Kevin's Watch

Blacksburg isn't getting whacked too badly by this storm, I don't think. Seems to be hitting DC and points northeast the worst. We've only had a few inches here in Manassas (which is southwest of DC) but the winds are terrific -- 60 mph gust reported at our teensy little airport here this morning.

Cameraman Jenn wrote:
So there was some whinging and avoidance involved in the processing of my promotion and I got a bit angry at Jacob and I swore at him in a not so pleasant voice and he told me that when I calmed down we could talk about it so I said I was going for a smoke. When I came back in we talked briefly and I basically told him, I need a straight answer about my hours and pay rate and what we are doing here and I need to know now because I am getting very frustrated. He ended up getting on the phone and working it out with Gary from 946 right away and so I am now officially a CSS3 at 946 on loan to 2217 until the DPS gets solved and my pay raise is retroactive to last week. Jacob is also going to talk to the regional manager about getting me keys and managerial passcodes of my own for 2217 even though I am not officially on their payroll so that I don't have to run back and forth to Gilbert or perform job risking management functions that I am not supposed to do for the remainder of my time at 2217. If that happens it will make my work life so much easier.

I'm not gonna go into my full rant here, but let's just say that Jacob has a bit of a history of that kind of thing. Like my raise back in August, which turned into a smaller raise, which turned into no raise, which is why I am still at the salary I was hired at 18 months ago and has a lot to do with why I am so depressed right now. Like I said a while back, don't count on anything until you see it on your check.

Lorin, crying can be very healthy and cathartic. I'm picturing you in the photo and sending some extra supportive super whammy mental hugs right now.

OOH, and Sorus, you replied while I was writing my post. I realize that about Jacob, you have to get on his ass. You have to be firm with him. You have to basically get in his face and tell him, this is what I need to stay so take it or leave it. I asked him about forty times to order frosted binding covers before he actually did it. Get in his face. Ask to talk to him. He was the one whinging about hours and it was Gary who told Jacob to make the transfer and ended up handling it. It goes against all logic. You know the old adage, "Don't beat a dead horse." well, keep beating Jacob and eventually he will spring back to life and actually work with you.

Today is four years since my mother's death. Although life with her was never easy, I have to admit I miss her. She was always an adventure to say the least. And I miss her artistic sense. Not many artistic people in my life anymore, especially with Chris's death.

Ah well, life is fluid, who knows what tomorrow brings.

Jeeze, what a week.

aliantha wrote:Blacksburg isn't getting whacked too badly by this storm, I don't think. Seems to be hitting DC and points northeast the worst. We've only had a few inches here in Manassas (which is southwest of DC) but the winds are terrific -- 60 mph gust reported at our teensy little airport here this morning.

we got about a foot this time and about 8 inches a few days ago. This shoveling is getting a little old.

you can get a nice little home in the Yucatan for about 100,000..............

Snow forecast for here at weekend - not in washington's league though!

I had the most stressful day at work i can remember in a LONG time, today. But it all ended well thankfully. Which is good cos I'm off to Ireland tomorrow and I'd've been worrying.

But now, I can

Yeah baybey!

More hugs for lorin:

Enjoy your long weekend, Stone!

Our office was closed AGAIN today, but I *have* to go in tomorrow, regardless of whether it's closed or not -- it's my last day before sabbatical and I've got a bunch of housekeeping stuff to finish up.

Next chance of snow for us is Monday -- and finally, I don't have to care!

well...i'm feeling very weird right now. let me explain.

last august i got fired from beren shoes, the company i've been
with for 13 years. it was probably long overdue. i had even dared
the company owner, dave, to fire me many times. i was no longer
happy there for a variety of reasons which had started around the
last quarter of 2005. but i didn't get off my ass and go look for
another job where i'd be happier. instead i just f**ked off more
and more until really there was nothing left for them to do BUT fire
me. of course there were a lot of factors involved and tho i know
my part in it all, it was not all my fault. however, i could have done
things differently and i didn't.

since august i have not looked very hard for another job.
i was burnt out. seriously burnt out. my job at berens was
not an easy one and it took its toll. i've pretty much sat on
my butt (while it grew and grew) playing world of warcraft and
chatting with my friends in vent and really not much else.
but lately i'd been feeling sort of restless and even a bit bored
of wow to some extent. and my six months of unemployment
insurance ran out a couple weeks ago and i wasn't sure if i was
gonna get another six month extension of benefits or not so in
the last six weeks i've been looking a bit harder for a job and
not finding one. women my age are NOT getting hired right now.
thats a fact jack. younger women (especially those single with
children), younger men, and men my age with families are the
people getting the jobs. its been rather a bleak last few weeks.
but i was perservering fairly cheerfully because i have good
friends to support and love me.

