Back to CV?
News on the work front. As of January 4th, I will be going back to Corvallis. Jose will be going to South Salem. Bendina is staying at SS until January 4th, and then coming to CV with me. Although I've been apprehensive about the idea of going back to Corvallis --- I know that it's an uphill battle and one in which I will not have a particularly supportive manager above me --- I am very happy about this news. Some reasons..
*I get to see Amanda at work, every day. I really have missed that.
*Gas. It's an 8 mile round trip commute working at Corvallis. Multiplied by five days a week and by two people (me and Amanda), that's 80 miles per week driven for commute. Compare that to the 80 mile one way commute to and from Salem. A week's worth of total household driving equates to one day of driving at my current location. If gas stays at this price, It'll cost around $7 a week to drive to work. Right now, I'm around $35 per week. That's a $28 weekly savings, make that $100 a month that I'll save on gas. More savings if gas increases. Of course, I would be fine if it keeps going down... less savings but less overall cost!
*Time. Right now if I work 7-5, I'm home around 6pm. After 1/4, I'll be getting home around 5:15pm. I get my evenings back with a vengeance! Not to mention that my days usually last 12 hours from leaving home to getting home. Come January... 10 1/2 hours, tops. Talk about adding an extra hour and a half to my day! On the other end of the day, come January I can wake up at 6 am for a 7 am shift and have time to very leisurely get ready for work. Nowadays, by 6 am I need to be finishing up and out the door by 6:10 am. Extra sleep!
*Chance to continue to prove myself to Marcia. She's made it clear that she expects good things. She wants the department clean and she no longer wants to walk in and see watter bottles and miscellaneous crap behind the counter.
*Bringing Bendina over the same day I come. First... I don't think it would be wise to send Bendina back to the same environment as she came from. Being in a new environment she can have something of a fresh start. She can create an identity for herself that does not involve the boys centrally like her identity did at Albany. That isn't to say that they shouldn't play a part in who she is - they always will as that grief will stay with her for the rest of her life, certainly - but knowing her and seeing her progress since working with me, I think it is fair to say that in work terms, some new scenery will do her good.
---> Not to mention that (a) keeping her at SS through Christmas will give me 6 extra weeks to prepare her for Corvallis, to teach her, to get her primed, to essentially turn her into my assistant - which is how I fully intend to use her and (b) bringing her over will make my transition easier. The toughest part of a new location is getting the department on the same page. On my page. Well, I'll have one key employee already on my page.
----> On top of that, the timing will work out well. We will have a month and a half or so to work together on the top level most visible problems, and to get started on the maintenance problems. Then she will have time to maintain the department while I'm on leave (great development time for her), and then I'll get back and we'll have the department polished and shining by the end of the school year. By that point, it'll be time to start planning for a new BTS/BTC season, and with two steady hands I think we can do quite well. But that's getting a bit ahead of myself.
For now, let it be simplified that I'm excited with the direction that we're going. There are plenty of more reasons that I'm excited about this, that for the sake of brevity (haha, when have I been known to be brief) I've omitted.