In My Life
These past few weeks have unfortunately been a whirlwind of bad events. I just returned today from my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA to bid farewell to my favorite aunt and one of the most loving and caring people I have ever known, Janet W. Plantz. She passed away this past Friday (the 7th) after a weeklong bout with Leukemia. Although I've lost half a dozen family members in the past few years, this one was by far the most devestating loss for my family and I to go through. It was so sudden and so unexpected that we're all in a daze over it. She was perfectly fine several weeks ago, talking about coming down to see us this Thanksgiving and all of a sudden she gets this fatal disease and her health went downhill quickly. This is easily the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with because I was so close to her. She was my father's eldest sibling. Because my dad's parents both died when he was a kid, my aunt pretty much took the role of the grandmother figure for the James side of the family. When I was younger my parents used to fly me up by myself to Pittsburgh to see her and we would go camping or visit places like Cedar Point and Washington, D.C. In recent years she became a full-fledged clown (no joke) and travelled the country making people laugh. I definately think I've inherited a great deal of her nutiness. She was certainly an amazing person to have in my family and while I'm reeling heavily from her loss I'm thankful for all the time I had spent with her over the years.
And if this weren't bad enough, my job is screwing me over royally. They've decided (without even asking) that they're changing my schedule back to weekends, this time working first shift. I'm very unhappy about this even though I really didn't get many opportunities to go out with people. I've been trying to develop a social life and even though I'll be working days instead of nights, this certainly is a major blow towards that goal. And it gets better: I'll be losing my extra differential pay you get working overnights as well. So even when I get my measely 3% annual raise this May, I'll still be making less than what I'm making now. Obviously, I haven't been happy about this and I have talked to my boss about it; basically telling him that these changes to my schedule and pay aren't giving me much incentive to want to stay with the company. I've been told by several supervisors and managers that I'm one of the best overnight network operators they've had, and they basically understand my situation. I might get a slight compensation for this unpleasant turn of events but what is going to keep me at this job is going to be a nice promotion. They're going to need supervisors to head our newly expanded room and I've been vocal about this for the past several months. If I can get promoted to supervisor or something else, I'll stick around. Otherwise, I'll be looking for a new job soon. I'd hate to leave the company over something like this as I enjoy what I do and like the people I work with, and the thought of having to slave over finding another job is not looking attractive right now, but at the end of the day you have to look out for yourself and not allow people to take advantage of you. On the bright side of all this, now I can drink to my heart's content Wednesday nights at trivia. ;-)
And if this weren't bad enough, my job is screwing me over royally. They've decided (without even asking) that they're changing my schedule back to weekends, this time working first shift. I'm very unhappy about this even though I really didn't get many opportunities to go out with people. I've been trying to develop a social life and even though I'll be working days instead of nights, this certainly is a major blow towards that goal. And it gets better: I'll be losing my extra differential pay you get working overnights as well. So even when I get my measely 3% annual raise this May, I'll still be making less than what I'm making now. Obviously, I haven't been happy about this and I have talked to my boss about it; basically telling him that these changes to my schedule and pay aren't giving me much incentive to want to stay with the company. I've been told by several supervisors and managers that I'm one of the best overnight network operators they've had, and they basically understand my situation. I might get a slight compensation for this unpleasant turn of events but what is going to keep me at this job is going to be a nice promotion. They're going to need supervisors to head our newly expanded room and I've been vocal about this for the past several months. If I can get promoted to supervisor or something else, I'll stick around. Otherwise, I'll be looking for a new job soon. I'd hate to leave the company over something like this as I enjoy what I do and like the people I work with, and the thought of having to slave over finding another job is not looking attractive right now, but at the end of the day you have to look out for yourself and not allow people to take advantage of you. On the bright side of all this, now I can drink to my heart's content Wednesday nights at trivia. ;-)