Surprise Vacation
May 24, 2026
I’ve been calling it a “surprise vacation” to add an air of whimsy to the situation. When my thoughts are a little more cruel to me, however, I call it what it is—I got fired.
It was only a couple of days after putting in my two weeks notice at the restaurant I’ve been working at for over a year when I hurt my foot. It was a silly accident, really. My partner and I had gotten a tent off of Facebook Marketplace and we set it up in the backyard to make sure it had all of its parts. The good news is that the tent we bought is awesome and we’re excited to take it camping sometime next month. The bad news is that I stepped on one of the stakes in the ground while barefoot, causing me to bleed and my partner to usher me inside. The stake appeared to scrape off some of the callus of my foot, revealing the tender skin underneath. It felt awkward and painful to walk on it, so I called off of work the following day.
The day after the first day I called off, I wanted to call off again. Was I milking it a bit? Maybe, but I mostly didn’t want to have to stand on a wounded foot all day. I had a feeling that they wouldn’t believe me if unless I had a doctor’s note though, so I went to urgent care first.
The doctor at urgent care told me that I would have probably gotten a few stitches if I had gone to them the day of the injury, so I felt a bit silly for that. I hadn’t thought it to be quite that bad, but was also thankful for the reassurance that I wasn’t being overly dramatic. After I got an updated tetanus shot, a prescription for antibiotics, had to pay a $75 copay, and yes, got a doctor’s note to excuse me from work, I called my place of employment.
Big Boss Man was the one to answer the phone, A.K.A. the restaurant owner. I explained to him that I had gone to urgent care and had a doctor’s note. He said something along the lines of, “You don’t have to worry about that. You really put us in a bind. You can take your two weeks early,” and then he hung up on me. I sat in my car outside of urgent care for a few minutes to process his words. Did the bastard really just fire me?
I already knew the owner of that place was shitty, but to just be discarded like that after an accidental injury just made me feel like absolute garbage. I get it, it’s Memorial Day weekend and we’re bound to be busy, but have some human decency my guy.
My new job, the one I put my two weeks in for, doesn’t start until June 3rd. That means I have a week and a half without work to just hangout and let my foot heal. I could spend this time in a bad head-space and dwell about how shitty that was of Big Boss Man to fire me like that. I could also spend a good deal of time worrying about if my new job will suck just as bad. While I’m sure I’ll manage to fit time in for both of those thought spirals, I also want to try to enjoy my time for what it is, a surprise vacation.
I’m trying to dedicate plenty of time to my hobbies, such as reading, writing, and knitting. I’m going to try to work more on this website as well, which will serve mostly as a blog.
Capitalism sucks, and I can’t help but feel like I’m just bouncing from one shitty job to the next. However, I’m doing my best to keep my head up and trudge through it all.
