Life has not been kind as of late. And sorry, but I just need a space to vent. I’ve shared bits here and there on my author page on Facebook where I get more interaction, but I don’t want *all* my posts to be depressing. And I also know not many people actually engage with my posts, so it lets me have a little space to spill without immediate responses from others 😅
It started back in September. I had to get a new job with USPS because book sales dried up both online and in person events. So I guess it went backca little farther considering I face five sales events back to back where I lost money on each one, not even breaking even with the booth fees.
Each of those spaces just had zero traffic to them, so it was slightly kinder to the ego to know I wasn’t the only one struggling to make sales.
Anyway, all that led to a need to help out my finances, and so came the new job.
I didn’t have super high expectations of it being my new favorite thing, but I was hopeful because after all it pays $20 an hour!
I go for my training and it’s mostly ok except they don’t tell me ahead of time the training goes for most of the week. And the place for training is 2 hours away. So I spend four hours driving back and forth for four days. Oh well, not fun, but I can suck it up.
Then comes driver training day. And I deal with the instructor from hell. Man literally has me fighting back tears for the way he keeps screaming at me. Got singled out at the start for backing over a cone, but he didn’t see the three others who did the same so they got off without his ire.
Definitely shook me up, but I needed the job so on we went. Then comes my first shifts delivering packages, and it is *hot* outside. USPS does not have air conditioning in the majority of their vehicles as most were built in 1985 and never updated. In fact they have had so many employees die due to the heat that the government is now mandating they change over *all* their vehicles to have air conditioning. Buuut that’s going slower than molasses in January.
I like the gentleman who is my instructor for this shadow day, so it goes fairly well but we are out for 11 hours that day. The following shift they let me split with him so it only takes me 6 hours this time.
Then comes my first solo route, and I’m the very last one to leave my station to deliver. Like by *hours* behind everyone. Why? Because of Dyslexia. The current system in place works directly against my issues and slows me down horrendously unless I can work with someone else. I have to get help from three different people while on my route to help speed things up and again I still don’t make it back in until 11 hours later.
At this point I’m feeling pretty hopeless about how to survive this job but I try sending in an email asking to re-implement the technology they used to have which would circumvent my problems altogether.
Then comes my fall.
The Friday night before my next shift I am taking out cat litter to the trash. As I go to step down into my entryway, which is about a foot drop, I trip on a pair of shoes I didn’t see.
I go flying, falling hard enough that I kick a hole in my drywall, used cat litter flies everywhere and I roll my whole foot almost a full 360 degrees.
Being so late at night my only option is to hobble to my phone to try and doordash an ace bandage for my foot. I then have to hop around to try and clean up the cat litter and still throw it away. One of my cats decides *this* is the time to try to make a break for it and runs outside to my front yard with a super busy, non-cat-survivng road. Thankfully I’m able to bounce my way to her and get her back inside before I lose her forever.
My foot is too banged up to handle a full package delivery shift at the post office. So I call my supervisor to let her know and I get *the* most passive aggressive response, but it gets taken care of.
After this fall my legs start acting up where I’m now dealing with pretty bad varicose veins symptoms. Could it be something more serious? Maybe, but not like I can afford going to the doctor to get things tested out.
So I just have to start living in compression stockings instead.
As this is going down I still have to go back and forth to my parents house daily to care for the cats and plants as they are out of town.
One of the nights I’m there my car suddenly won’t start. I use their extra vehicle to give myself a jump and then head home. I try to let it run for a bit in my driveway to help recharge the battery so I can take it in to check it out in the morning. Except for the fact that smoke starts pouring from the engine and I have to cut it off immediately.
Now I have a blown gasket and a car I can’t afford to fix.
Thankfully I have my parents car I can borrow and so I do.
My ankle mostly heals, legs still cause me great grief, but I’m finally able to make it back to work. And this time it’s another split route, thank heaven! So I don’t take more than 6 hours again.
Now this time begins the period where I’m trying my darnedest to get all the pieces together to launch my second book. So the week following is filled with a LOT of business sort of moving parts. Then comes my next shift, longer, hotter day, and I get a bit dehydrated.
That dehydration plus a pair of shirts juuust a bit too snug and bam, my IBS flares up. This next part might be a bit TMI for some, so be warned.
With the flare up comes excruciating constipation. I manage it somewhat for a few days until Wednesday where I end up vomiting for two hours straight because of it. I get my father to take me to a cheaper clinic and I can at least get some nausea medicine so I can start to keep down liquids once again.
This all hits the exact same day I had scheduled to do my big cover reveal online. But I was too out of it to even attempt to follow through with anything.
Finally able to get rehydrate, the following day I try and recoup the big cover reveal and pre-order announcement. Except Facebook refuses to push my posts forward because they contain links that take traffic away from their site.
I drop some cash to try and break past the limitations and “boost” my post, but still very little movement. I call on friends and family to help share and *finally* the post gets some traction!
Only for my mother to contact me and let me know there is an error in the pre-order process. For some reason my website refused to take her payment.
Panicking, because of course that is the link I shared with everyone, I try to contact the support techs for the pre-order program. But instead of help I’m given an AI chat bot with a list of “potential solutions” which did nothing for me.
I try reaching out for more assistance, only to be met with silence.
So I attempt to turn my focus to using pre-order links through the different retailers Ingramspark distributes my book to. Except when I check them out, my books aren’t showing up except for on Amazon as the ebook version. And that one isn’t even linking to my author profile.
Eventually the paperback version shows up, but with no pre-order link so people can’t buy it even if they want to.
So I try contacting Ingramspark on the issue and again I’m met with a silent “support” messaging.
I finally decided just to check and see if my book linked to my author account properly on goodreads at least. But it didn’t and so I had to message yet another support team to get that fixed.
And all while my body is still feeling from the IBS, legs still freaking out over possible varicose veins, and now a cat stress licking herself raw which stresses *me* out more.
I am *really* ready for the world to stop kicking me while I’m down here, thanks. 😮💨