About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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May 8, 2008
A couple of our student workers got their jobs here because their parents know the boss’s wife. One kid gets away with blatant insubordination, as described by a coworker:
1) When I asked him to write down instructions, he straight out told me no, and
2) When I asked him to look into a hard copy reviewer, he told me to “Chill.”
This coworker was put in charge of the insubordinate one, and wanted to know what punishment she could dole out if the kid was rude or refused to comply again. LB: Nothing. At most, a talk.
Nuh-uh! No wonder the kid doesn’t feel the need to do squat! His buddy was trained by me, and in MY day? If you didn’t want to do what I asked of you, you could go home. Forget authority, I just about kicked him out one day for talking back, and he never defied me again. I was younger, and rasher, then, so I know that maybe it wasn’t the best way to deal with things, but I’ll tell you what. It worked. He’s not contradicted me, and has been working diligently ever since. If he slacks off, it’s only a little bit and certainly not blatantly surfing the ‘net in front of me.
Another student, BB’s favored family friend, was finally fired after her list of responsibilities that she could handle correctly had dwindled from twelve to fifteen tasks to ONE. She also had the freedom to set her own schedule, but never showed up on time, if she showed up at all. I believe we were at a 1:3 show:no show ratio. The firing didn’t take, as BB undermined LB by telling her to come back anyway. Then she up and quit because she was bored here; privately, she told me it was probably best for the office so we could get a better coworker.
Guess what? She’s out of work again, a year and some later, and BB has decided to create a job for her, instead of looking at what help we really need on staff. Our already strained resources will now have to extend to putting a useless employee on the payroll so that BB feels good about himself, and the rest of us are just a little more screwed.
Daaaang, reeee-diculous. It’s all about nepotism and cronyism.
The funny thing is I can’t get het up about it anymore. It is what it is.
Back in the day, I was relatively decent at office politics. I knew who the enemies likely were, after a while, after a few hard knocks, and learned when to keep my mouth shut and when to talk, mostly. I did ok for myself. But over the last several months, I’ve lost my groove. Somewhere along the path of chaos and upheaval, I just plain lost my way.
Well, no more. I may not be long for this job, but I need to learn from this mess and get my political sea legs back under me. Determination alone, though, hasn’t been enough, so I’ve ordered this book for a refresher and perhaps new insights that I haven’t learned through observation:
In Ms. Miniducky style, I didn’t just order it from Amazon and add another $15 worth of filler order to get my free shipping, though I was tempted. I ordered through ebates for a 4% rebate (less than the 5% from Fatwallet) but that triggered my first purchase bonus of $10. Yay! Here’s hoping this has good information.
Here are the two steps back, where’s my one step forward??
Yar! Not only has the rebate not hit my bank account a day early, my car’s arbitration date was moved, without rhyme or reason, to June 20th! It was originally scheduled for May 6th, so I was anxious to hear the outcome today, only to find out that the case was transferred to another adjuster and the date was moved back more than a month.
Ok, I’m just whining about the rebate thing, it’s not like it’s late, after all.
May 7, 2008
Holy cheezits. I’ve got Bag Lady Syndrome today, and I’ve got it bad. I’m thinking to myself: 15k is good for an emergency (aka: I quit!) fund. But what about all those other things that could happen, like car problems ? That’s almost as certain as death and taxes, especially in the Ducky household. Or something goes terribly wrong with the house? Or if our rent suddenly increases astronomically? How would I cope with money-draining chaos if I’m reducing every expense I can think of and maximizing my income now, and still having a rough go of it?
PaDucky’s out of a job again because the company he was working for went out of business. He’s having a really hard time finding another one because of age discrimination. Prospective employers are telling him that they’re looking for younger people, which is foolish and rude. I wasn’t expecting to rely on his income any time soon, but he’ll certainly have to have one if I’m to implement my plan to move out.
Instead of panicking or becoming anxious, or resigning myself to living here forevermore, I kicked into super-analytical mode:
I should keep the 15k as a cash cushion for job loss.
Then start another emergency fund for catastrophes such as the above.
And bulk up the car maintenance fund by, say, another couple thousand.
