It’s been a long week.
I left work an hour or so early on Monday because it was completely dead. Because of the way our weekly budget works, we were also told to cut an extra six hours from the schedule, so I lost an hour today and I’m losing one tomorrow as well. It’s been like this for a year now; we get sent home if it’s slow, but they can’t keep us when they need us.
It sucks. In terms of paychecks, it could be worse, but things are ok right now because I got a slight raise recently. Unfortunately, that raise was only because the state raised its minimum wage at the beginning of the year, and I guess they thought the most senior tech getting a $0.01/hour raise would look bad. Thankfully, his paycheck makes up for the fact that I lose about two to three hours a week with roughly ten hours of overtime each week.
I keep thinking about how there’s no room for advancement where I am. I could get my national certification again, but it doesn’t really offer any benefits to having it where I am. Also, I could get licensed in my own state, and work someplace closer to home, but again, there’s no real advancement opportunities. I’ve got the security of this place right now, and benefits, but I can’t go any farther.
Sometimes, I think that I’d like to switch to something like his job, working in a warehouse. It would be nice, after 13 years, to not have to deal with customers, or doctors’ offices, or insurance companies. The paychecks would be better, and the schedule would be consistent. However, we don’t know what the future holds right now. There’s legal things we need to worry about. Additionally, there’s the worry about what will happen if the household goes from the two of us to just me, and the logical part of my brain tells me that every penny needs to be put aside for any financial emergency that comes up.
So for the moment, I’m going to put my sneakers on and go work my shortened shift. I’ll work my six hours, and I’m looking forward to steak sandwiches when we get home. Happy Friday, everyone.
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