On May 3rd, just six and a half months after entering Germany, my husband was given the choice to voluntarily resign his job or continue to be fired. Thus, his job duties ended voluntarily that day and the company resigned a new contract with him and they moved us back to Boise. I was glad the stress ended for my dear husband but I cried for at least a week. How I miss Germany and the people there!!!
So, our return to the states was sudden and unexpected AND almost completely out of our control. Cory didn’t ever quite understand his supervisor, Glen, over there and they were two completely opposite people. Thus, there was conflict. And as much as Cory tried to understand what his supervisor was saying, meaning, and at times demanding, with clarifying questions and such; Glen took even the clarifying questions as disobedience and disrespect. And then when Cory went to Glen’s supervisor for help, Glen proceeded to write up Cory for insubordination and then proceeded to try and fire him.
In hindsight, we had arrived in Germany right during some huge upheavals with the military community. There was a push to transfer many of the contract positions into GS (Government Service) positions. There were also changes afoot with the EUCOM (European Command) spinning off a separate division into AfriCOM to oversee that continent and the intervention and operations there.
But ultimately, Cory and his supervisor, Glen, were just from very diverse backgrounds. We had come from the west coast and Cory was more used to the Microsoft, hands-off management style while Glen was from the East coast and used to the very structured, top-down, Military-style management. Glen wanted a yes-man, not a problem solver with solutions. Cory kept getting into trouble for fixing things and proposing solutions to IT problems because that was very threatening to someone like Glen who liked to be in control of everyone at every moment.
This job trauma all played out from about mid February to early May. Cory was able to contact the HR department and submit to them that everything was really a blown up misunderstanding, a twisting of the facts (because he had most communications documented) and that his supervisor was guilty of trying to fire him for retaliation (for reporting communication problems to his boss). The HR department intervened, had a short investigation and then offered Cory a way out of the contract—but that meant they would pay to ship us home—right then.
Since Cory’s supervisor, Glen, had been threatening him that if Cory was fired, we would not only have to get ourselves and our stuff home, but also we would be required to repay the contract all of our expenses for getting there (airplane tickets for six, hotel expenses for three rooms for 6 weeks, rental car for six weeks, etc. etc.) this would have left us jobless in Germany with about $50,000 of debts to repay and possibly a lawsuit on our hands to try and fight it, so we took the free ride home; but sadly. Cory looked and asked around about trying to get on another contract job there but just didn’t have enough time to find something. So, we got packed up and headed home within 30 days of the notice (part of the deal).
The whole situation was such an intense spiritual attack. It was difficult to walk through but it was amazing how God carried us and what we learned through it all. I can honestly say that I never worried about the money element (not because of my saintedness but because God just surrounded us and reassured us that if He takes such good care of the birds, would HE not care for us?). I had some great teachable moments with my kids about God’s Will because they wanted to think, well we shouldn’t have come; it must not have been God’s will to come if everything turned badly. So, I was thankful for the conversations and opportunities to teach them that our circumstances won’t always look good and that they are NOT a predictor of God’s Will—otherwise you could say the disciples or even Jesus Himself must not have been in God’ Will.
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