One step forward.
Two steps back.

On Valentine’s Day, Jason was fired from his federal job.

This was the golden ring job. It was one, after he passed the year-long training period, that he would keep until his retirement. It offered promotions, annual job raises, and inflation adjustments in addition to those raises.

It was a job that could afford me healthcare so I could go back to Florida full time and potentially pick up a couple of classes. At the very least, I could start a 40-hour job somewhere and feel like I’m contributing instead of continually sponging.

Valentine’s Day was to be the accumulation of five (six?) years of effort to bring Jason and my lives back together again – for better or worse.

But, the day before the fated anniversary date, the feds just dropped him. As he was logging in at 8 am, he was called into a fateful emergency meeting with his supervisor and HR. And, that was it. Five years unraveled.

We’re not 100% sure why he was fired. The official answer is that he didn’t pass his probation period and couldn’t handle the workload. Without a doubt, the training provided during the probation period was horrendous. His first trainer was simply horrible. It felt like she was just guessing as she went along. (I should know since I listened in on a lot of them.)

He was moved to another trainer who was so overwrought with new hires and responsibilities that she seemed to have little patience in helping him catch up. She also sent mixed messages about what should be, what ought to be, and what she wanted. Jason would work days on a case, send it to her for approval, and be rejected. When he sent it back, it was rejected again because he corrected what she told him was an error for it not to be an error the next day.

It would be lax of me not to mention the nearly two weeks where he didn’t have access to his email. This is a federal position. Despite the millions of tax dollars invested, the system programs are thirty years old and the IT department struggles. They couldn’t even set up his voicemail correctly.

So, that is the official reason. He was fired because the federal government is too damned incompetent.

Unofficially, we think it was because he refused the Covid vaccine because of religious exemption.

It isn’t a secret that Biden has continued to push the vaccination, despite the Supreme Court ruling that it was unconstitutional. A good example happened just last week. In New York, 10,000 firefighters, nurses, teachers, and police were told that they would be fired if they didn’t get the jab. Most of the people caved in and took it.

After three years of standing by their personal ethics, they were injected against their will. They ran out of strength, I guess. Or, they just felt hopeless and defeated.

That’s really understandable since this happened AFTER the Supreme Court said that it was unconstitutional.

Why? The rules aren’t arbitrary, but the rule makers are. New York falls within Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s jurisdiction. She approved of a violation of the Constitution.

We think that the federal government created a list of those who filed for religious exemption. The news reported that such a list was created. All of those who were on probation or in training were fired. The people who hold moral and ethical reasoning higher than “the science” have no place in the federal government. They refused to comply.

Of course, we’ll never be able to prove this theory. A lawsuit can’t be filed. We can’t go running to Project Veritas.

Jason suffered a lot. He worked in shitty conditions and lived in fear that he was going to be fired EVERY single day because he refused to comply.

Then, when we thought the clouds had parted and life could finally start advancing, we’re shot down by the insane clown dog from Duck Hunt. His supervisor literally cackling in our front yard when she came to pick up his badge.

In less than 10 days, I’m heading back to Indiana.
It’s time for Persephone to bring Spring. He’s going to be here alone with the cat.

And, yeah. I’m worried about his mental state. But, at least I know that the bleeding of the checking account will be limited. The electric bill, grocery bill, and water bill will drop. It’s a lot cheaper with one person instead of two.

The freezer is more or less stuffed with Bird’s Eye stir frys. There’s soup in the cabinets. While it’s not steak, it’s enough to survive on for a while before seriously tapping into the reserves to buy food that’s been inflated by about ten percent.

The credit cards aren’t paid off from the last time this happened. They’re better, but thousands are still owed. Any progress that was made could vanish in a hot minute. Less if something major breaks. I’m thinking the air conditioner — It’s ALWAYS the air conditioner — or the fridge.

I’m just hoping and praying that he’ll have a position before I leave.
It’ll help slow the financial bleeding and keep him busy. For his stability, sanity, and our relationship, we need stability. Fingers crossed.

But…. um… yeah.

That’s where we are right now.

Not so fun.