There are a few cliche statements that apply here:

1. Everything happens for a reason.  There are no mistakes in life.
2. It’s always darkest before the dawn.
3. Sometimes the worse things in life end up being the best things in life.

So with all of that being said there are some very valuable lessons to be learned from this entire experience.

1. When you interview for a company, you should be interviewing them as well to see if you are a good fit for their company culture.
2. Don’t trust women with bad hair or bad shoes.  They clearly don’t care about themselves and they definitely don’t care about you.
3. Keep a paper trail, and over communicate.  Cover your own ass at all costs.  Make sure you can prove your efforts at your job, and any feedback you receive good or bad.
4. Come in early and stay late.
5. Don’t ever kiki at work.  No matter what a co worker tells you, anything you say/ask can and will be used against you in an effort to save their own ass.
6. If you want to work in fashion try your hand at a bunch of things until you find your niche.  Many success stories in fashion are from people who started in one area and landed in a completely different one.
7. Keep multiple streams of income.  You always need back up money.  Mine is freelance writing.
8. Keep the contact information for a temp service on deck.  If you ever fall on hard times they will find work for you until you get something permanent.
9. Sometimes it’s better to bow out gracefully than to be kicked out on your ass.
10. Don’t panic (Amber Rose voice).  You will be fine.  There will be times when you feel that life is constantly kicking you in the balls and you don’t know why.  But trust you will be ok, and you will come out stronger.

So begins another day of me trying desperately to save myself and my job.

Photo: Harper’s Bazaar

I came in an hour early, as I had been doing for the past month and tried to prep for the day.  As soon as I logged in to my Outlook, my boss had sent me a series of emails “following up” on projects I had completed weeks ago, and asking me to complete others.  It suddenly dawned on me that I was being set up for failure, and she was building a case against me so that she could fire me,which is pretty much what she wanted to do at my 30 day review.  I gathered my things, sent her an email saying that I wasn’t feeling well, got the number for HR, and headed home.

Photo: Harper’s Bazaar

I talked to HR and pretty much got a “well girl what do you want me to do about it?” response.  I took another sick day to really decide what my next move should be.  After much prayer, I decided that I would rather resign than be fired from anywhere.  The next morning I sent in my resignation.

Photo: Harper’s Bazaar

My biggest fear wasn’t how I would eat or pay my rent, but how I would be disappointing my friends and family.  This was supposed to be THE job that would propel my fashion career forward, help me build my finances, and relinquish them of their financial responsibility for me.  How can I not just tough this out?  Am I really that weak?  Ultimately I decided that I have to do what is best for me and the love and support of my friends and family will always be there.  I walked away from that job knowing that I gave it my absolute best and that it just wasn’t good enough for them.  So there you have it.  I’m a quitter and I have no shame about that.

After a weekend spent with friends trying to reassure myself that I’m not a complete idiot and that I can in fact learn my job and be good at it, Monday rolled around.  I woke up that morning, read some affirmations and scriptures on being encouraged and said a prayer.  (I wake up every morning, and have a long chat with God as I’m getting dressed.)  I put on one of my absolute favorite black dresses, did my hair and makeup and bundled up to weather the cold both figuratively and literally.

As soon as I stepped into the building I felt an air of doom loom over me.  I sent my manager an email outlining all of her concerns and how we could fix them.  She responded by giving me a project that I definitely needed help completing.  My “training mentor” reluctantly answered a few of my questions.  Side note: don’t trust a girl that doesn’t do her hair.  I will spare you the details, but this turned out to be one of the worse days of my life for a few reasons.  Or maybe I’m not sparing the details, whatever.

1. No one would actually answer my questions the whole day.
2. I had a cross functional team meeting that I had no idea how to prepare for.  They ended up having said meeting without me unbeknownst to me.
3. I had a mild panic attack and sat in the bathroom for like 15 minutes trying to calm myself down.
4. I couldn’t eat, which is really saying something because I love to eat.
5. At the end of the day my manager called me in to her office and recited every question I had asked every person in the office that entire day.  They apparently had a secret meeting where they told her how much I sucked.  I was told that my questions were inappropriate for someone in their fifth week on the job.
6. The guy I thought I was talking to got completely ghost on me and hadn’t returned a single text or phone call the entire weekend and this continued for a week.  Why can’t guys just tell you when they’ve met a girl over the weekend with better edges and bigger booty?  Why?
7. My manager gave me four projects to do by the end of the week, but there was no way I could do them without any help.  And clearly no one in the department is willing to help me especially without snitching on me.

I went home that night a complete and total wreck.  Did I mention that the door to my place was frozen shut and I had to wait 30 minutes for my roommate to come back and let me in?  It was cold to say the very least.

I finally got in the house, showered, couldn’t eat, and went to bed with still no word from old dude.

Just as an aside I feel I should let you know that I truly despise cats, but this gif was fitting so there it is.  I do not have a cat, nor will I ever.  They give me the creeps and I refuse to fulfill certain stereotypes about single women and cats.

So things got off to a very rocky start at the new job as I mentioned before.  I was pretty much told that I wasn’t doing a good job, and was not meeting the standards and expectations of the position after two weeks.  Yes, after two weeks I was told that I don’t fully understand my job.  To which I say, well who does?  With this information, I decided ok maybe I should work harder to show my commitment and dedication to the company.  I started taking home my notes to study at night and on the weekends.  I came in at least an hour early to look over things and get a head start on the day.  After a few weeks I felt confident that I was doing better.  Things were making sense and coming together well.  So imagine my surprise when my boss told me once again during my 30 day review that I am still not up to par.

She looked at me with a smile and kindly told me that I am just not a good fit for the position (among other things).  At the end of her ripping me a new one she said: take the weekend to decide if you want to come back here.  Never have I been talked to so condescendingly in my life.  I handled her criticism with as much poise and humility as I could.  My stilettos clicked louder than I’ve ever heard them click before on the floor as I left her office and headed to my desk to gather my things.  I could feel everyone staring at me as I’m sure they knew what had taken place.  I barely made it over the threshold of the building before I burst into tears on my phone to my best friend.  I haven’t cried like that in years.  Anger, embarrassment, feelings of failure, and inadequacy overwhelmed me.  I lost all composure, and let out an audible cry that came out so strong that I started to shake as I told her what happened.  The walk from 11th to 7th Avenue has never felt so long.  The cold breeze from the Hudson dried my tears almost as fast as they fell down my cheeks and made streaks in my makeup.

Photo: E!

I snapped the closure to my fur lined hood in hopes that it would hide my struggle from the people walking by.  Everything seemed to move in slow motion, which is odd for a city known for its fast pace.  Is this real?  Is this really happening to me?  My bestie in her usual fashion asked me a series of questions I was not prepared to answer.  Among them was if I had considered moving back home to Atlanta.  That question snapped me out of my sadness and somewhere between 7th and 8th Avenue I went into survival mode.  I text my most resourceful friend here, Nikki.  I gave her the tea on what took place with my manager, and true to form she text and emailed me a bunch of contacts to reach out to.  I started going through my mental rolodex of who I could contact.  How can I make the money I have last?  How much do I have for rent?  By when do I need to have something else secured to sustain me in New York?

I got on the Q train to head home and in the most dramatic fashion I blasted some Drake through my earphones, and I got motivated.  I stopped at my favorite Jamaican spot in Newkirk Plaza on the way, and made a mental game plan while I waited in line.  The line is always jumping there so I had a good minute to figure things out.  I called other friends that work in corporate America and asked for advice.  Their response was unanimous: don’t quit.  I spent the weekend with friends trying to psych myself up to go back in to work on Monday.