Wait...didn't I just do this?

So the last two weeks since I posted have been a roller coaster ride to say the least.  In my last post I was lamenting about being forcibly unemployed and the the pro's and con's of working in a tourism based environment.  Today, I will pose a query, a conundrum if you will.

What exactly do you do when the company you work for, that has laid you off, calls you back to work until the end of the year? 

Now before you answer, let me share this story with you.

As I said in my last post, October 30th was to be my last day at my current job.  As my lst day was drawing to a close, the Owner of the company ( who I really think doesn't have all the details of what is going on.  She has the big picture, but no details in my opinion) asks me to stay on another week, helping the marketing department.   No big there, I said yes and proceeded to go through the melancholy about losing my job...again....one week later.  So after my week was up, I packed my desk again and let myself out of the office.  This was Friday.  Saturday morning I filed for unemployment, called the retail job I'd managed to snag and said my availability was now wide open if they could see past giving me 7 hours a week and prepared for the descent of my mother, stepfather and grandmother. 

Fast forward to Monday.   Monday was my recital performance.  I was in a panic to begin with, nerves running high when I recieved a phone call from my former employer asking me to come back to work, right then. 

I had a problem.  In the three days since I had left the office my retail job had given me a 30 hour a week schedule and the state had accepted my unemployment. 

So I told the office "Um, I knew this would happen.  I told my supervisor that without a call back date I had to accept work from an available position.  I'm not available except at these times."

To which this was the reply:

"Um, let me call you back."

About two nervewracking hours later, I do indeed get a call back saying this:

"So you have a descision to make. You can either work for the retail job or you can come back until Dec 31 and work for us."

So of course I chose the office.  I've never had to call someplace and be like "Um, just kidding!  thanks but now I have to work at my other job."  

I felt ridiculous and stupid and completely unprofessional.  Which I hate.  Fortuneatly, the retail place was
cool about it and unemploymetn was like, um what?  That was quite the eventful phone call.

I'm not complaining about having a job, believe me.  I realize how lucky I am to have said job and that I can work it a couple more weeks.  It just boggles my mind.  I mean seriously, they couldn't figure out that they needed me BEFORE I left and saved me some emotional wreckage?

So I made the joke to a co-worker about the office going to hell in a hand basket as soon as I left.  She agreed with me.  Apparently it did.  Which is why I got my job back.