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 What do you do when you have to answer that daunting question that occurs every second of every day but it's importance it's quite shown until you loose something important.

That question that you've subconsciously been able to answer for a long time and are now having so much trouble figuring out how to answer. It may not be as complex as a "How are you?" but it is as simple as a "What'cha' doing?" It's the question that your friends and family ask you every day you have a day off or have a vacation. Only this time, it's a bit of a more permanent one and it's a question that you are now asking yourself over and over.

What's next?

Do you dye your hair some outrageous color because there are no longer rules in place to tell you that you can't? Do you devote the next week of your life to one of your hobbies because suddenly you have the most free time in the world? Do you drop everything you've got (because honestly, now it's nothing), and go on a road trip to free your soul? Let's face it, your soul is already free. Nothing you do now, will change the fact that you lost the job.

Maybe you knew it was coming.

You had to have known. It was the red flag you noticed during the interview. The way she just sat across from you in silence for the 15 minutes and then started to ask the questions as you were't finished with the paperwork. It was the moment she said "I don't know if you got that, but the jobs all yours, if you want it." It was the hours you were getting during the beginning of working there, where they had you working 11AM to about 3 or 4PM and there was really no reason for you to stay because the business was slow.

You tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, but deep down you knew that it was going to come and you would try to be ready for it best you could. You also knew that no matter how much you tried to prepare yourself, you didn't want to seem like a quitter. So, You knew it was coming. It was when they fired the guy and the other girl. The bartender too. Along with the assistant chef.

You just wanted to continue to try to give it the benefit of the doubt but you had to have known that it would come. It was when the switched your hours from the morning to the evening without so much as a single conversation with you. Oh, but, you did. You liked those hours. The tips paired so nicely and compensated for the lack of it being a shift that you wanted. When they hired four new people, you knew it was almost there because they made you look less experienced and weaker. While you were, you didn't want to be the quitter though. You had the one quality that did make you stand out. You did your side-work every shift without fail, you actually wanted to be there. It just wasn't enough.

It was the manager claiming that she didn't have the number you had even though you've had it since the interview. It was the with-holding of the schedule from you week to week, probably hoping you would fold and not come in anymore. So, when that didn't work, they continued to lower your hours more and more until you would fold. You never folded though.

They did.

So, you win. You know how you win? They fired you via text. They took the cowardly way out. Avoided the confrontation, they did. So, they lost. Maybe you knew it was coming, but regardless of how it came, you still win for not playing their games.

So, what's next?