One Week Since My Firing

Exactly one week from today is the one week of me being fired from my former company.  There have some great sides to the firing and some obvious negatives.  Let’s start with the negatives so we can end on a positive note.  The number one unfortunate thing that has happened is that the steady, reliable income that I had two weeks ago, I no longer have.  There is money coming in from other angles from CSI Marketing Solutions, LLC, but that is not my full time work and business and income.

The second thing that is tough to get through is the part with having no insurance now.  I am stuck with picking up Cobra insurance which is as close to a monthly mortgage payment as you can get.  Higher than a mortgage payment in some cases.  Since I am diabetic, this is my biggest concern.  I have majority of my student loans through Sallie Mae, and I have never been so unhappy with a company the whole time I have been dealing with them, then any other company I’ve dealt with.  I called them yesterday to explain that I lost my job and see if there was anything that they could do.  What they suggested to me was that they can cut my payment in half, but only 1% of that payment would go towards my principal and this payment method would stay in place for 2 years.  So after 2 years of making payments I would have paid maybe $50-60 towards my principal.  How is that even an option?

On the brighter side of things I have been able to do a lot of work with clients and spend time catching up on blogs, podcasts, webinars that I just was not able to do while I was working a 9-5.  I’m still not going to bed until about 4 a.m. and waking up at 8 am. now (I’ve given myself an extra hour of sleep), and the days still go by so fast that I don’t know where the time went.  I want to thank all of you again who sent me messages and reached out to me after my firing, I greatly appreciate it.  I haven’t let it get me down and have continued to work hard because in due time it will all pay off.

So, here is my advice to anybody who may get fired or get their time cut back.  Work even harder.  Don’t feel sorry for yourself.  The second that you feel sorry for yourself and complain that you don’t have a job, you have already lost at that point.  Keep your head up, start blogging more, and use this time to learn as much more as you possibly can.  Join some free webinars and learn a new trick of the game.  If you always wanted to know how to use Photoshop, but never had the time, learn it now.  It’s just one more thing that you can add to your professional resume.

Since my firing I have started to teach myself (well try to) PHP.  Don’t give up on yourself.  Work hard, and it will pay off.