Evening, antiwork. I thought I would share my story because I'm struggling and maybe someone out there can help.
I'm an RN with an associate degree that got lucky and began working remotely for an insurance company about 2 years ago. At first, the job was great – I kept my head down, engaged in whatever bullshit team building meetings, active in our work chats for community building and other nonsense. I was a good drone that met the metrics my company wanted while slowly losing my soul as I tried to help fellow Americans that were desperate for coverage, claim reimbursement approval, etc. I got “Meets Expectations” on my annual review earlier this year which resulted in more work and a pitiful raise, but life goes on.
Earlier this year, my Father passed away somewhat unexpectedly and I got 3 days of bereavement. It was a whirlwind and I had no time to process since my time was spent traveling by plane, attending a funeral, and crying with my Mom.
When I returned to work, I was a shell – I still am. My performance metrics were slipping and management was wondering what was wrong. They tried to make me feel guilty for taking too long off the phone queue in the immediate month after my Father's passing, and I had to remind them of that he died and I'm struggling – even though “we're here for you. Take all the time you need.”
I investigated FMLA to see if that was an option. HR advised it wouldn't be approved because it “didn't meet criteria.” I tried my best to keep my head up and do what I needed to do within my role, but the metrics kept dipping. Management would do their check-ins and it started to annoy me, so I finally shared feeling burnt out due to the decline in mental health following my Dad's passing and I was met with “Thank you for the feedback” and not much else.
Two weeks after that check-in, I was fired under the Call Avoidance policy with my company. I figured it was heading this way even though I didn't receive disciplinary action at any time. I filed for unemployment and it got denied due to the documentation my company submitted basically stating that I knew the policy and I did this to myself. I'm in the process of appealing now.
I apply to jobs every day and have at least ~150 applications out there that have all been met with an automatic No, a recruiter call and no follow-up, “position has been filled” only to see the same job reposted, or some other crap. I paid a stupid membership fee today to have an ATS assistance resume thing to basically be compliant with the tools that will actually send my resume to a human to read so I'm hoping that goes somewhere.
With each passing day, it's becoming more difficult to sleep. I feel anxious that I won't find a new remote job that pays similar to what I had. I don't want to return to bedside if I can help it, but as I watch my savings slowly deplete that seems more like the outcome and it's making me lowkey suicidal. I'm trying to keep engaged in other ways – exercise, I put time into my streaming setup and started streaming on Twitch, but it's usually to no one so that's lonely. I've reached out online to try to meet people but that's been dead-ending so far.
I hope someone out there has some insight.
Tl;dr: Got fired because depression, unemployment denied, FMLA while employed denied. Am nurse so you think I would have found a job by now, but no. A month later applying to jobs every day and I want to kill myself.