Fighting for survival

On the first week of October 2003 I quit my job at AT&T wireless due to too much harassment. Enough was enough, I was going to just leave the place and at the time I did not care about the consequences. I had come to work early in the morning and I was just getting a very tough time with the customers. I walked into the Managers office and told him that I was gone. He must have been anticipating this for he did not put up an argument. He said okay, I fill out all of the necessary paperwork and headed out of the door. At the time I had no idea what I was going to be doing afterward to make a living. Prior to quitting, I had applied for jobs at different places but nothing worked out. I got into my max and headed home. I was going to do all the reflections afterwards. I had about $5000 of cash in the bank plus about $17,000 in 401k that I had been saving since my days at Circuit City. I figured that by the time I run out of all this money I would have found something to do. At the time I had to deal with the following monthly expenses;$1085 for the rent,$520 for car payment,$130 for car insurance,$150 for credit card bills,$85 for electricity and light,$20 for internet subscription,$65 for cable plus money that had to be allocated for gas. All the expenses came to about $2,000 monthly. I had been working since 1986,about the time that I got into the US and this was the first time that I found myself without a job. I have also being living independently for about 5 years now and I had forgotten how to go live in somebody’s couch. I continued to stay in Laurel, Maryland and spend most of the early months keeping track of world events. Winter was around the corner and I had planned to just spend most of the time being indoors.

A lot of things began to go wrong at this time. First of all I lost my driver license and there was no way for me to get a replacement. I went to the Department of motor vehicles a lot of times but could not figure out a way to get a replacement. So up to the time that I left for home I was driving without a license. How is that possible? You learn to keep to the speed limit, obey all the traffics lights and signs and just drive safely. I did that for close to two years and was lucky not to have been stop at all. Until the time that I abandon my apartment, I had a total of just one other job that I did for about a monthly. I worked in a furniture company in laurel called Marlo Furniture and got paid about $1,000 for the month of work. I had kept a copy of both my missing driver license and social security card. I used that to get the job. I did not stay there for long though. I believed that I was just burned out. Going to work is something that I have been doing for quite for time now but all of a sudden it had become such a burden.I had earlier talked to a former co-worker at AT&T Wireless and he had asked whether I ever filed for unemployment benefits?I told him no and said that I should look into it.I did call the unemployment office and was given information on a website that I could get everything done on.I followed the instructions,did all the paperwork and in two weeks time I got the first check of $600.I received two more checks of $600 before my former employer intervened and said they were not liable to be paying me unemployment benefits.Unemployment benefits runs for 26 weeks before stopping.The case with AT&T wireless went to arbitration in which they had a mouth piece and I did not have one.I lost the arbitration and forget about the whole unemployment deal.

October 2004 had past and I did not pay my rent for the month.I was beginning to get worried about my property and I decided to rent a storage area to keep some of my things.The storage space was going to cost me $85 a month.At the time my plans were that I would make the payments and hope that things get better to enable me get my property.November came and this time there was a notice from the Landlord lord saying the Sheriffs will be in to throw me out in case I did not settle my account by the end of November.I knew I was not going to settle my account, so I starting making plans to get the things that I could carry around in my car.I would be leaving the apartment before dawn on the 1 of December 2004.I got some things into my car and was gone on the morning of December 2004.I would end up traveling all the way to Florida in my quest for a different place to live.Nothing did work out at all and I would end up heading to Atlanta,Georgia where my elder brother,a medical doctor lived.In Atlanta,I spend a total of six uneventful month before deciding to head home to Cameroon.Traveling arrangements were made and I arrived Cameroon sometime in June of the year 2005.