An Incredible 2023 Year in Review

This year brought an incredible amount of highs and lows, but the culmination of a dream is what made it unforgettable—one for the record books. It was a tale of two halves. What started out as just an idea, became a plan, and then followed through with a dream realized. I hadn’t really shed too much light on our situation which led to our Gatlinburg move, but now’s the opportunity. Here is our 2023 Year in Review.

There was promise and a hope that this might finally be the year we pulled off the unthinkable. We were mired in more misery with our jobs, (at least I was) but that only motivated us even more. Goals weren’t written in stone; we tried that in 2022 and failed to meet them…thankfully. You see, I started out 2023 at a job in my Ohio hometown that resulted from this failed move to Tennessee in 2022. So, here I am, trying to convince myself it wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be—again. Let me explain…

In January, I was working for Spherion, a temp agency which placed me at a warehouse owned by Proctor and Gamble, but my potential employer would be FedEx, the well-known transportation and delivery service conglomerate, not P&G. Confused? I’ll try better.

FedEx has many arms in its arsenal. The FedEx I would be working for is the Supply Chain. This tentacle serves as a third-party which is contracted by other companies to do the work they don’t want to do, which is is basically the dirty, more physically demanding part. At times it could be dull and mundane, and other moments were exhausting and drama-filled. To get hired in, you needed to prove yourself worthy by navigating your way through the sludge. I felt it was overdue, but finally in February, I was hired at FedEx. But as I realized, it wasn’t a celebration.