Greetings from the Boro,
I got a lot of stuff I need to clear off my chest; the combination of lack of severe weather and policy changes at my place of employment that has for all intensive purposes wiped out my chase season until May 19th when I hit the Plains among other things has made me feel the most awful I've felt in years. Most of the time I live a "life is too short to be mad" type mentality, but that was because I had no worries in the world. That has changed over the past couple of weeks.
First off with work; we're losing business (we averaged $13K/day in profit last year compared to $2K/day on good days this year) and my bosses' over staffing the store I work at has got the owner of the company on a warpath. We got 10 people on staff while the other stores only have 2 (see why we're hemorrhaging money) so the owner brought it upon himself to enforce some changes in an effort to run some of the employees off. This consist of dress code changes, image changes (I had to cut my beard off and keep my long hair hidden in a beanie because he wants his employees have a clean cut image), and new protocol on taking time off in which I now have to give a two weeks notice in order to take a day off (hard to be able to chase when you have to roll the dice on a setup that's not even shown on models two weeks out). Even with these new changes there is still no guarantee that the company will be able to avoid having to make cutbacks to stop the bleeding. My boss warned me that day could be in the near future where my pay gets cut, my hours get reduced, and yes if things don't improve layoffs are in the picture.
This is the first time in the almost 3 years I worked for the company I'm scared about my future, and my attitude has been seriously affected by the frightening reality I might not last the summer at my job. I've began to grow resentment towards some of the people who mean so much to me; I'm the type of person who cannot under any circumstances stomach anyone else's happiness when times are tough for me (it's not a knock on them, it's just I could care less about their happiness when I got a ton of shit to deal with). My chase partners were among those I had some resentment and even some jealously toward. They're both in relationships while I'm still single mainly because of my severe anxiety issues I'm too scared most of the time to go up to a lady and ask her out on a date or even do a little chit chatting and that right there tied in to their happiness which to be brutally honest made me sick especially when one of my chase partners made a joke directed at me I seriously took offense to.
Even after the apologies I wanted to severe ties with them (it would have been a decision I'd regret if I went through with it); they've been there for me through the tough times and they've been true friends to me and to do away with all that out of spite I wouldn't be able to live with myself :-(. There you have what I've gone through and I'm still struggling through it yet I refuse to allow it to overtake me. If that light at the end of the tunnel is there for anyone else that has gone through struggles I'm sure this Sasquatch of a man can find it ;-).