West Coast Runner: Life Goes On

Phew. After such a loaded blog a few weeks ago, this one may seem a little boring to everyone! As much as some of you readers may be disappointed that this one isn't chocked blocked full of goodness, I am glad that life has calmed down a little.

I am now nearing the end of my time here in Flagstaff and have entered my final week. The first week here was stressful to the max. Not only was I dealing with the normal stress of adapting to running at 7000ft altitude, but I was provided some emotional stress from my former relationship and also some work stress. After I week I put an end to the stress though and requested that things be put on hold until after my marathon. Since then, running has perked back up again.

September 30th marked the day that I am officially laid off (aka fired) from my job. I have worked at Wexford Creek care facility since August 11th, 2008. It was the first and only care home that I worked at following taking the Health Care Aide course at VIU in early 2008. Good Samaritan Society hired me straight into a part time position before I had even finished the course as I was hired in the 2nd wave of employees. Both Wave 1 and Wave 2 were in the building before any resident moved in and before construction was even completed.

After 8 years and nearly 3 months, I am no longer employed by GSS. Ultimately it's been a wild ride. The first 5 years were awesome, the last 3..... not so much (to say the least). I am going to give some basic info here and hope that it doesn't come back to haunt me. Please be warned I need to give the "filtered" version in order to protect myself. Most of what I am going to say will have been in the papers already, so I should be ok.

Wexford and their one main amazing scheduler was amazing when it came to my running. I was able to get off any time that I needed, whether for a race or to go away for 3-4 weeks to Flagstaff. Whether they could cover me easily or not, they found a way to get it down. All good things come to an end though.

On April 1st, 2014 while I was in Flagstaff, I learned via Facebook that we would all be laid off in September and have to reapply for our jobs at less pay and less benefits due to the facility losing $3 million dollars in 6 years. Many of the existing staff jumped ship, but some of us were stubborn and hung around. The pay cut wasn't drastic, though the loss of vacation was a bummer for me.

The next 2 years were interesting and just when we got our hopes up again, last April 1st, 2016, a member from head office was scheduled to come again. I was home from Flagstaff, but only for a few days before heading off to Rotterdam. I knew the meeting was not good so opted not to go, asking a co-worker to fill me in. Yep, laid off again as of Sept 30th, 2016. This time though, GSS was planning to sell us stating that we continued to lose money (I'd like to go into further detail here, but need to be careful what I say so I will opt to stay quiet). Regardless if we were sold or not, GSS or the new company would be contracting out our positions.

I also have a ton I could say about what went on over the summer but I don't want it to hurt my chances of getting another job in the future. Let's just say that communication was horrid. We were kept in the dark nearly about everything, found out things via the paper or last minute. The sale went through August 23rd with the new company and we found out the first week of September who the new contractor was. On my last day of work before Flagstaff I interviewed for my own job back (even at the $3 per hour pay cut) as I had no idea what I wanted to do.

While away in Flagstaff, I was informed by a co-worker that during a general meeting at work, it was announced that the 4 care staff positions in my department (Assisted Living) would no longer exist as of Sept 30th so essentially the new company would not be hiring me back unless I changed departments. My coworkers and I essentially organized and ran that department for the nearly 8 years it existed and we were informed during a group meeting. Nice eh? From what I have heard, my residents are extremely upset by this change. I am hoping they will be okay but I am honestly worried about what is going to happen.

So there we have it, 8 years with "Good" Samaritan Society. I would like to thank my awesome co-workers (most of them anyways), my amazing residents and all the wonderful families I came into contact with over the last 8 year. It has been an amazing and enriching 8 years if you can ignore all the drama. Onwards to bigger and better things. Speaking of which, anyone have a job for me? ;)

On a side note training has been going well. I was able to do a quick trip back to BC last weekend for a wedding and that gave me the opportunity to do my final long marathon workout at sea level. It was much nicer to do that workout back there vs at 7000ft here. Now here I am on the last night here in Flagstaff. Time seemed to tick so slowly while I was here, but when I look back it seems to have gone fast. As usual Flagstaff training has been full of ups and downs. While I love easy runs here, workouts on the other hand leave me sucking wind while gasping for air and dreaming of sea level. Ready or not, 11 days to go.

Lake Mary Fun