The ultimatum

Sorry I’ve been away a bit again.  There’s so much going on in my life right now that I find it hard to get on here and write a post.  I was hoping to do the A to Z blogging challenge in April, but I’m not sure yet how I’ll manage that this year.  I haven’t written it off yet though.

About a week ago at work I was blindsided by my boss who gave me an ultimatum that I wasn’t expecting at all.  I’ve got a tiny gold ring I wear on my right hand.  It’s been there for forty-three years.  They couldn’t even get if off in the hospital when I had emergency surgery a few years ago because I have arthritis in my knuckles and I can’t get it off.  They let it go.  Well, it seems it’s against company policy to wear this ring.  Only a simple wedding band is allowed, so I was told to lose the ring.  She didn’t care how I got it off my finger, but it has to be off there if I want to continue my employment.  I was saddened and stunned. 

Of course it surprised me to find out later that the new boss was so upset over this that she spent all morning calling corporate and also our regional manager for advice.  Good grief!  I guess she can’t make any decisions on her own.  She is new and not very experienced at managing people.  At least that’s my opinion.  I don’t wish her any ill will.  I just wish she’d leave me alone.  I’ve never liked people to dictate certain areas of my life.  I never even liked it as a child when Mamaw would come to take us to the beauty parlor every summer.  I knew that meant chopping all our hair off, so I would hide until she left with my sisters.

Later in the afternoon at work, our boss sent a gal out to watch my station while I went back to the office to talk to her.  She told me I had to cut the ring off if I couldn’t get it off any other way.  Of course she said she wasn’t ordering me to do it when I objected, but if I wanted to keep the job I had two weeks to get it off.  What????

I was so pissed off that I don’t think I did a very good job for the rest of my shift.  Needless to say cutting this ring off would be a last resort for me.  I don’t think this is any of her business and I’ve been wearing this ring every day since I was hired three years ago.  It was a well-known fact I couldn’t get it off.  There’s no way this ring is falling in the food.  Besides we always have gloves on too.  But of course she did her homework and had a copy of the employee field guide with that part highlighted for me to read.  No jewelry is allowed of any kind except a wedding band.  I got a plain band for this job for two reasons.  They’d never let me wear my real wedding band because it’s full of diamonds and sapphires and is very big and gaudy.  And I wouldn’t want to mess it up anyway dong all the crap we have to do at work.

So I’ve been busy looking for work, but also have a jeweler lined up to do the unthinkable if it comes to that.  So far not much is happening on the job hunt, but things move very slowly with employers.  I still have another week to make something happen.

On a positive note, I saw the first lizard of the season today and also the orioles are back, so I know our cold weather is over until winter.  I can rejoice in that fact and know that something good is happening in my life.  Warm weather is coming.  Yippee!  Now I just need a new job to go with it.