that I get along well with most everyone I meet. When I’ve moved on from one company to another, I always stayed in touch with work friends from the previous employer. After leaving Wisconsin, I still went back to meet with some of the gang for lunch or dinner whenever I got the chance. Over time, I realize that those longer distance relationships tend to fade just because of the physical and work oriented separation, but emails or messages back and forth to those people are always welcome and still fun. So what was the problem with my last employer and those people I thought were my friends?

Unique among all other employer examples, this last place fostered a complete communication black out after I left. Aside from a very short social media comment from 2 people there, none of the people I thought were my friends, albeit work friends, reached out to see how I was doing or if my family was okay. I’m talking about co-workers and managers that I went out to lunch with regularly. People that I helped plan and run big, fun department events. Small groups of buddies I often picked up the tab for at lunch. Custom built trophies and awards I would create in the shop to boost morale for people’s hard work. A custom cutting board made for a guy about to get married, delivered on the same day I was called into a lobby conference room and then shown the door. A broken wooden canoe that I bought and rescued from a co-worker so that it could be finished the way their family had hoped. And my favorite, a custom built rare wood snare drum (made for myself) where I asked a co-worker/drummer to test out just before I was terminated. Despite me trying multiple times to arrange a pick up of the drum after the fact, I never got it back and never heard back from that guy to schedule a time convenient for him. More Christian values on display there too, he was the drummer for his church band.

I still wonder if a false narrative or nasty rumor got started there around my departure. That might explain the blackout, but apparently I’ll never know. Why does that bug me now more than three years later? I don’t really know. I’d like to know what I did that was so wrong. I thought I was relatively well liked while there. At least I thought I was considered one of the gang. Why ostracized? Why the lack of compassion or even morbid interest in my departure after the fact? WTF? (Keenan Thompson is tuning up again in the background).

With the whole series of negative events following my departure, the feeling of being taken advantage of rises again. I felt like me and my family had endured multiple hardships as a result of that decision. Though I hate the concept of anyone “playing” the victim rather that take responsibility for their own life choices, this wasn’t my life choice. The anger still lingers.

I’m OK, You’re OK

It took until this particular paragraph to calm down. In fairness I should probably put all this history into perspective so maybe I can finally move on. Perhaps the simple act of writing all this down after three years can lead to some restorative, healing path. Perhaps the feeling of being taken advantage of will fade further with the story told. Maybe it’s time to look at the present and adjust my gaze forward to the future.

My wife is now fine and fully cancer free again. It was another long arduous year of treatment and recovery but we are traveling again and looking forward to another grandchild soon. We have a wedding coming up for our youngest daughter. All our kids in fact seem to be happy and healthy and we enjoy having them all over to the house along with our collection of four dogs so that it can resemble a madhouse again. It’s noisy but fun. We seem to have figured out our expenses now and with the help of turning 65, we can leverage Medicare and reduce our overall health premiums. In short, we will be fine. We’re not buying boats or campers or second properties but we still can travel a bit and pay our bills. I guess we are lucky in that regard so I will remember to count our blessings.

That personality flaw, that developed anger over being victimized runs deep with me going well back to when I was very young. I know therein lies some of the root cause. It’s too long and personal of a back story to tell, but it seems to be the burning ember that re-lights a figurative reactionary fire in me. An unwanted personal encounter or another triggering event like a news story will just naturally lead to bad memories from the past. The memory of my last employer and all the unwanted negativity directed at my family after the separation was this morning’s re-run. It just happens.

But… we grow. Hopefully I continue to improve my outlook on the future as well as the past. There’s nothing I can do about the past anyway so why invest energy in reviewing things I cannot change. I need to remind myself of that last line from time to time, and just for the love of God, move on.

My volunteer work continues with the local community theater and that is pretty rewarding. I’ve met and befriended a number of great people there and we have a pretty good time making things in the wood shop that look good on stage (but from 30 feet away). That’s the wonder of staging and props only seen from a distance. The local woodworking association here is a worthwhile activity too and I’m on the board now. I don’t have to do a whole lot other than participate and pontificate, but I seem to be good at both. (participate and pontificate… I crack myself up. I like alliteration)

Projects continue on in my own shop, and some new ideas for wild things are brewing up in my proverbial tea pot. I’m also planning a photo/video trip around Lake Superior to catch some great Winter images of rivers and waterfalls and lighthouses in the snow.

See? Looking towards the future seems to wash away the angry memories of the past. It’s now 6:30 AM. Time for some eggs and perhaps a little Jimmy Dean sausage… with Ketchup.

Don’t judge me.