Chapter 5: What Will Become of Me?

Naomi spent the afternoon thinking about what to do next. 

Her chances of getting another IT job were basically zero. The job market was giving up on life, and she had just been fired. If she had been laid off, she might have a tiny chance. But fired? No way. 

Even worse, she couldn’t access any of the job sites to look for other options. Whenever she tried, her old friends, the sloths, got in her way. Even more frustratingly, squirrels and chickens were in the mix now, too. 

She considered various side gigs that she might be able to do without references from her last employer, but she was pretty sure the number of people flooding the market for those was God tier. 

After mulling it over for a while, she realized she was avoiding what she already knew. She was going to have to ask her mom for a job. 

Her mom owned a popular soul food restaurant in San Jose where the food was bussin and the atmosphere was fire. It was one of those rare restaurants that had made it through both economic upswings and recessions. Her mom worked hard to make it successful, and customers rewarded her with loyalty. 

Naomi had worked there in one form or another for most of her life.  When she was young, she would help clear tables during summer vacation. When she got older, she waited tables. By the time she graduated college, she was helping her mother balance the books. She knew the business almost as well as her mother. 

And her mom wouldn’t ask for references.  

It felt like a step backwards (particularly when she had so many student loans left to pay) and she dreaded the noise, but she knew she should feel lucky that she had this type of safety net at all. A guaranteed place to live and a job in hard times? That’s blessed. 

She had found ways to deal with the overwhelming atmosphere before. Certainly, she could do it again. After all, she didn’t have to write a master’s thesis. She just needed to clear tables and bring people food. 

And she wouldn’t have to deal with the impossible expectations of the tech industry anymore. Crazy deadlines. Doing more with less. “Culture” mandates that only applied to people at the bottom. She would be happy to leave all that behind. 

She resolved to ask her mom if she could come back to the restaurant. But not quite yet. First, she had to meet Rosa and tell her what had happened with Robert. Rosa deserved to know that he had fired them both. 

And if she happened to find out more about the virus when she saw Rosa? That would be good too. She had to admit, she was intrigued. This thing wasn’t just sophisticated; it had a sense of humor that was unhinged and she kind of loved it.