My Journey To Greatness

Have you ever thought you were working for a company that didn't appreciate you or that you didn't feel like they valued you enough and felt like you were just working to put money into someone else's pocket while killing yourself along the way??? Well I did, I worked at a cotton mill located in the small town where I was born and raised witch was really the first real job persay that Id had, I had worked for a small company installing carpet and tile and painting during the summers when I was 15-17 and still in school, I had also worked at a fast food resturaunt for a little while but like I said i thought this job at the cotton mill could potentially be a career... The job was alright or so it seemed for my at the time 18 year old self and my girlfriend the money at the time seemed was good enough that was, until my girlfriend got pregnant and I was about to be a father. I worked at said cotton mill for around 3 years on the swing shift witch was draining on its own not to mention I was pulling 10 to 12 hour shifts almost everyday especially when I found out we were having a baby. To me I thought I was a valuable asset to this company but boy was I wrong I mean after all the boss man always came to me to work over or to bail him out when someone else messed up but little did I know that really didn't mean anything. Well the 3rd year of me working for this cotton mill my girlfriend went into labor so naturally I called out of work and was told that by my boss that this would go against me because she is just my girlfriend and not my wife, It seemed a little strange to me because after all she was having my child but what really got me was when he said that if she didn't have the baby or after she did have the baby that I should return to work because he really needed me to be there because 2 other people on my shift were also going to be out, I just told him what I knew he wanted to hear knowing that there was no way I would be leaving that hospital rather she had our child or not. So she ended up having our beautiful daughter November 15, 2013 without any major complications so I called my boss back and told him they were going to be in the hospital for 4-5 extra days and that I wanted to use the vacation time that I had saved up just for this and he unwillingly said alright. Well fast forward to us getting out of the hospital and bringing our beautiful baby girl Jacelyn home, the day after we got home I was going to return to work so I go to sleep at a decent time of 3am I guess the new parent jitters got to me because I couldn't stop worrying about her even though she was right beside me. Well I wake up at 5am the next morning to get ready for work and prepare myself for the 30 minute drive to work hoping I wouldn't fall asleep because after all id only gotten 2-3 hours of sleep anyways I make it to the plant and walk inside head to my locker to get my tools and stuff out and I was met by my boss mans trainee boss telling me that I no longer had a job there because for 4 days I was a no call no show, remind you id purposefully saved 2 weeks of vacation time for the birth of my child and I called my boss to let him know I wanted to use a week of it but apparently I was being punished because he had forgotten to put it in the system. So I try to go to my boss mans boss and explain to him what had hapened but he was one of the rudest people id ever met in my life and also blamed me for this mistake so I leave the plant at 8am a brand new father who just lost his job and the only way to support his child what was I going to do, how would I support the family I created, how would my girlfriend take the fact that I got fired the day after we brought our daughter home I literally was a nervous wreck. Well I make it home and explain what happened and my girlfriend was so supportive and positive about the situation and it made me feel really good knowing that she was by my side irregardless and it also lit a fire under me and I started applying and calling places I ended up landing a job with a construction company building metal buildings and the owner of this company was a jerk and it was all I could do daily just to deal with his smart mouth and be around him so this job only lasted about a year. I ended up bouncing around from a few different places until I got a job with another company building metal buildings and absolutely loved it and after 2 years I was promoted to foreman and running my own crew as a 23 year old. Well I worked for this company for roughly 4-5 years and found out no matter how much money id made my boss man that I was just as replaceable as the laborers we hired every couple months and this is when it really hit me that it didnt matter if it was a multi million dollar cotton mill or an independently owned company that if there weren't any employee appreciation that I would always feel unappreciated and replaceable and that's when I decided that I was going to try and start my own business doing home remodeling and renovations, build some metal buildings, garages, and maybe a little landscaping. Here I am at 26 years old going to test for my residential contracting license as well as my general contracting license to start my own business and throughout these past 5 years I have had some good times and some bad but I never one time felt unappreciated or replaceable and I also made it a point to show my 3-4 employees that I really did and do appreciate them. I only hope that god continues to guide me and bless me in everything I do and continue to let my little small town business flourish..