Forgive Me, Blogger, For I Have Sinned
It has been too damn long since my last blogpost.
I've been busy.
First . . . WORK.
Work, and my feelings about it, have consumed a lot of brain energy lately. I had a big fight with my boss a few weeks ago, wherein he questioned my competence to do this entire job based on two things:
1. I wholeheartedly disagreed with him regarding the merit of a competitor's book and with his attempt to downplay the comp's assets to the detriment of our reps.
2. I ordered too many books for a rep training. A victimless rookie mistake that was fixed with an apology and two dozen Krispy Kremes for the mail room guys.
As a result of this meeting of the mind and the moron, my whole "new attitude'' about work has been tossed out the window to die a bloody death among the heavily fertilized petunias and ornamental grasses. I'm ready to move on.
So I've been exploring options. One is too quit and stay home with my kids, freelancing, working for the rich, helping my grandmother stubbornly stay in the house she can't manage alone. This can only happen if two other things happen: Kevin needs to go back to work full time for a much higher salary, and we have to find health coverage. For Kevin to go back, he needs to talk to my dad, who wants him back, but who is trying to work out some sort of mysterious deal with his ultra-powerful funereal employer, and that is stalling the whole process. Kevin could work elsewhere, but the brothers who own that business need to talk to each other and, apparently, the logistics of that are overwhelming at this time. I can get cobra coverage through work for 18 months. For the low, low cost of $1,300 a month.
Another option is to go back to editorial. I've talked about this with my old manager, but it could be a political problem and, frankly, my salary is a problem. In the fucked up hierarchy of the corporate world, my pay bracket is one above the most senior editor in the joint (remember, though, that there is a wide overlap within each bracket. My own bracket spans $30,000. I am at the bottom of it.) Still, I would have to give up my bonus and not get raises forever, and I would still have to come into the office everyday. I can take the salary thing, but I hate coming into work. I'd rather hang in my quasi pajamas all day.
So . . . we hold.
Last night we sat down (at my gentle insistence) and started working up a plan. The plan involves going to Missouri and opening up our own monument company. To do that, we will need a lot of expensive equipment, a place to operate, a place to live. We will have to fix up and sell our current house. We will have to put some cash aside to live on, or else I will have to find a job for awhile (no teaching jobs--I already looked). We will have to pay for health insurance. I'm thinking about "catastrophic" coverage, where we pay out-of-pocket for all our regular exams and a high deductible for anything, yes, catastrophic.
Whew. There's more, but I'm spent. Wheels are in motion, but they are mired in mud so deep it makes Passchendaele look like a rollerblade track.
I've been busy.
First . . . WORK.
Work, and my feelings about it, have consumed a lot of brain energy lately. I had a big fight with my boss a few weeks ago, wherein he questioned my competence to do this entire job based on two things:
1. I wholeheartedly disagreed with him regarding the merit of a competitor's book and with his attempt to downplay the comp's assets to the detriment of our reps.
2. I ordered too many books for a rep training. A victimless rookie mistake that was fixed with an apology and two dozen Krispy Kremes for the mail room guys.
As a result of this meeting of the mind and the moron, my whole "new attitude'' about work has been tossed out the window to die a bloody death among the heavily fertilized petunias and ornamental grasses. I'm ready to move on.
So I've been exploring options. One is too quit and stay home with my kids, freelancing, working for the rich, helping my grandmother stubbornly stay in the house she can't manage alone. This can only happen if two other things happen: Kevin needs to go back to work full time for a much higher salary, and we have to find health coverage. For Kevin to go back, he needs to talk to my dad, who wants him back, but who is trying to work out some sort of mysterious deal with his ultra-powerful funereal employer, and that is stalling the whole process. Kevin could work elsewhere, but the brothers who own that business need to talk to each other and, apparently, the logistics of that are overwhelming at this time. I can get cobra coverage through work for 18 months. For the low, low cost of $1,300 a month.
Another option is to go back to editorial. I've talked about this with my old manager, but it could be a political problem and, frankly, my salary is a problem. In the fucked up hierarchy of the corporate world, my pay bracket is one above the most senior editor in the joint (remember, though, that there is a wide overlap within each bracket. My own bracket spans $30,000. I am at the bottom of it.) Still, I would have to give up my bonus and not get raises forever, and I would still have to come into the office everyday. I can take the salary thing, but I hate coming into work. I'd rather hang in my quasi pajamas all day.
So . . . we hold.
Last night we sat down (at my gentle insistence) and started working up a plan. The plan involves going to Missouri and opening up our own monument company. To do that, we will need a lot of expensive equipment, a place to operate, a place to live. We will have to fix up and sell our current house. We will have to put some cash aside to live on, or else I will have to find a job for awhile (no teaching jobs--I already looked). We will have to pay for health insurance. I'm thinking about "catastrophic" coverage, where we pay out-of-pocket for all our regular exams and a high deductible for anything, yes, catastrophic.
Whew. There's more, but I'm spent. Wheels are in motion, but they are mired in mud so deep it makes Passchendaele look like a rollerblade track.
posted by lulu | 6:22 AM
1 Comments:
You're forgiven!
Ain't christianity great? Poof, just like that, all sins expiated, or absolved, or whatever, gone. Karma wiped clean (yeah right).
1. What I like is that you distinguish between "work, and my feelings about it..." which most people do not take responsibility for. Like your boss, for example, who uses your difference of opinion as a question of competence, and in turn as a way of manipulating you to do (and think) as he says (and does) in order to please (and reinforce) him (and his sense of rightness). But you can see through that bullshit (helping fertilize petunias and grasses).
2. Aren't we all working for the rich? But if you're gonna go that route, the funereal/monument biz would seem to be a lucrative niche, with all the people my age who are sure to die in the coming years. Get on that gravy train.
3. I don't think anybody gets into editorial for the big bucks, so if you don't enjoy it, don't do it. Maybe your boss will alienated everyone else and move on before you have to, then you can break in the new honcho.
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