[I've changed the title of this post from "Being Let Go" to "Redundancy", because I'm told the former phrase means being fired. As far as I recall, I've never been made redundant before, and hadn't matched the word in my head to the event.]
My job started out part time. My main shifts were Saturday and Sunday 8am - 4pm, then 6pm -8pm. But I also did 3:15 - 4pm and 6pm - 8pm on Mondayd and Fridays. the first 12 hours of each week was unpaid because it was to cover my board and lodging. This did not work out to be enough money for me, so the owner, Charis, gave me all the ironing for the holiday cottages. She had hoped I would be able to do this ironing within the hours i was already working, but her mother Grace, was taking up an increasing amount of time so this was just not possible. i was then given the responsibility for helping Grace to bed each evening so the person who did the supper shift could concentrate on that. This ended up with me working 7 days a week but on some days it was just for one hour. Then Charis wanted me to do the extra ironing from 4-6pm so there was someone on hand to help Grace with the toilet if she needed it.
The person who had the job before me had only ever lived in an orphanage and then other people's homes whilst looking after them. So when her friend got her her own house, from the Housing Association, she was very anxious about having the responsibility for everything including the bills. At the age of 62 it was all too much change for her. So she came back to visit and told Charis all this. Charis felt an obligation to help her and decided to have a reorganisation of the staffing. She had been losing money on this part of her business and her mother needed more care so she decided the person doing the live-in job was to just work 4 hours on Monday and Friday, and 2 hours each of the other days, whilst her mother was still alive. She knew I would not want to do that as I needed to earn more money than that. Especially as the first 12 hours worked were to pay for the board and lodging. So, there i was out of a job again. Charis was very keen to give me a good reference so that was OK. I was surprised, but understood her reasoning.
So it was packing up, back to my mother's and looking for another job.
Then my daughter Helen, on hearing I was free gain so soon, invited me over to the USA to live with her for a while to look after my granddaughter.
