Samantha Erickson

Afterthoughts

Most of us start out the new year expecting a fresh beginning. This is the time to make a list of your new year’s resolutions and conquer them! Or in most peoples’ case just make a list. This year started out pretty decent for me actually. I was working full-time and going to school full-time as well. I was looking forward to graduating with my Bachelor’s degree in May. Thank goodness because I was pulling my hair out with all the stress from school. Literally, you could see clumps of my hair all over the house, but that could also have been from my lack of cleaning lately. Moving onto March, I started hearing more about COVID-19. They had begun to shut down certain businesses in Minnesota where I was living. There was talk around my work place saying that we could possibly get shut down because we weren’t considered an essential business. Later on, we got notice that we were essential. Who knew a book binding company was essential? Anyways, my company ended up laying off myself and several other employees for about a month. After the month, everyone got called back but me. I forgot to mention, my husband also worked at the same company. When everyone got called back and I didn’t, my husband started asking questions as to why I was still stuck sitting at home since I was the accounting administrator. My boss finally replied in a roundabout way saying they weren’t calling me back. That moment started my job search, which still continues to this day unfortunately.