Eternal Sunshine

I continue to feel better mentally. It has to be attributed to the Prozac that was newly prescribed. I have always had a low-level depression biting my heels even on "good days", but I don't even have that now. Not only that, I am actually sleeping well with no assistance from Ambien. I am getting tired around 10:00pm, go to sleep, sleep through the night and wake up at a good time. It is amazing to me that this is occurring when remembering how not long ago I would go night after night with no sleep.

Could all of this be the Prozac? Does it really give "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"? (love that movie, by the way)

Letter of Resignation

Dear -manager name-,

Per our conversation this afternoon, please accept my two-week resignation effective today. My last day will be Wednesday, February 18, 2009. I feel very fortunate to have been associated with -company name- for the last two years. My experiences and training have been invaluable, and I leave with many pleasant memories.

I am more than happy to assist with all transition activities and will work with -supervisor name, or as John referred to as "officious little shit of a boss"- on what she needs from me during this time.

I wish the company and all its employees much success in this project and in the coming years.

Warmest regards,

Catherine

Spoiled Rotten

It is abnormally cold this morning. I let my cat out before going to work and she immediately wanted to get back inside of the house. I shooed her back out, got my things together and jumped in the car to go to work. My car showed it was 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-6.6 degrees Celsius), which stopped me in my tracks. I stopped the car and went back inside to let the cat back in the house. No wonder she wanted to get back in! It is freezing! I then went to my daughter to see if she wanted me to give her a ride to the bus stop since it is so cold and what do I find her wearing? A thin top layered on top of another thin top with her pajama bottoms and flip flops. Let's not forget to mention she was painting her toes black as I walked in her room. Right now in our area teenagers are wearing pajama bottoms to school. The pajama bottoms are the long wooly-type pants. My daughter has never done this before, but I just bought her a new set of pj's and now she's wearing them to school.

My first reaction was to tell her to change clothes. I then decided to approach it from a different angle and told her that it is 20 degrees outside and she's going to freeze. That didn't perturb her one bit. She said that it would be no problem and she would be OK. I then wanted to tell her to change clothes and then she said that just in case she had a pair of jeans in her bag to take to school. My mind then went to war going back and forth between should I tell her to change clothes or not and then I realized, her body isn't hanging out, everything is covered appropriately, I may not want her to wear pajama bottoms to school, but all the kids are doing it and if this is the one fashion she wants to copy from the other teens, it's not a bad one. So, I bit my tongue and asked her if she wanted a ride. I have to admit that since the pajama bottoms are cute, she did look quite stylish. It will be fun when she gets older and I can pick on her about this and tell her children when they complain to me that their Mom won't let them wear what they want. In fact, I'm going to take a picture of her when I get home for evidence in future years.

I rode the elevator after getting to work with a lady who is a cleaner in my office. She is a young girl and we talked about how cold it is outside. She told me that she literally ran to work because it was so cold. I asked if she liked running and she said that she didn't have a choice because she doesn't have a car. Hearing this just stopped me in my tracks. I live in an area where there are no public modes of transportation and you really need a car to get around, which is why I thought she enjoyed running because I couldn't imagine she would walk to work. People just don't do that here. As I walked to my desk I realized how lucky I am and how grateful I should be.

Here I am with a thick coat, perfumed neck, nails done, nice purse, walking to my desk because I have a job. I drove to work in a car that not only displayed the temperature outside, but heated my butt as I drove because it has seat warmers. I left a house that is warm enough that my cat wanted to get back inside, with beautiful mosaic floors my husband made and a bedroom that my husband worked on that was considered beautiful enough to be in a magazine. My house has a pool, two sweet dogs, three bedrooms and two baths. There is even one bedroom we don't use because we don't need it. My husband has a studio that is 800 square feet and is part of the house that he can work in at his leisure. Thinking about all of this really made me realize something (and please excuse my language):

I need to shut the fuck up and quit whining about whether I get this job or not and whether it's 8K less or not.

I just need to be quiet.

I am damn lucky in my life.

