Just when you think you've got it sorted.
Jesus fucking christ on a pogo stick! Manager just came down with an iron fist on hours logged. Apparently riding from the company apartments on a company bus to the company facility for the company-required training class is no longer work, but part of unlogged commuting time, and homework and studying don't count as work. Gosh, well, if all those hours of skull sweat weren't work then I really ought to find new hobbies!
Short version, I just lost 180 hours of OT over the last 8 weeks, and my salary is going to get back-calculated so I can repay the $5500 or so. Which I do NOT have in the bank by a long goddamn shot, so my desperate point of no-leverage negotiation is aggressive garnishments once I'm out there, which is it's own problem! My start date is not the 26th like I'd begged for and heard nothing back about for weeks, but now arbitrarily the 14th.
My car is still in the garage, awaiting headers to be shipped and for the new engine to be fired up for the first time so the tuning can START. /IF/ she'll even start/run!
I just started looking for a house on Monday, because the outgoing manager ORDERED me not to look until passing the big class.
So plans have changed from 'get a house, drive out on the 18th' to 'have 8 days at home, throw scant money at the car and hope to get it running, then Paul Revere's Midnight Ride on the 9th'. I'll try to find a one-bedroom place locally so I can live by myself for a while longer while Z and Roomie move back in with Z's mom. That way my paychecks can get garnished and it won't fuck anybody for rent, I'll just have local bills, and I can save for a house and a proper move. If I can find an apartment I can afford / successfully apply for. Yes, I am working with the company-appointed real estate agent.
The movers will move our crap out hopefully on the 16th or so as originally scheduled--shit, they haven't even surveyed the house yet!
This is a fucking debacle but I already have contingency plans. If I don't have a running car on the 9th, those contingency plans are going to have to involve booking a plane ticket through the corporate website and making a very humiliating family phone call (for self-reliant me) to discuss the possibility of a short-term beater-loan.
It's funny, earlier today I was pissed off that we had a 45-minute presentation on some brutal math and then immediately six long and wretched tests -- in a row! -- on it, and stressed that I possibly hadn't gotten a passing grade, but now that seems pretty insignificant.
Absolute worst-case, I can't make any of it work and thus I get shitcanned. That would mean I'd be out the OT AND have to pay back the lump-sum relocation bonus...which I no longer have. And I couldn't work for any of the company's competitors for a year or two. There are horror stories about potentially having to pay back the cost of training, which is about $100K.
But in the short-term, I'd get to spend time at home with family and friends for more than a week (out of the last six months) and go back on the unemployment line and job hunt, with a fat tax refund coming early the next year.
Honestly, either way, I'll make SOMETHING work--as I told my manager, even if it means a sleeping bag in the break room for several weeks. I go home on Saturday no matter what, pass or fail, car alive or dead (just a question of money and timeframe, not permanently), Texas or Washington. I've been through too much to let this stop me.
Short version, I just lost 180 hours of OT over the last 8 weeks, and my salary is going to get back-calculated so I can repay the $5500 or so. Which I do NOT have in the bank by a long goddamn shot, so my desperate point of no-leverage negotiation is aggressive garnishments once I'm out there, which is it's own problem! My start date is not the 26th like I'd begged for and heard nothing back about for weeks, but now arbitrarily the 14th.
My car is still in the garage, awaiting headers to be shipped and for the new engine to be fired up for the first time so the tuning can START. /IF/ she'll even start/run!
I just started looking for a house on Monday, because the outgoing manager ORDERED me not to look until passing the big class.
So plans have changed from 'get a house, drive out on the 18th' to 'have 8 days at home, throw scant money at the car and hope to get it running, then Paul Revere's Midnight Ride on the 9th'. I'll try to find a one-bedroom place locally so I can live by myself for a while longer while Z and Roomie move back in with Z's mom. That way my paychecks can get garnished and it won't fuck anybody for rent, I'll just have local bills, and I can save for a house and a proper move. If I can find an apartment I can afford / successfully apply for. Yes, I am working with the company-appointed real estate agent.
The movers will move our crap out hopefully on the 16th or so as originally scheduled--shit, they haven't even surveyed the house yet!
This is a fucking debacle but I already have contingency plans. If I don't have a running car on the 9th, those contingency plans are going to have to involve booking a plane ticket through the corporate website and making a very humiliating family phone call (for self-reliant me) to discuss the possibility of a short-term beater-loan.
It's funny, earlier today I was pissed off that we had a 45-minute presentation on some brutal math and then immediately six long and wretched tests -- in a row! -- on it, and stressed that I possibly hadn't gotten a passing grade, but now that seems pretty insignificant.
Absolute worst-case, I can't make any of it work and thus I get shitcanned. That would mean I'd be out the OT AND have to pay back the lump-sum relocation bonus...which I no longer have. And I couldn't work for any of the company's competitors for a year or two. There are horror stories about potentially having to pay back the cost of training, which is about $100K.
But in the short-term, I'd get to spend time at home with family and friends for more than a week (out of the last six months) and go back on the unemployment line and job hunt, with a fat tax refund coming early the next year.
Honestly, either way, I'll make SOMETHING work--as I told my manager, even if it means a sleeping bag in the break room for several weeks. I go home on Saturday no matter what, pass or fail, car alive or dead (just a question of money and timeframe, not permanently), Texas or Washington. I've been through too much to let this stop me.