I’ve been bad at blogging but I’ll update everyone here!
I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to think about this day, but I was reminded by many former colleagues why October 10, 2013 will hold in everybody’s mind. That was, unfortunately, the day employees were pulled into the office and notified that Safeway was pulling out of the market by the beginning of 2014.
What we then soon realized is that around 6,000+ employees were either changing stores or being laid off completely. However, I wonder if the year that has gone by has been one for the better.
December 28th, nearly 2 1/2 months after the announcement was made, MOST of the stores closed. Not all, but most. Some stores knew what was going to be replacing them, many did not know. Others simply kinda knew, but we couldn’t say anything “official” until the PR people had released the statement.
That weekend, I traveled to visit my mom’s family like we did every Christmas, but this time, it was different in the sense that I didn’t have a job lined up exactly when I got back but I had one on the horizon. It hit me as we were crossing into Lake County to go north. I tried to keep my mind on other things by going to Kansas City the following weekend and immediately to Taize, France for a week-long retreat. Going to Taize allowed me to clear my head of everything that had happened over the last few months. Once I got back from Taize, I got the ball rolling on the job that had been offered to me almost immediately after the news broke.
I was lucky that I had received the job offer when I did since it made the post Dominick’s life pretty simple. Within 6 weeks or so of when Dominick’s closed, I was back working at least somewhere for the time being while I took one last class at Columbia College.
Fast forward: It’s now October 10 (when I started this blog post, it’s the 11th now). I graduated from Columbia College in May with my BA in Radio. A few things have not changed. I’m still at CVS/Pharmacy (don’t get me wrong, my co-workers are great!), I’m still looking for my next big opportunity and I (barely?) survived working two jobs at once in May. However, I have never given up my roots from Dominick’s and I still talk about it quite a bit to friends and family and co-workers. With the whole Dominick’s situation, I have actually “met” a lot of people who all were thrown into the same boat as me…we all, or most, lost our jobs in December or January.
I’m happy for the family and friends that have reached out to me over the past year to make sure I am holding on ok. You know who you are. Making sure that I am kept in good spirits!
More later. This tired chic is going to bed.
Oh yeah, I have changed my twitter handle. I’m now @shellyBmedia.
retaildjstudent.wordpress.com 