Why does it take seeing a girl who has a more difficult life to snap myself out of this negativity concerning this job? I have been whining like a broken record and I need to just STOP IT. I recently heard that 100,000 jobs were lost just this past week in the US. Two million have been cut since January. Yesterday I also heard that they are going to be laying off people here at work. In fact, most of the contractors will be gone by April or May. That means in this small area a lot of people will be looking for work and the local market will be congested with people looking for a job. At least, AT LEAST I have something in the works. AT LEAST there is a company that wants me to work for them and we only have to go through this legality of my contract company. AT LEAST this company has experienced no negative effects from this upside-down economy and if anything, gave their employees a bonus of 5K or more just a few weeks ago! That is unheard of in these times!

So I just need to shut up! I am SPOILED AS SHIT! What a whiner I am! I do apologize. I'm glad I came to my senses. It is about damn time.

Drug Testing, Background Checks and Bankruptcy

I now have to take a new drug test and background check since I'll possibly be changing jobs with my contract company. Late yesterday afternoon I waited in a doctor's office for an hour and a half to potty in a cup. How fun. I now have to wait two days for all of the results to get back and hopefully I will find out then if I get the job at the new company. That means I won't find out until at least late tomorrow afternoon or possibly Thursday. This is dragging out for so very long. It's interminable. I only hope in the end that I do get the job at the new company and they will want me to work full-time after six months.

It has been highly difficult to focus these last few days at work. On top of waiting to hear about this job I am getting a tad frustrated over trying to contact the attorney who served papers on me regarding the credit card bill that I owe. I can never get in contact with him and I'm worried that they'll go further in whatever they are going to do to me for not being able to pay. I don't want to be served papers again.

This past weekend I went to H&R Block to do my taxes. I'm scared to death that the attorney will get a judgment on me to garnish my tax refund if I don't hurry up and get the refund back. I want to use my tax refund to claim bankruptcy. If I don't get this money I don't know what to do. They said I should get the refund within eight to 21 days. I've been keeping my fingers crossed that the attorney doesn't do anything in that time frame, or if he does, that it doesn't get through the courts that fast.

Once I claim bankruptcy I can give the attorney the case number along with the other credit card companies I owe and get this over with. I really don't want to claim bankruptcy, but I don't have any choice. It is what it is and I must get it over with.

Bankruptcy is just another form of failure. It doesn't feel very good at all.

High School Friends and Dragged-Out Job Offers

I haven't been online at all this weekend. It was jam-packed with social events and was a lot of fun. Friday night I went to dinner with my husband. Saturday I met my cousin and we shopped for a bit. My daughter went home with her to spend the night at her house. Saturday night I met my two best friends from high school and we went out to dinner. Afterwards we went to a few clubs, danced and had fun. We didn't get home until 4:00am! Sunday morning I got up and met my parents and cousin for lunch. My daughter came back with me afterwards and on the way home I stopped to see my friend from high school while passing through her town. We were both dead tired from the night before and agreed it was definitely worth it. We then went grocery shopping together and afterwards my daughter and I went home. I then took a shower and collapsed in the bed to read for a while and eventually fell asleep.

I haven't visited bars/clubs for years now and it was quite interesting. It seemed to me that all of the young ones there looked 16 years old; all dressed the same with jeans and little tops sporting pancake flat/straight hair. I could totally envision my daughter there one day having fun on the dance floor. Sheesh, I am getting old.

This weekend my daughter and I are going with my cousin to the beach to visit with her sister. We leave after work Friday and will get home Saturday night. It will be wonderful to spend time with my two cousins because they were the sisters I never had while growing up. I haven't spent the night away from home in ages as well and it will be nice to get away.

I'm continuing to feel better. Not sure if it's the Prozac or what, but I'm not complaining. I always have a low-level feeling of depression even on my good days, but lately I haven't even felt that for the first time in my life. I am very grateful to be feeling so much better.

