(no subject)
I've been feeling depressed lately, and I don't know why. Things are going really great. W is working for that company down in Los Angeles - working for them direct, rather than as a consultant. This is the first time since he was let go from Loral back in 2004 that he's worked for a company directly as a permanent, full time employee. These last 6 years have been a series of consulting jobs, jobs that usually paid well but offered no sense of security and no benefits. This is a true relief, and I don't understand why I can't just relax and feel good now. I'm glad about it, of course, but I don't understand why I don't seem to feel happy.
What a horrible whirl those last 6 years were! I think it wouldn't be so bad if W could ever have felt any control of the situation, for example if he was doing consulting by his own choice. But instead it seemed like the consulting work was completely forced on him, a result of an increasingly chaotic business trend, wherein the various businesses tried to get the max productivity for their least input of both recompense and effort. The last year that he worked, the consulting firm who placed him even went so far as to stipulate that he work under 1099, meaning they treated him as if he was self employed, paid him a flat rate, did not withhold taxes, no benefits, no vacation, etc. (though, as we found out from the state, they shouldn't have, he should have been considered their employee) The idea is that we would handle all the employment taxes ourselves, get our own health plan (yeah, we could afford that for less than a year), we took no vacation, etc. That was, of course, when he had a long term client - most of the time he worked for short stints of a couple months at most, interspersed with scary stretches of unemployment. All leading up to this recession - 13 months of unemployment. I don't want to talk about how close we came to losing our home.
No, I will not miss this period of time that has just passed at all.
So why can't I relax and feel good now? Maybe it's just all the stress catching up with me, finally. I hope so, I hope it will get better. Things seem to be starting to ease up in a bunch of other ways, too. We found that we don't have to move to Los Angeles, after all - the company likes him so much, wants him to work for them so much, they are happy to have him telecommute, working from home, and just travel down there a couple times a month when necessary. I was excited about the prospect of Los Angeles, of a new home and a new city, but I was dreading the moving part - having lived in this house so long, and we are all just packrats, too - we have too much stuff, and moving was going to be downright painful. Avoided!
Soon, we'll have good healthcare insurance again, for the first time in years - I can go have a check up and see a dentist, take care of some health issues that have been concerning me a great deal. Even just paying my monthly bills has gone from something that I have dreaded in the last year to just a chore to be dealt with - no I still don't like giving up money to all these things, but there's no more fear attached to it, I don't worry about not having enough, or wonder how much longer we can stretch it to make it last, or wake up at 4am thinking about it.
...
Yeah, I read over this and I realize the depression is just a result of all this stress. Time to just shake it all off somehow and move on.
What a horrible whirl those last 6 years were! I think it wouldn't be so bad if W could ever have felt any control of the situation, for example if he was doing consulting by his own choice. But instead it seemed like the consulting work was completely forced on him, a result of an increasingly chaotic business trend, wherein the various businesses tried to get the max productivity for their least input of both recompense and effort. The last year that he worked, the consulting firm who placed him even went so far as to stipulate that he work under 1099, meaning they treated him as if he was self employed, paid him a flat rate, did not withhold taxes, no benefits, no vacation, etc. (though, as we found out from the state, they shouldn't have, he should have been considered their employee) The idea is that we would handle all the employment taxes ourselves, get our own health plan (yeah, we could afford that for less than a year), we took no vacation, etc. That was, of course, when he had a long term client - most of the time he worked for short stints of a couple months at most, interspersed with scary stretches of unemployment. All leading up to this recession - 13 months of unemployment. I don't want to talk about how close we came to losing our home.
No, I will not miss this period of time that has just passed at all.
So why can't I relax and feel good now? Maybe it's just all the stress catching up with me, finally. I hope so, I hope it will get better. Things seem to be starting to ease up in a bunch of other ways, too. We found that we don't have to move to Los Angeles, after all - the company likes him so much, wants him to work for them so much, they are happy to have him telecommute, working from home, and just travel down there a couple times a month when necessary. I was excited about the prospect of Los Angeles, of a new home and a new city, but I was dreading the moving part - having lived in this house so long, and we are all just packrats, too - we have too much stuff, and moving was going to be downright painful. Avoided!
Soon, we'll have good healthcare insurance again, for the first time in years - I can go have a check up and see a dentist, take care of some health issues that have been concerning me a great deal. Even just paying my monthly bills has gone from something that I have dreaded in the last year to just a chore to be dealt with - no I still don't like giving up money to all these things, but there's no more fear attached to it, I don't worry about not having enough, or wonder how much longer we can stretch it to make it last, or wake up at 4am thinking about it.
...
Yeah, I read over this and I realize the depression is just a result of all this stress. Time to just shake it all off somehow and move on.