Bert's continuing Journey

I'm listening to the project known as "The Covenant". It was one of several CDs that came out as a tribute to Oswald Chambers for his book "My Upmost For His Highest." Often, this particular CD helped me get through hard times. I've had it for eleven years, and it's one I keep returning to.

You ask why I refer to this CD in this post. It's because I know we have hard times ahead. As of today, Bert is no longer working at Vista Grande Villa, and while I'm relieved that I won't have to see him in a presure cooker situation anymore, and while I know God is going to take care of us, and I know that the last time this happened, we only waited about a month before he was hired, there's a bit of anxiety there.

Yes, Bert was fired. The last time he was without work was shortly after we moved here. But, it only took him a month to find a job that was the right fit for him at the time, the job at Vista.

Nearly every guy who has worked in the department Bert worked in, (The dietary department) has locked horns with both the supervisor and her assistant at one time or another. Bert tooke it too far. But, I believe it's only a matter of time, before everyone who worked with Bert there is gone from that place. The main kitchen there was cooking the meals for five different dining establishments as part of the same complex for senior citizens. They had a main dining room, a nursing home dining room, a special dining room, an assisted living center and a cafe all the food for which was being cooked by a crew of three men, (one of which was Bert) and a variety of assistants, none of who stayed very long, except the dessert person. Every one of them was coming in anywhere from a half hour to an hour and a half early and leaving at least half an hour late, several times a month.

The supervisor has a degree in dietary management. Her assistant who is the coordinator for hospitality was a manager at Best Buy with no prior kitchen experience. Yet, she was doing most of the stuff the supervisor had been doing.

On Thursday, she came in and told Bert that he needed to clean the hold oven, as there was a drip line of grease on it from the corned beef. Bert said that he would clean it once the beef was done, as it would be easier to clean it all at once. She told him that was okay and then went and got someone else to do the job. He says that maybe now what he should have done was go ahead and clean it. After the beef was done, he was getting ready to clean it when this lady came in and told him that it needed cleaning again, and that someone had had to do it for him the last time. That's when he lost his temper, thus his being suspended, thus his being fired. In the meeting where they told him he was suspended, his supervisor came up with a lot of trumped up charges against him with no written record of them for him to see. She also told him that every evaluation for the past ten years, after he had gone to anger management counseling, mentioned incidents of him being angry. (That I know is a lie, because he told me about four of the past ten, which were all good. But, I also know that his evaluations for the past five years have never been seen by him and signed off on by him.)

I don't excuse my husband, though for the past year, I have watched him become more and more disenchanted with working there. He should have started looking then. But, he felt he should try to stick it out.

Do I think anger management counseling would have helped. Maybe. However, I think it would have been better for him to actually choose his own counselor as he's now thinking of doing.

It's through this that we're finding out who our friends are. Carolyn, who has stood by us the whole time we lived in Jackson said that she would be a personal reference for any jobs he applies for, as did my friend May when he decided he would go to the hospital where she works. Others have asked if there was anything else they could do besides praying. I think my one client might volunteer his services to Bert as a counselor or mentor, if you will, as he had gone through a lot of the same stuff and he was a counseling administrator before deciding to work for himself.

This seems to be the time when people are preparing for something that is going to happen, and in doing so major changes are going on in their lives. My friend and fellow Blogger Tom C. is going through his own struggle. I'm learning how to use new techniques that will help benefit my business and deciding what activities I will discontinue. Bert is facing looking for a job at fifty-seven and not sure he'll find it. But, he's so glad to be out of that place where he had been. There are other people I know who are going through major changes. Yet, each person who is facing those changes is accepting them. A lot of us are trying to use the Seven Decisions talked about in the Traveler's Gift. It's not easy to do. But, to persist without exception is to survive, and my husband will survive.