No easy way to say it. Tom has lost his job. TJX's Loss Prevention (from the home base in Massachusetts) swooped in yesterday and grilled him for 3.5 hours, accusing him of stealing scrap metal, tens of thousands of dollars worth. Of course he didn't do it. He refused to sign any papers that they tried to force him to sign, because he said that what they wanted him to say was WRONG.

What he did do was sell some scrap metal because the price was up, and he took the $200 and had a pizza party for his employees. Company policy is that the scrap metal is to be hauled away at the company's expense. He didn't follow company policy.

He hasn't been officially notified yet; yesterday they took his badge and keys and suspended him pending "investigation". But tonight he went into his stock options account to sell any options he has before they fired him, and it's all gone.

They couldn't even fire him to his face. Some of his employees have called and are very angry that he was railroaded this way.

He spent today arranging for his Porsche to be sold (I hope it sells quickly; we were counting on that for part of our retirement funds) and went to the Virginia Employment Commission to see about possible jobs. There are two that he plans to apply for. He has four weeks of vacation; he should be paid for this week and all of the vacation.

He's gone to bed; he says he's depressed, but he says that I can't be. I told him that I already am depressed, so no go there!

Since we still have two free Airtran trips each, and probably won't be going to Cancun in the spring or CA in the summer, I told him that he should just take off and go see his daughter in Ft. Lauderdale. The sun and warm weather will do him good, and so will spending time with her. He said that he probably will. He still wants me to go to Orlando next week since it's a free trip and already arranged; it would cost about $100 to change it. Better save that, huh?

Crap. Crap crap crapcrapcrapcrapcrap.

If nothing turns up here, we just might sell the place and head to Florida earlier than we'd planned. My retirement would be a lot lower, but I'd have to get a job anyway. Maybe we could both work at Disney World!!! Woohoo! He loves Disney!

Tom is the most honorable, honest man I've known (other than Dad), and this shouldn't be happening to him. Oddly enough, his former boss (plant manager) quit suddenly in June and was told to take his four weeks of vacation and not come back. He's now working as a teaching assistant in one of the new city schools; says he wants to become a teacher. Tom always thought it was odd the way he left and took such a cut in pay, with a kid still in school, maybe two, and now we think that the same thing happened to him. Tom won't call him, though; men.

This is the same place (TJX is the company that owns TJ Maxx and Marshall's stores) that fired a woman because she had an accident right in front of the building on her way to work, she was out of vacation, personal, and sick leave. She left the accident, ran into the building to clock in, ran back out to her car, got a ticket for leaving the scene of the accident and was fired for leaving the building after clocking in. Doesn't matter what the circumstances are. Company policy.

I'm calling for a nationwide boycott of all TJX properties. You're on notice, TJX. You won't be getting my Christmas shopping money this year, hahahahaha. It has nothing to do with the fact that I won't have any Christmas shopping money or that our income has suddenly become less than 2/3 of what it was yesterday, either.

I can play dirty, too.