In the Mind of a Mom: September 2006

work has been stressing me out for a few weeks now b/c my boss is a douche. although since i nearly blew up in front of him over it, i've been feeling better. here's what happened:
a few weeks ago my boss pretty much said to me, but not in these words, "you need to take a pay cut for no good reason, or you have to find another job". what? yeah. so that sucks.. see i've been working this job for the state for over 2.5 years now, i started the january after evan was born. this ENTIRE time i've been getting paid salary, aka full-time, for a job that that on most occasions hasn't taken me over 24 hours a week to do. from the beginning i wondered why this job was paid salary, but my boss just shrugged and said whatever. okay. sounds good to me! so at some point in august he said to me casually, we're going to have to give you more stuff to do. okay i said b/c my number of clients is way less than what it once was, and i had alot of spare time within my 24 hours a week, so i assumed he was just going to give me stuff to do to fill up that extra time. a couple weeks after that i was in the middle of a phone call with a guy from the state when he says to me, "i need you tomorrow (tuesday) to go out and survey with me." i said, " i can't", he says "why not" i say, "because i have to work at my other job"... he was very annoyed. and i was pissed that he got mad at me. i told him that this job just wasn't paying enough that i needed to get a second job, and that the only day i had to go was tuesdays...

we proceeded to have a 'discussion' about how i've never had a raise at this job, but how i've never complained b/c i was getting paid for more than i worked, and how the cost of living has gone sky high thanks to gas prices, and what not.. we're just not making enough money. he says to me "well i'm gonna need you to work 32 hours" wtf?! "i say highly pissed off, "i can't afford the childcare for anymore time to work.. i've beent elling you that for over 2 years." he goes, "oh well what about tuesdays you don't get paid to go into real estate, so how does that figure?" he caught me off guard with that one. i forget what i said, but near the end of the discussion, heh, i told him that i was pregnant b/c i knew it would annoy him, and at the time i was 8 weeks, unnoticable. he has the gall to ask me it it was on purpose. and i said yes.. and he's all like how you gonna pay for that. i said, we'll figure it out. asshole. in a discussion later with another coworker, she commented on how inapproopriate it was of him to ask me that about my being pregnant. and she's right, and i was so pissed at the time i didn't notice.

the next day i told him i'd come in the extra day. i came in for 2 or 3 times that extra day, and i had absolutely nothing to do... no surprise. i literally just went online and blogged or went to the forums or whatever for 8 hours. so i stopped goin in. it was a waste of money i couldn't afford.

so about 2-3 weeks later, he asked me if i wanted to switch to hourly and a rate that if i worked 32 hours hours it would be the same as what i'm getting now, or if i wanted to just work the 32 hours for the same money. i said i'd have to think about it.

i was going to do the 32 hours a week until i went on maternity leave, and then go hourly after that, but my boss was sressing me out. everytime he would talk to me or email.. (okay well nearly all the time) he was chime in with "32 hours".. grr.. so i was only able to pick up the extra day at daycare this past week, but i had to do a thing in springfield all day weds so i couldn't go into work. i put that day on the calendar at work that i'd be out. at some point earlier in that week it donned on me that if he's requireing me to work 32 hours as full-time that i'd have no possible way to schedule doctor's appointments without a problem... my job isn't benefited so i'm not alloted any vacation/personal or sick time. so i was stressing out about it big time.. so i had emailed him last week to say just to make me hourly starting asap. last monday i think it was, he brought up the situation, and i nearly flipped out on him. he's just so frustrating b/c he doesn't understand why i'm upset about the whole thing.

if the big wigs in the department are the ones that said i needed to up my hours, fine. tell me that. it really got to me that he told me it was b/c i had another job. my job with him is adead end job for me. no benefits, no pay raises, and no way to move up, there's nothing there. it's just a job, and he doesn't see that. this is a guy who gets paid big bucks at umass who inherited enough money from the death of his father to pay off his mortgage, build a garage larger than his house, purchase a cessna airplane, build a hanger for said airplane, and buy an army transport vehicle which he often drives to work. he pretty much has no bills b/c he paid off his now ex-girlfriends studnet loan bills in exchange she was paying all the utility bills. they recently broke up b/c he left his long term girlfriend of over 8 years for a 22 year old chick from boston. he's 46 years old... he not pretty and can be downright degrading but not realize it.

so that's that work. i'm annoyed with it, but since i nearly blew up on him, i've been feeling better. real estate is going well so far. a friend is buying a condo, but other than that i don't have much going on. i've been doing some office work for my broker. she's paying me so it's fine. atleast i can hope that this job will be worthwhile, ya know. it has so much potential, unlike my stupid state job. so with the 2 jobs i've hardly had a chance to get online these days. seems like i have even less time to cook dinner. such is life, but oncei get in the groove of working the 2 jobs i'l be fine, and the house won't look quite so messy. heh

here are some shots from the weekend:

we went to the butterfly conservatory, which the kids loved, and the staff was showing off soem of the other creatures they have besides the gorgeous butterflies flying all over the place. here you see a giant hissing cockroach on my arm. it's native to madagasgar, and apparantly has as much protein as 5 hamburgers! i guess people eat these. no thanks.

Here is Christine sitting on the sandbox. she and scott took tons of pictures over the weekend.

Here's evan ad james on the turtle sandbox. it makes for a good trampoline. evan was posing nicely, james would barely sit still for 2 seconds.

here's the big sis' family looking over teh rail on mt. sugarloaf, our local mini-mountain... 670-something feet above sea level.

here's a face shot of our nephew james and his mom, my big sis.

here's my son acting like a big cheezeball while i ran into stop&shop for something.

the view from mt. sugarloaf. the connecticut river, and the holyoke range are the main members of the shot here. you can see all the farm land too that goes down the river.

a closer shot of some of the farm land

and to top off the weekend, the poison ivy i've been battling with on my right leg got better earlier in the week, but i developed more poison ivy on my feet and toes, which i blame on the cat. it itches like a bitch... although luckily the bumps aren't as bad as a co-worker at the office.. she had to get the shot. yuck