Confessions of A Working Girl

First, let me say that this is not (entirely) about the people who run the country. It is more about the first people in the title, the people that are in charge of the visitor’s center.

My dad has worked at the Route 25 visitor’s center in Massachusetts for over ten years. Today, today! They told him that the visitor’s center will be closed as of Saturday night, October 31st. They gave him two days notice. Two! Isn’t the law two weeks or something like that? If there’s not a law about there being two weeks notice for firing someone there should be. And everyone that my dad talked to today is startled and appalled by the fact that the visitor’s center is closing.

My dad pointed out that the members of the chamber also have a right to be mad, since they are paying the chamber money to distribute their brochures for a year. 12 months. And now, that same amount of money will be paying for maybe 6 months…and that’s only if they do open again in April like they told my dad.

I’m a little mad because I have a summer job there. But I’m mostly mad on my dad’s behalf. He’s been the manager of that visitor’s center for most of the ten years that he’s been there. And yet today, when his boss was laying him off, she had with her the person that they hired a little over a year ago.

Maybe I had better back up and explain a little. The Route 25 Visitor’s Center is owned by Mass Highway, but is staffed by the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. Or at this point, it was staffed by the Chamber. In any case, the Chamber is always complaining about money. So last winter, they decided to single staff the visitor’s center. The visitor’s center is in the middle of a freaking highway. How safe is it to single staff? Especially when the visitor’s center gets…oh I don’t know, at minimum 200,000 visitors a year? (Usually there’s more than that, but when doing the math I picked the lowest numbers possible to illustrate my point.)

Anyway, so a little while before they decided to single staff during the winter, the new girl was hired. Let’s call her Susan. Her job was to be my dad’s boss, but she had no power. So basically, what would happen is that my dad would have to ask her permission for something, then Susan would have to ask her boss, the chief executive officer, whether or not my dad could do something so simple as buy more coffee. (We sell sold coffee to the visitors–good New England Coffee) So basically, Susan didn’t really do anything. I’ll admit, there is the slight possibility that she does more good where me and my dad do not hear of it.

Susan, by the way, is the person that was with the boss when my dad was getting layed off. God, that sounds horrid. Oh, and what my dad considered the best part? Apparently, while firing him, the boss invited my dad to the Chamber Christmas Party. Wasn’t that just so nice of them? Not! Sheesh, what the heck were they thinking?!

Now that I’ve worked off some of my aggravation, back to my worries (or rather, on to my worries since I don’t think I mentioned them yet)… my health care was already messed up since I’d turned 19…now that my dad won’t have a job, he said that that effects me more. That’s the only thing that I’m worried about that concerns me. Well, that’s not quite true. I want to go abroad next year, but the way things are, I may have to think about it. If my family’s situation does not change, then I’d spend the whole time in Europe worrying. So I’m also worried that I’ll have to cancel, or postpone my trip.

The rest of my worries are for my parents and siblings. Jin and I are both away at college, so that’s a stress on my parents. But even more stressful I think, is that they still have 5 mouths to feed beside their own. I know that money was getting tight even as my dad worked as much as he could (I do have two brothers in high school after all–they eat a lot!) So I worry about what it will be like now, if he’s not working.

And that’s another problem in and of itself–there are practically no jobs. I can’t even find a workstudy job on the campus of my college!   If this does not change, I may have to do the dreaded phone-a-thon again. I hated that job, I hate it! But especially if my dad can’t find a job, I’ll take it. I’ll hate it the whole time I’m doing it, but if they offer, I may take it.  If, of course, is the big question, since I doubt that they are unlike the rest of the campus and not inundated with job applications.

So I’m worrying about my parents, all 6 of my siblings, the car payments, the school loans, can I find a job? can my dad find a job?…I know I’m not the only one who’s been worrying about this stuff, especially recently. But it is different for each person. My heart goes out to all the people in my situation, and all the people who are worse off. Because on the whole, at the moment, I’m still very lucky.