A fantastic weekend except for one major downer...

Hey friends!! Hope yall had a fabulous weekend! Mine was great except for a big bummer on Friday!

This story needs a preface so here it goes...

I work for TruGreen, a lawn care company. I have been with them for about 6 months now. I am a sales auditor and I really like my job. I do a lot of interaction with customers and a lot of computer data entry and financial reviews of customer's accounts. It is a far stretch from fashion merchandising but Birmingham isn't exactly the best place to be for my major and I like the people I work with. Anyways, when I was hired I was told that usually around November the whole company lays off sales positions (including sales auditors and there are two sales auditors) for about 2 months because sales are too slow and there isn't enough revenue coming in for us to keep our jobs.

I remember being told that but wasn't really worried about it because it seemed like months and months away. Well as of the end of September, the salesmen that work there have been getting less and less. Each week about 1 or 2 salesmen have been getting laid off because lawn sales have gone down faster and earlier this year than they did last year. We started out with about 25 sales guys and as of this past week we have 6! When we had 25 guys selling we needed two auditors but now that we have 6 sales guys, I have been worried day by day whether I would have a job for much longer. The other sales auditor has been there 4 years and she obviously isn't going to be let go before me. Her and I have been talking for weeks about how much slower work has been and the sales have dropped dramatically. For us, if there are no sales coming in there is no need for sales auditors. But I was told the lay off would be mid to end November.

Well....

I went to work Friday like normal and right before I left my boss called me into his office. I knew something bad was coming. He had a serious look on his face. He said that unfortunately it was time for my temporary lay off. There was no sugar-coating it. Just plain and simple. Even though I knew it would eventually be coming, I thought it would be a month from now...not this soon. I felt excited for a brief second because it's a break from work but then got this overwhelming sense that I wanted to cry. He said because the company had downsized from 25 salesmen to 6, there obviously wasn't the need for two auditors. He made me feel better by saying it was nothing I did but it was my time to go because the other auditor had seniority.

The good thing about the whole situation is everyone is eligible to come back the first week of January...hints the "temporary lay off". This is a good and bad thing. Good because I am guaranteed my job back in 10 weeks but bad because I wont be getting paid a decent paycheck for 10 weeks. I applied today for unemployment and honestly I just want to collect that while I'm out of work. Since I have been 15 years old I have never gone without a job so it will be weird. I like my job enough to want to wait and go back in January. For this reason I don't to go through the pain staking process of looking for another job which is what my parents want me to do. Oh well.

I feel like a total loser for sitting at home for 10 weeks without a job but maybe it will give me a nice little break right around the holidays to focus on my family and friends and myself and my weight loss.

So that ended my last day at TruGreen for the year. It was so unexpected and took me by surprise. I was supposed to be somewhere Friday night so I didn't have time to hug anyone and tell them goodbye. Now I feel bad for that and I wont see them until January. Weird. It is a temporary layoff but I still feel like I "lost my job" and I will be poor for the next 10 weeks. No big shopping sprees for Kristen. Sad.

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Then right after leaving work I went straight to my cousin's homecoming football game. My little cousin, Leah, is a freshman and made homecoming court. My whole family went to support her and as you will see in my pictures, she is adorable! I am so proud of her! Here is some pictures of us:

Cousin Lauren, cousin Lindsay, Lindsay's husband Matt and me

Lauren, me, Leah and Lindsay

Lauren and I

Lauren and I...again

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Saturday, my cousin Lauren and Lindsay and I did the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in downtown Birmingham. I felt so honored to participate in such an amazing race! Like I said before, my grandmother was a two time breast cancer survivor so this event is near and dear to my heart. There were like 20,000 people there...it was fantastic. People in pink all over the place!

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Those are the highlight and low lights from the weekend! :)
Have a great week! Talk to yall soon!!