For better or worse

I have failed more often than I have succeeded. In 1983, I was discharged from the military due to an injury and disability, I wasn't even twenty-three. In 1989, I graduated from college with a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration. I thought I was all set, but I wasn't. I felt proud of my degree because I only had a g.e.d. I had studied hard and had decent grades. I was in for a shock when I started going for interviews. No one would hire me, they all said the same thing, "it's nice you have your education, but where is your experience?" At this time, the federal and state government put a hiring freeze into place, thus making employment for recent graduates difficult. I had been working in the airline industry and wanted to leave it, but knew I couldn't until I had a better job. I would get interviews but no offers. Finally, I stopped looking for a job in my desired field.

I stayed in the airline industry another eight years and left, taking a job in a warehouse making more money with better benefits. In December 1997, my life was about to change again. I was hit by a drunk driver and almost killed. After having back surgery, and completing rehabilitation, they did a work capacities assessment on me and it was determined I could no longer do manual labor because the damage was too great. I went back to work at the warehouse because again, I had no choice. This time, outpaced by time of seven years and technological advances, my degree was basically invalidated.

In June 1998, the State kicked in vocational rehabilitation services for me and I was sent back to college. This time I took several part time jobs working in accounts payable, payroll, and other areas. In 2000, I started applying for state jobs and was hired for a temporary tax position. It was for the tax season, so I took it because it was verifiable experience. After the temporary job was over, I found other work in my field of study as verifiable experience.

In February 2001, I was hired by the state as a sales and use tax auditor. I was ecstatic and so was my family. I had finally made it, or had I? We had to complete a one year probation which meant no absences or vacations were allowed. Our first year we went out and performed audits with seasoned agents. I know I wasn't one of their favored choices by the audits I was assigned to work. Every audit I was assigned was by far above my pay and skill level. In other words the trainers were trying to find a reason not to keep me on the payroll. I surprised my trainers by not only handling the audit workload but by assessing over $2,500,000 in sales and use tax on my audits as a trainee. It was in my first review on my permanent team that my supervisor told me I had been assigned audits above my skill level. I had passed probation.

In 2003, I injured myself pretty badly. I tripped and stopped myself from falling as I was going up the steps in a movie theater. It hurt but I thought nothing of it. Monday at work I thought a lot of it. I sat down at work, we were told of a team meeting but I couldn't get out of my chair. One of my co-workers helped me out of my chair and it was off to the meeting. When we arrived, I couldn't sit down. I was concerned so I called my doctor and they scheduled an emergency appointment. I went in and was prescribed both Darvocet and Percocet for pain. My audit work reflected the medication usage, because after I returned, even I couldn't make sense of my work papers. I had to redo four audits, which pissed off my employer.

I was a lead auditor on a larger company and I was given a letter. My employer decided it was time to try and terminate my employment. I fought and won, but did I really? The attitudes by my supervisors had changed for the worse and no one wanted me on their team. The audit I was lead auditor on would be my last with the state because there was no way I could stay in a hostile environment. My last audit, I assessed $15,000.000 on and as I turned in the final revised work papers and it was approved, I had quietly resigned. My last review despite a good audit showed work performance unsatisfactory and ineligible for rehire. I signed it, told my friends goodbye and quietly left.

I took a similar position with another state making more money but the training was not what I was expecting and the procedures were different. It didn't matter because I was terminated three months into this new position. I was never hired in auditing again despite being damn good at it. It was my favorite subject in the curriculum and was surprised how easy it was for me. As I was talking to my former co-workers in the other state, I found out that I was not the only one targeted by our employer. There were two other men, like myself over forty, white that they wanted to get rid of. The other two were lawyers and walked away with hefty settlements, meanwhile I received nothing.

I tried to run my own accounting business after this was over with and absolutely failed. In 2007, I was offered a job in the airline industry again working the ramp. I was concerned because of my surgically repaired back holding out. By this time, I was forty-seven. I worked with Frontier Airlines for seven years before retiring because we were being laid off so they could outsource our jobs. I went looking into temporary accounting work, but I spent too much time unemployed. In 2016 I returned to the airline industry where I stayed until covid-19 in 2020. Now, I am retired and don't have to worry about it.