The 36 hours was only going to be a one time thing, but I'm already falling behind with school as it is, so that would have cause some major damage. Besides that, it was kind of a matter of principle for me. The way I see it, I agreed to give them 26 hours a week of my time, give or take a little. Whether they pay me or not, they don't have the right to take more than I've given them. It'd be like if I was having a yard sale and someone walked into my house and took something of mine that wasn't for sale. Even if they left money for it on the counter or whatever, it'd still be wrong because I never agreed to sell the thing.
This also wasn't the only problem I'd been having there. There was another instance when I first started when they made me work on what was supposed to be my day off. (This was my first job, so that was before I knew I had the right to say no to that sort of thing). It's also just really terribly managed. The best example of this I can think of is the utter nightmare that is truck day. Apparently, the truck has to be unloaded by a certain time or else they have to pay extra, so they decided it was a good idea to have someone there to yell at us to unload faster the whole time, essentially making our lives a living hell. Apparently, it's one of the main reasons newbies quit, because they feel like they're being bullied. I almost walked out on the spot myself once or twice because of it. The stupidest part of the whole thing is that the truck is almost never unloaded on time anyways, and one of the main reasons for it is that is because so many people quit. Almost all the other employees there hate it too, creating a ridiculous turnover rate. I'm pretty sure we lost four or five people in the month I worked there. I could go on about this for hours, but the long and short of it is that it was such a stressful place to work and I just couldn't take it any longer. I figured since I'm still living with my parents there was no point in putting up with it anymore, even if they want me to pay rent now that I'm a grown adult. (I've actually graduated high school now, by the way).
But yeah, it still kinda bugged me to walk out like that without putting in a two weeks notice or finding another job first, and I'll admit it probably wasn't exactly a smart decision. I think it's all going to work out okay though. I had more than enough money from my last check to pay for next month's rent as well as this month's, which gives me plenty of time to find a new job. I actually applied for a position back at my old middle school as a noon duty assistant which I'm pretty confident I'll get what with my experience as a middle school youth leader. Even if I don't get that, I know I'll be able to find a new job soon enough now that I know how.
Anyways, that's enough complaining about my old job. On the writing side of things, my tentative guess is that this story should turn out to be somewhere around 50-60k by the end. That said, this second branch is probably going to turn out a bit longer than the the first, so we'll just have to wait and see. I'll know I'm at the halfway mark when I finish this branch. The goal is to be done with it by the end of the year, or even sooner if possible, but knowing me there's no telling if that'll happen. It took me four months to get this far, but that was before I started putting all my focus towards it. Hopefully my new organizational methods of making to-do lists in Google docs will pay off and help me make that happen.