The Road Trip, Part 1: Freedom Papers

My father decided he wanted to DRIVE from Minneapolis to Atlanta for my godsister’s wedding. I couldn’t let him make that drive alone, so, I flew from DC to Minneapolis to take the road trip with him. While many of the events that followed were unexpected and heartbreaking, there were many blessings in disguise along the way. In this blog series I’ll recount these events and the lessons I learned from them. I hope you’ll stick around for the ride.

I got fired from my job in February. I sat in the HR director’s office along with my manager who said, “I’m sorry, Sarah. I really wanted to work things out with you but unfortunately you’re position is being terminated immediately.” I have never smiled so hard in my life.

This woman had made my life hell for months and I was finally free. This was cause for celebration and a trip to the unemployment office. After having worked as an Editorial Assistant for three years, I was beyond ready to move on. I was able to pay my bills but I’d become complacent and my dreams were starting to fade. I looked at this termination as an opportunity to reboot and force myself to stop coasting.

Now, my time at that job hadn’t always been hellish. My previous manager was awesome and my coworkers were the best. We worked well together, had fun and were an efficient bunch. But it all changed when the best boss I’d ever had took another job with another company. The woman hired to replace her was horrible. That’s really the best way I can say it. I’m not going to blast the woman on here but to say she was a horrid manager is nothing short of the truth. I hated every second of our interactions and so did everyone else forced to work with her, everyone except upper management.

It was so far beyond “my boss is an idiot and I hate her.” It was to the point where the thought of going to work the next day gave me panic attacks. I once cried ON THE BUS during my commute to work because I was so miserable. I’ve worked for a lot of different types of people in a variety of industries. Never have I had such an intense experience as this.

Every single day I was tempted to write my resignation letter and p-pop on a handstand on that hussy’s desk. EVERY SINGLE DAY! And every day I’d call my dad and tell him how horrible my day was. He told me, repeatedly, not to let “that woman” make me quit. If she wanted me gone, so be it. Apply for jobs in the interim, he said, and if I got fired, collect my unemployment like a boss.

When I got my freedom papers (during Black History Month, I might add) I was truly overjoyed. This feeling soon turned to my being overwhelmed: overwhelmed with possibility and overwhelmed with uncertainty. I’m still in that place, randomly applying for jobs with no real plan but at least I don’t have to deal with Medusa everyday. I’ve gotten a chance to recharge but I still haven’t gotten it all figured out quite yet. I’m working on it, though, y’all.

The day I got fired turned out to be a blessing for a very different reason. Without it, I’d more than likely wouldn’t have been able to take enough time off to make the drive from Minneapolis to Atlanta with my dad. We didn’t know we were embarking on an epoch-making journey but we were and there’s no other place I’d rather have been than right there with my dad. Please stay tuned for part two as we travel together on The Road Trip.