Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Pack up the fucking tent already

I've always been a vry concrete thinker and very impatient: black or white, up or down, go or don't go, shit or get off the pot but do it NOW! We've pretty much decided we're getting the hell out of here and probably going to break the lease to do it. We've also decided we probably will go back to Alabama (more on that in a minute). But now it requires finding jobs and updating resume's and figuring out how to move all of our stuff, and figuring out how to move our son, ahboo, and oh, Jesus Christ can we just fucking do it already? Can't we just get on the plane to Alabama and not come back? If we're gonna go, I wanna go and be done with it. I hate uncertainty and waiting and such. I know how we could make our trip a one way instead of a vacation (at least in theory) but no one has a job lined up or a place to stay or anything, so I have to sit it on it until all that is ready even if I am ready to go now.

So now, to explain why I am okay with going back to Alabama. I hate Alabama, but my friends are there, I have a pre-established social and support network there, family is there and my husband said that if we go, he'll let me be a lazy bum and not work if that's what I need to be able to keep from going crazy. Actually what he said was, "we'll be able to work something out" when I said "fine, we can go to Alabama, but I'm not working." So, if I come back, my sole source of income may be jewelry sales or I may sub in a daycare or something. I am looking at social services jobs, but I'm not forcing myself into a position that I don't think will work--end of story. While this has potential for disaster because I can get horribly depressed when not working, I think I can manage to feel productive without a job--I managed for 4-5 months when my job contract ended right before my wedding. The other thing is that if we were to move back and take up residence in my mother's house or somesuch, I could probably work my first day back. She works in a daycare and told me that if I come that way, they could probably use my help. I also could probably do the substitute dance teacher thing at her dance studio. If we move back to Birmingham, there is no instant job and no instant place to stay, but there's a lot more opportunities for jobs and housing than Huntsville, so we could figure something out pretty quick. Actually, if the place we lived at before had an opening, they would probably let us back in, except I don't know if they would allow our son or not--people there had dogs, but I don't remember whether anyone had big ones.

Oh, I forgot to mention why I am so ready to go. Whitey's job is sucking and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he got fired in the next couple of months because the business people needed someone to blame for things not being done in time despite the fact that the reason it isn't going to get done rests solely on the fact that the business people refuse to hire more IT staff.
You always hear me talk about how I love my job and how I would hate to leave it. This is true, but there are a couple new developments that make me think now would be a good time to exit. One is that it feels like I have to do more and more off the clock to be able to be organized and keep it together to do my on the clock work. Right now I'm only clocking 20-25 hours most weeks, but I'm actually doing 30-35. If I do the math on the pay they give me versus the pay that I would get in Alabama for a place where you're always on the clock if doing something work related, it comes out either about the same, or in favor of Alabama. In addition, the director left about five months ago and we haven't hired anyone to replace him yet. The second in command has been doing an amazing job running the place and I wouldn't trade her for anything. Yesterday, she resigned based on philosophical differences that involve money issues. She's erring on the side of caution and following regulations and they're erring on the side of getting more money out of Medicaid. There was also a situation earlier in the week where they decided to err on the side of money and not on the side of what was in the best interest of the employees and the clients. I don't like this trend and I think that they're going to try to give me less money instead of more. I don't get paid enough as is. Sure, I get $16.75 an hour, but that's essentially the equivalent of $12-$13 an hour somewhere where they pay you for everything work related, and here, we don't get mileage checks. NOT liking this trend. I also forgot to mention that, as much as I love Sandpoint and it's 60% hippie population and the Saturday farmer's market and the mountains and the dance classes by the beach, I know that it isn't viable to stay here long term because of real estate prices and lack of consistent resources for entertainment, etc.
So, after all this, I am ssssooooooooooooooooooooo ready to get the hell out of here, but I have to fucking wait. Quite possibly until next April (if we don't get out of her by October, we're kind of stuck--moving in the winter is much too uncertain).
waiting sucks damnit!

1 comment:

Christian said...

Don't worry, I'm much more likely to get disgusted and quit than I am to get fired. =)