Rational irrationality

I am probably one of the few people in the world who can say that they are pissed off that their spouse was not fired from their job. Perhaps I should give a little back story here so I do not sound like a complete and total loon.

The husbeast is a salesman. He can sell just about anything. Old adages like selling ice to Eskimos and selling ketchup popsicles to women in white gloves are things he has considered in all seriousness and is certain he could do. I have no doubts that he could, the man has a way with these sorts of things.

Anyways, back in May he had a pop in his sales. One of his clients made an unusually large order and it skewed his monthly numbers pretty bad. The sale made him look like he was doing much more business than he actually was. Afraid that they would up his monthly goal to a number he could not reach he went to his boss and explained the anomaly. He was assured that they would take that into consideration and would not jump his goal.

They jumped his goal.

After the goal jump they started to makes some internal policy changes with how they priced items, how they could make quotes, and other things that I do not particularly understand beyond the fact that it makes his job much harder. It also meant his customers were not as pleased, and in sales people are so fickle that it sort of goes without saying that he started to lose customers.

Losing customers sucks for us in two ways; he gets paid commission on sales, so with less sales we make less money, and if he doesn't meat his sales goals he runs the risk of getting fired. Being fired is a seriously not good thing. We are still trying to crawl back from him getting laid off repeatedly over a two year period. We have no sort of real cushion to see us through until he finds a new job, and my paycheck is not enough to pay our bills.

After a couple of months of him not reaching his goals (which were still increasing despite him not meeting the old ones) his bosses began to really ride him about it. I have seen some of the emails they send him about his numbers and they are less than professional. They are demanding more and more out of him without giving him anything but a lot of grief. They finally delivered an ultimatum at the beginning of August: Meet the goal by October or else.

Since then he has been so incredibly stressed I barely recognize him. He has lost all of his confidence in his ability to do anything, he is nervous and worried, he is driving himself crazy with all of this. It is incredibly unhealthy for him. At this point I am more worried about his health, both physical and mental, than I am about the money.

So last week we were preparing for the worst. We wondered what day it would be on. We knew they would want to fire him before a new month or new pay cycle started so it had to be sometime during the week. It was the end of September, he missed his goal again, it was all over. Everyday I waited at 5 with my phone in hand expecting the call to say he had been fired. Every day there was no call.

Finally Friday rolled around and I knew it was the end. I was busy packing for our weekend at faire and waiting on him to come home with sad puppy dog eyes because he had been fired. I was ready for it, and I was relieved it was going to happen. Finally he could let go of all of the stress and bullshit that has been weighing him down. He could move forward and finally start living again.

Only he wasn't fired.

The day came and the day went and his boss never fired him.

And I am so angry I could spit!

Seriously? Honestly? Are you fucking kidding me?! They put him through all of this stress, all of this worry, drove him to the brink of a nervous breakdown, and then they don't do anything? Now we are left in a worse place. Are we still in eminent danger of him being fired? Will it be today or later this week? Maybe the end of this month? Or next month? Are they going to pull a Princess Bride "Goodnight Wesley you did a good job, I shall most likely kill you in the morning.". This time will they let the axe drop or will they just use it as some sort of deranged motivation forever?

How the hell do I plan for the future when I am living in constant fear that the majority of our income is about to be taken away? Do I scrounge and save just in case, blowing off the planned vacation, and cutting back on our allowances and unnecessary expenses? Do I keep living as we are pretending it will continue to be exactly the same and we are in no danger? Hell at this rate we are both going to have a nervous breakdown over this.

Yes he is looking for a new job. Yes I hope he finds one before they fire him so we have security and the satisfaction of telling these people to take their job and shove it. Mostly though I hope this is resolved one way or another quickly. I am not sure how much more of this either of us can take.