At my last workplace one of my colleagues took a couple of days off per week for 3 weeks to participate in some robotics competitions. He was teased and generally made aware how much of an inconvenience his planned absence was.

This same workplace made up a reason to fire me just because they didn’t like me. I can make a million and one guesses as to why I was actually fired, but the most telling part is they didn’t even stick to the reasons they provided for firing me when I applied for unemployment and the unemployment office called to verify details with them. They dropped all of the pretense they built up and basically just said I wasn’t a good fit for the team. I may or may not qualify for unemployment, I should find out soon.

Fortunately I’ve been doing some contact work for my previous employer on the side so I’ve been able to make that my main gig to try to keep the bills paid. I’m not sure what I’d be doing right now if I didn’t have that, given this job market is so terrible right now. I’ve been applying for 5-10 jobs a week for the last 6 weeks and I’ve had a single interview