night before last i had a funny dream. it was a sitcom dream.
literally. it felt like a drew carey sitcom with a bunch of workin
joes and jills and it took place in the beren's shoes office.
dave, my old boss, dave beren, was sitting at this big desk and
a bunch of my old co-workers were there. and i think drew carey
may even have been there. (that might be a symbolic figure for
ger since both drew carey and ger are from cleveland!! lol!!) and
everyone was laughing and yuckin it up and there was even a
canned laugh track and what i remember was saying to dave beren
"SEE! you NEEDED me!!" and laughing and he was laughing and
we were all laughing. that's all i remember of the dream except
that i was semi lucid while dreaming and remember thinking "this
is a crazy sitcom dream!" it was obvious to me upon waking that
i had dreamed i went back to beren shoes. what a joke right?
i mean if anyone had asked me 48 hrs ago if i'd ever go back to
beren shoes i would have said no. unequivocally no.

not too long after i woke up yesterday, somewhere around 11:30 or
so, ger called me from work. (he works at beren shoes too if i hadn't
made that clear) he said that the returns dept had been in a shambles
ever since i'd left and the fella who'd been doing returns (dave beren's
son, ryan, who is just a sweetheart of a guy) was going back to school
and would no longer be able to do the returns and they were in kind of
a jam and he thought i ought to call dave beren and well...ask for my
job back.

imagine my surprise at this phone call after having that dream.

i am not one to ignore those kind of coincidences. in fact, i don't really
believe in coincidences. to me everything happens for a reason.
so...despite my trepidation i decided to call dianne, the HR person and
executive secretary for dave beren and see if she thought i should
call dave. she said "what have you got to lose?" and that she thought
it would be worth a shot.
so i did.

i spoke to him today. without a second's hesitation he said he'd like
to have me back. it was a 30 minute phone call. 30 minutes on the phone
with dave beren is like...unheard of. he has a short attention span.
usually he can only talk about one subject for 10 to 15 minutes, then
he's on to something else. and he's a busy man besides so...30 minutes
on the phone. we talked about a lot of things, my burn out, etc.
i brought it up and laid it all out there on the table.
he was entirely cool. he said he'd need to talk to the warehouse mgr
about it and then when he had, i was to call the warehouse mgr.
that was at about noon thirty today.
dianne just called me back a few minutes ago and told me dave had
spoken to the whse mgr and to call him.
i did.

upshot: i have my job back. as of monday.
in 24 hrs everything has changed.
i feel weird.
the dream. ger's phone call. my talk with dave. boom.

in a new york minute.

weird huh.

Luci, that is the best freaking story I have heard all goddamn week. Congratulations!

Feck! Great news!!!!

Good luck at your new-ish job!!!

Wow, amazing! Congrats lucimay!

It's amazing how life circumstances can change in the blink of an eye - it's happened to me a number of times, in a lot of cases it has been to do with work.

Congrats lucimay!
May your return go smoothly with full seniority and benefits!

I'm very happy for you, luci! More than you might think.
I care about you, even though words on a computer screen - and my own aloofness - don't do a good job of showing it.
Hope this will be the springboard to a great year ahead for you!

Wow! Great news luci! Good luck with it and don't be so intense about it this time. I know you're dam good at what you do-just don't take things so seriously this time around. As a semi-unemployed person anyone one who has a job right now (and if you have your benefits back) is very lucky indeed.

Nice, Luci, nice. Good news to hear.

Excellent, Luci! The best of both worlds, time off to recoup and your job back.

I totally agree, there are no accidents. I have had dreams like that and have learned not to ignore them.

Congratz Lucimay, I hope things work out better for you this time around!

I myself have been looking for a new job... it started when I applied for Personal Banker position at another branch (basically the position I held at the credit union where I worked previous to Sterling Savings Bank, where I work now).

They turned me down of course (or I wouldn't be telling the story this way), but what really irked me is that they said they'd like to see me get more experience opening new accounts...

I've worked in retail banking for 10 years, doing new accounts for seven of those years and, as I mentioned, this was actually the position I held at my previous company. If I'm not freakin' qualified, who the heck is? Besides which, I already have a full-time job that keeps me busy... after all they've cut staffing so much that there's no time for me to train in anything else while working there.

I know the manager didn't mean anything by it, but it really got me depressed about my current work situation. Banking was supposed to be a temp job, and here it is, ten years later... the thing is, with the financial industry the way it is, it's not like opportunities are common right now. And, if I wait six months for another job opening at Sterling, then I'll be less than a year from graduation and wanting to focus on my final courses and projects. If I'm going to move jobs, now's the time.

So, I started looking around, and found a few positions at other banks that I applied for. I'm still being a tad picky; I refuse to work for a company like US Bank or Bank of America. They've got horrible reputations as employers, and having had accounts with them in the past, I can't abide the way they treat their customers. Which limits my options to the smaller banks and credit unions.

Oh, and did I mention that last fall we were issued a Cease and Desist order from the FDIC, ordering us to improve our capitalization? At this point, the non-managerial staff is about 10% expecting to find out we've all lost our jobs on any given day, which isn't improving morale any...

Anyway, sorry to ramble on like this, but sometimes you get started on something and just need to finish saying what's on your mind :/

Good(ish) news LuciMay. At least it's a job...hope it goes a lot better this time round.

--A