About taking it less seriously, I probably would have been able to control my emotions and panic and not have been so hard on myself.
I think back to the phone hearing and all I remembered right after was that I felt a huge amount of anger. The anger was mainly about having to go through that, and some of it was also anger at the manager, who proved herself again to be 2-faced, but I was also angry at myself.
See, I always try to talk a tough game, but when I was put up against this situation and having to face my former boss (via phone) who was trying to take money away from me, I clammed up and could not fire back more at her as much as I would have liked to. I did fire back and nail her with the vacation memo, but that was really all. I am not good in pressure situation.
But when I started to remember more of the hearing, I realized that I did nail her pretty good without even getting into the mud that she was slinging. All she and the manager could do was try to paint me as a poor employee who made errors. Gee, errors, go figure. How human. I nailed her with truth while she tried to nail me with her stretched version of the truth, backed up by her henchwoman. I realized I am not a mud slinger. I am a decent person just like my father was. Yesterday was actually one year to the day since he died. Cannot believe it's been a year already.
My wife is a school teacher and she knows a teacher at her school who lives in my boss's neighborhood. She said she is a real jerk in the community.
After all this, I also realize that there have been many before me who she either fired or they quit. I can rest easy knowing that though she did fire me, she never got me to quit. Which is what I feel she wanted. I was looking for a new job all the while as she played with my hours, but I held strong and hardly acknowledged any of her games. It's a strange world when someone feels they have to try and make others feel bad so they can feel good.
David