In December I posted that my hours managing an office at a small company were cut from 35/week to 10/week the same week I was supposed to be bumped up to 40/week and salary. At 7 months pregnant I was scared and hopeless. It got worse. Two days later I tested positive for COVID and was out for two weeks. The day I was supposed to come back the owner called me and laid me off. He couldn’t pay me. He had planned poorly and between being the slow season and a mishap the month prior where he ended up having to pay a client a large amount of money he couldn’t pay me to keep me on. I was even more devastated. Who would hire a someone who was 7 months pregnant?
In February, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. With the average cost of childcare in my town being $1400/month I would have been losing money every month to go back to work. Not to mention I wasn’t keen on putting my literal newborn in day care. So my partner and I decided I would stay home with the baby and he would work. With only him working we qualified for food stamps, but no other assistance. He makes $1400/month. We relied on the community action center for rental assistance for 6 months for which I had reapply and could have been denied each month. It was terrifying.
Last week the company owner that laid me off called me and asked me to come back. I had a meeting with him yesterday in which he told me since I left he was struggling and had fallen behind on absolutely everything in the office, and with a new commercial contract taking a majority of his time he didn’t have time to train a new person on all the systems I created. For the first time ever the ball was in my court. I negotiated for full time, work from home, AND a $5.50 raise to what I had been making. For the first time in my life my hourly wage doesn’t start with a 1, and for the first time in months I’m going to be able to pay my own rent next month.