11-28-2024
Happy Thanksgiving all!
I've been meaning to update this section for ages, but I'm still stretched real thin and struggling to keep up with everything going on, much of which isn't work related. The biggest holiday season sale is upon us again, and it's more important than it's ever been to make it a successful one.
For the last 18 months I've worked 80-100 hours a week with barely any days off. Originally I was working to catch up from orders that were delayed due to an unexpected extended hospital stay and two months on dialysis after developing rhabdomyolysis from a leg injury. During that time I moved which was a huge setback as my physical health is too poor to really handle something major like that, and it was followed shortly after by having to let my assistant go when the issues became too serious to continue trying to work out. At the time I'd had another friend working with me, though much less hours, and she took over the position and started working near full time. And after the dust settled we caught up in no time.
Unfortunately, it was very short lived. I'd been absolutely ecstatic about finally having free time again, not working so many hours anymore and having the time for creative pursuits. I'd planned a big expansion, purchasing a swath of new equipment that would allow me to start offering soldered splints and started to set up a new section on the site to bring back the fun and fancy designs that had been so popular but that I eventually had to stop offering because they were so time consuming to make.
And just two short weeks later in the middle of April I developed trigger thumb in both hands due to month of overworking.
Initially I wasn't too concerned with it, nearly all delayed orders were done and out-only a handful waiting on backordered titanium were left-and with adequate help I didn't expect it to cause any serious delays. But then a month later everything fell apart. My assistant's service dog had a severe reaction to prednisone he'd been put on for recurrent skin problems and developed diabetic ketoacidosis. Within a few days he'd gone from the normal happy bouncy pup to being unable to stand and had to be admitted to the critical care unit...to the tune of $2,000 a day. As a last resort and in hopes of saving his life, I ran a huge sale to pull in funds to lend her for his treatment. It ended up looking like she wouldn't need it, he'd improved greatly once he was on dialysis and she got the call that he'd be ready to be released in a day or two, though would need a lot of future visits to get his medication properly adjusted as he would've needed to take insulin for the rest of his life. Sadly-and due entirely to veterinarian error-the next day instead of receiving the call to pick him up she got the call that she needed to come say goodbye as quickly as possible, his health had taken a sharp turn downhill during the night and he was barely hanging on.
She didn't handle it well. She was unable to work at all for the next month, and never really came back. She started calling out often, coming in late and leaving early. She'd bailed out on me, cutting her hours down from 20-30 a week to 10 or less, knowing full well that I'd taken in hundreds of extra orders on her behalf and that I was incapable of doing the work myself because of the hand injury.
From May 16th-my first overnight-until the start of August I was skipping sleep 1-2 nights a week doing everything I could to clean up the mess that had been dumped on me without much help. I also had stopped eating, it's a common issue I have when I'm stressed. Gastroparesis flares and I don't have an appetite, everything I try to eat tastes gross and/or makes me sick, it's just impossible to get or keep anything down. By the start of August my body finally gave out, just totally shut down. I was bedridden for most of the month, incapable of functioning on any level, and had to take steroids for 6 weeks to stimulate appetite and bring my system back online. And this is where the nightmare started.
What I've left out this entire time is that I've been dealing with constant harassment from my landlord in an attempt at self-help eviction, because I had to request two reasonable accommodations for my disability at the time-to pay rent with a postal money order instead of cash because I was physically unable to drive out to the bank and to have a friend-who's a certified caregiver with 20 years experience-come stay with me to help with work and because I couldn't adequately care for myself. Both of these are already rights afforded by law, I had been compliant with the clauses as a curtesy because it wasn't a big deal to, but I didn't have any other choice at the time. My health and safety are non negotiable. This started a barrage of harassment and disturbances. On August 26th he cut my propane service and I've been without hot water or a stove since, on September 10th he cut the included internet leaving me unable to access the site or reply to messages for two weeks until they were able to get out and set up a new account for me. He's blocked off the area next to my house with broken vehicles he doesn't use so that I'm unable to take garbage out, I put in an accommodation request and fought with USPS for months so that I could receive packages (namely my heart medications, work supplies, and food that I don't have a choice of shipping options with) at home and have batches of orders picked up and he removed the physical mailbox. There were at least two-but I think three-batches of orders I'd left of my porch for USPS to pick up that went missing, and I suspect he took them as yet another way to make my life difficult.
While obviously I don't want to remain here long term, I just don't have a choice. I'm physically incapable of moving right now and it would be devastating for the business, causing further delays when I'm *almost* there-caught up again. Unfortunately he's also been ignoring legal requirements for the eviction papers from the get go, removing my chances of fighting it. On Tuesday I found the eviction papers taped to my door (they require personal service) and the court date is on Monday, only 5 days notice instead of the legally required 10, but since it's a holiday weekend the court is closed. I found out when I went down there yesterday to file a motion to dismiss that they closed at noon and won't reopen until Monday.
Where this really becomes an issue is that I haven't gotten paid for any of my work over the last 6 months. I've lost tens of thousands since May, can't afford groceries and I'm just weeks away from having utilities shut off, so relocation isn't an option financially either. I'm staring down the barrel of homelessness, on the verge of losing everything, simply for being disabled.
I'm unfortunately going to *have* to take the next several days off, I have a great deal of unexpected paperwork that needs to be ready to go first thing Monday morning and today/tomorrow will be finishing up the designer series pages so the options are available for the sale. That just leaves me Saturday and Sunday to put together a thorough and cohesive motion to dismiss with all the evidence and documentation I have, but I'll be back to cranking through orders as soon as I get home Monday. I still have several dozen orders that need to be replaced between the missing pickups and the nightmare that USPS was in September and October, but there's only 50 orders left from the nearly 400 we started with just 3 months ago, and they had just been waiting on titanium that was delayed for 6 weeks which finally came in last week, We're cranking through quickly despite the issues with the new trainee getting the hang of everything and I'm confident we'll be able to get the rest out-including all of the replacements-in the next couple weeks. We'd have been done last month if it weren't for titanium being backordered and dozens upon dozens of orders went missing or were delivered incorrectly, but as always I will continue to work with dedication until every last order has been received ❤