This morning on the radio I learned that October 23-27 is Celebrate Job Loss Week, “to focus on a plan to celebrate and move on after getting fired or laid off.” In honor of such an occasion, I will now share with you the story of Heavenly Pizza.<\/p>\n

In the fall of 1993, after attending Redlands Community College for two years, I transferred to Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, Oklahoma, some 60 miles away from home. I arrived in town only a few days before school began, at which point I began hunting for a job. Bad timing on my part — I was told at the time that the population of Weatherford was “12,000 when school is in, 7,000 when school is out” — and apparently I was the 5,000th person to arrive in town. By the time I began applying for jobs, everything was taken. When I applied at McDonald’s I was told I would be put on a waiting list. For the first couple of months I attended school I simply didn’t work. Then, I stumbled across Heavenly Pizza. <\/p>\n

Day One of Three<\/b><\/p>\n

Susan and I stopped by Heavenly Pizza for lunch one day and noticed a “Now Hiring” sign in the window. Before sitting down to eat, I asked the owner for an application. He hired me on the spot and put me to work. My class schedule was such that I had a three hour break in the middle of the day. Susan ate lunch by herself as the owner shuffled me back to the kitchen to show me the ropes. I had previous experience at both Mazzio’s and Pizza Inn, so I figured I would catch on quickly. I didn’t. Heavenly Pizza didn’t have the same giant equipment that those chains owned. Everything was done by hand and done by feel. Instead of working with a team, Heavenly Pizza only had two employees — the owner, an older, cowboy-type fellow, and a hostess\/waitress gir that I recognized from school. With me, made three. After a hectic and confusing lunch period, the owner left me behind to wash dishes. <\/p>\n

Day Two of Three<\/b><\/p>\n

Upon arriving the second day, the owner said to me, “ok, I’m going to let you run everything today. You’ll be okay.” I wasn’t okay. I didn’t know how to do ANYTHING. I didn’t know where anything was. I don’t like being unprepared I spent a couple of hours confused, frustrated, and stressed out. The owner stuck his head back in the kitchen every now and then to assure me that I was doing fine. I wasn’t doing fine. Even if he didn’t know it, I knew it.<\/p>\n

Day Three of Three<\/b><\/p>\n

Found a note from the owner waiting for me when I arrived. “Good luck! Call me if you need me!” To say that day’s lunch was a disaster would be an understatement. Pizzas were late or burnt, and definitely not heavenly. I finished my shift because I figured I owed hungry lunch patrons that much. After lunch I shook the waitress’ hand, said, “good luck,” and walked out the door, never to return.<\/p>\n

Friday (day five) was to have been my first pay day. I never went back to pick up my check. I never even went back to eat, which was unfortunate as they had really good pizza as long as I wasn’t cooking it. The best in Weatherford, by far.<\/p>\n

I think I will celebrate this week by eating some pizza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning on the radio I learned that October 23-27 is Celebrate Job Loss Week, “to focus on a plan to celebrate and move on after getting fired or laid off.” In honor of such an occasion, I will now share with you the story of Heavenly Pizza. In the fall of 1993, after attending Redlands Community College for two years, I transferred to Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, Oklahoma, some 60 miles away from home. I arrived in town only a few days before school began, at which point I began hunting for a job. Bad timing on… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}