Posted a few days ago without much luck, but it's been suggested that reposting this would be more effective than bumping it.

The situation is more complicated and serious than I am usually comfortable talking about.

Shortly after the Covid funds stopped being distributed, I was scrambling to get a job again. I thought I had gotten a break when Boeing showed interest, but they did some bs where I was scheduled for a drug test that was required for the hiring process after the deadline was already passed.

While that was going on, I had gotten a reply from an application to work in the kitchen for a catering company that had been bought by Meta to run their cafeteria. The interview went well, and I was asked to come in for a test day.

The test day went fine, the only issue being the bus schedule, as some of the early and late buses had stopped running due to the post covid driver shortage. I was assured that it would not be a problem and that my schedule was flexible enough to accommodate my needs.

I worked there for a single day before it all blew up in my face.

I came in the next morning, and right away I could tell something was wrong. The security guards that had been friendly with me before were scowling and terse. Rather than letting me through to go to the kitchen, they told me that I was to wait in the lobby.

They kept me waiting for three hours without any information or notice, until finally some guy in a suit I had never met walks up, asks me if I'm my name, and tells me to follow him.

I end up in the most asinine meeting/lecture I've ever been in. Lawyers, security guards, and HR reps, yet not a single person I actually dealt with in the hiring process.

This room of hot air and sweaty ladder climbers proceeds to tell me about how I have a contract with them, that I can't alter my agreed upon hours or schedule, and that's why I'm being let go.

I told them I had worked for one day, that I never signed a contract, and that I didn't even have my badge to get in the building yet.

They get all flustered and tell me to wait outside again, and I tell them I'm just going home, that I don't want to work with them, and I wish them luck with filling the position.

This whole time I'd been claiming unemployment from a job I had a few months before the stipends ended. I didn't claim anything for the week that I worked the one day, but I did reference it in my later claims, which was a mistake.

Near as I can tell, unemployment used that one day as an excuse to start trying to draw my unemployment from the place I had worked a single day rather than the job before that was still paying it. This in turn caused Meta to go nuclear, because I end up getting a letter from the unemployment department saying I not only owe the money they paid me for the one day, but tens of thousands of dollars, as now everything I've claimed is being classified as potentially fraudulent.

I've been trying to fight it as best I can, and I even went back to school and got a license in a new field to try and make more money. But it's still a service job, even if it is in healthcare, and I'm not comfortable being an aggressive salesperson to try to make more. I live with my partner and her sister, and they haven't been able to find a job in over a year.

Our rent is largely subsidized by a comrade who has been very kind and willing to help as they can, and I've been warned that they might not be able to afford to let us stay another year. All my money that isn't taken by government debt goes to paying our bills and food. I have no savings, and I've all but given up on the thought of ever getting gender affirming care outside of self dosing estrogen.

And I'm still fighting the urge to delete this whole thing and just go cry or hurt myself. There are so many worse things going on and so many people who don't have the luxury of the problems that I have. Who am I to ask for help? What delusions make me feel like I could ever deserve it?

And yet I ask, despite the fear and trauma instilled in me from past experiences with seeking help, because I don't know what else to do.

Please help me.

(EDIT: Completely forgot to mention, the immediate need is for $120 to cover the phone bill for the house (3 people). I try to save my checks to make payments, but the automatic deduction is very aggressive and sometimes it takes the money I have set aside for the bills in the time between deposit and payment. )

Mykah Orshelack on PayPal, just Orshelack on Venmo and Cashapp. DM me if you want to donate via other channels.

Thanks in advance to everyone who reads, bumps, donates, or replies.