And have a supplemental fund for rent, just in case the rent goes up insanely. [This is a possibility, our rent hasn’t been increased in years.]
And … and … and … whooooaaa!!!
That right there? I just tried to mentally justify building up 100k worth of what-if money because I’m paranoid. Where I’d get that extra 85k, Lord only knows, but the point is, I’m falling into that mentality where no amount is ever enough because I’m fueled entirely by emotion. Namely, fear.
It’s subsiding now that I’ve written it down and can see how ridiculous it looks on “paper”, but now I understand how easy it is to become Chicken Little and run from imagined terrors. I always wondered how people I consider comparatively or absolutely wealthy could look at what they have and still be afraid that they’ll be broke, but I realize that the problem is the mentality of what they don’t have, not what they do have.
It’s not that any of the above couldn’t happen, but a million other things that I couldn’t ever foresee could happen, too. I can’t live my life under a rock making lists of the things that could go wrong and how much money I’d need for it to be ok again. Silly ducky.
May 6, 2008
Did you know ….
1. That Treasury Direct’s help line is open until midnight EST?
2. That if you use AutoPay with T-Mobile, they wait 17 or more days to charge your credit card? They actually wait until two days before my NEXT bill is due before the charge hits my credit card. This contrasts sharply with AT&T who charges for the month in advance. I hate that. I probably hate it more because I was deprived of my sweet T-mobile. O T-mobile!
On the more personal side ….
BroDucky Debacles, Part One Million: he’s sent another message via PaDucky asking to talk to me about another variation of “if I make a car payment, can I use the car?” It’s almost funny now. Faster than the speed of completing the sentence, I said no, no, and no, don’t even talk to me about it, no. Seriously, some day he might actually learn what that word means.
My courtesy credit, including tax, has already been applied to my cell phone account. Considering my anticipation of an angry and unsatisfactory call with AT&T, it was really a better outcome than I’d hoped.
Since LnT has officially declared bankruptcy, and I’ve been dragging my feet about spending my $50 gift card from American Express, I’m making a list of things I could get tonight. I definitely want a vegetable peeler. Call me insufferably Asian, but in our household, not only do we not use the dishwasher to wash dishes, we use knives to peel our vegetables. Well, guess what. My arthritic hands have had enough of that. I’m splurging on a veggie peeler.
But what else? I know I’m going to need household items when I move out, but I don’t want to buy a bunch of stuff now when I don’t know when and where I’m moving. After all, I’m also smack dab in the middle of decluttering.
I could get a duck down comforter for $50, with a 20% off coupon.
I could get a Brita water jug and additional filters for $32 (or $22 for the Atlantis version) plus the cost of filters.
I could get a 17 piece cooking set for $50, including:
- 2 Quart Covered Saucepan
- 3 Quart Covered Casserole
- 6 Quart Covered Dutch Oven
- 8″ Saute Pan
- 10″ Deep Fryer with Assist Handle
- Ceramic crock with 7 nylon tools
- Dishwasher safe
I could get a whole lot of towels or a sheet set. The towels make more sense because they’re not size dependent, and there’s a part of me that thinks I might finally upgrade from my twin size bed someday.
Oh, and the reason I’m not using this for a vacuum like I’d planned? Visiting BF meant that they had the opportunity to give me their extra vacuum! Yay! Free vacuum!
So far, towels, and the Brita water filtration system seem the most sensible. Or … the comforter….I’ve never had a nice down comforter before. But what’s up with the duck thing? Is that normal?
What would you suggest?
Income:
1. Ebates: $17, due end of the quarter
2. Office Reimbursements: $376, grrr…..due a month ago
3. Pay Per Post: $38, due 30 days from post
Reductions:
1. In the next chapter of Mom’s declining health, she’s consented to be removed from the car insurance because she can’t drive anymore.
Accomplished:
1. Got our local waste company to confirm that they stopped billing me for an extra barrel on 3/31.
2. I’ve got the truck posted on Craigslist *finally.* Way to wait for the recession to really kick in before putting it up for sale. *eyeroll*
Left to do:
1. My car charger‘s still not arrived yet, so I need to follow up with the company.
2. Follow up with City billing to make sure they haven’t been billing me for an extra waste barrel since 3/31.