On the job front I'm still not sure if I have the job or not. To make a very long story short, I met with my contract company last Thursday and everything felt quite shady. It was a sad state of affairs because I've been personal friends with the owner of the contract company and her family. I really do believe that her business is not doing as well in this economy and she doesn't want to lose her workers. I think that since she knows the other company wants me and because we have to do a contract with her due to the clause in their contract between each other that she wants to make as much money this time on my contract as she can which is why the pay rate for this job is 8K less. I don't see her budging on this, but I have continued to try. She knows as well that the other company isn't the type to keep contracts open for an extended period of time. They either want you after six months or don't and after the six months are up and if they still want me, they will offer a full-time position and she will lose the money on me. It greatly disappoints me, but it's business and I need to remember that. They are thinking of their bottom line and I don't fit in the equation.

Concerning my credit check, from what I understood late Friday afternoon, the other company still wants me anyway. It looks like I'm going to get the job, but I'm not banking on it until I know my official start date and I give a resignation where I am currently employed. Only then will I feel comfortable enough to feel good to have another job. It's funny because when the owner of my contract company called Friday letting me know that the other company didn't care about my credit and wanted me, she said, "Oh, Catherine, you don't sound excited at all!". I told her, "I am very excited about the opportunity but the journey to get there was a long one. All of this talk about my credit and will or will they not hire because of it was quite exhausting". What I didn't add is that my contract company did not find this job for me. In fact, they didn't have to do anything to help me with this job. I found the job because of my friend telling me who works there. I went to two interviews, filled out paperwork, did everything, and they wanted me full-time. Only because of the clause my contract company has with the company is the reason my contract company got involved in the first place. If anything, knowing that my current contract comes up March 31, you would think they would pay a bit more since they didn't put one ounce of work finding this new opportunity, but we both know they won't. My contract company is now acting like they did everything for me to have this new job and I'm not jumping up and down excited about it. Thinking about it all makes me shake my head in disgust.

Thank you everyone for your kind comments and support. I'm continuing to send my blog posts via e-mail since I'm taking a lunch break at work and can't actually visit my blog due to rules here. Since I haven't been getting online at night I haven't been able to visit my blog and reply to your comments or even visit your blogs. I plan to soon.

I hope to know in a day or two whether I have the job for sure. This is one of the most dragged out events I've had in my life. Sheesh!

Smoke and Mirrors

Late yesterday afternoon I received a call from my contract company stating that the company I interviewed for contacted them about me working for them. They said that they would like for me to work as a contractor versus full-time. The deal is that the pay rate is 8K less than what I'm being paid now and my contract company doesn't think I'll get the job since it's for a bank and my credit isn't good. My contract company has been acting strangely ever since I told them last week that I interviewed with the company. For the first time in seven years they acted quite negative about the job and I never understood why.

After talking with them I called my friend at the company I interviewed with and told him what they said. He then told me the following:

• My contract company is a vendor for the company I interviewed with and they have a contract between them that states if anyone from the contract company tried to get a full-time job they have to notify the contract company and the employee has to start as a contractor and work for a minimum of six months. They can't hire the employee outright. This makes sense because the contract company doesn't want the company I interviewed for to "steal" employees from them. The problem I have with this is that my contract company never told me this little nugget of information and is acting like the company only wants me as a contractor when in all actuality they want me full-time but can't due to this legal contract the companies have between each other.
• Since I would be a contractor with the new company, the new company doesn't request my credit information and my contract company never sends this information to them. Why my contract company is telling me that the new company won't hire me because of my credit score is completely mysterious to me.
• I can't tell my contract company I know these bits of information because my friend working there asked me not to, so I'll never have these questions answered in my mind.
• I asked if my pay rate for the job could be increased by 4K so that I would only lose 4K and they said probably not because the owner of the contract company set the rate herself. I asked them to ask her for me anyway. For all I know they could be making in excess of $25K on me and not giving me a fair cut of it.
• I cannot live on 8K less.
• I don't have  much of a choice since my current contract ends March 31st. My friend said that the contract company knows this and doesn't understand why they would "exploit" (his words) me like that. They are taking more of a cut from my pay knowing that there isn't a lot of jobs in my area anyway and they have the chance to lose me after six months if the company hires me full-time and I'm no longer a contractor.
• I have been personal friends with the owner of my contract company and her family for seven years now. This is the first time I feel something shady is going on and now I am scared of a) not getting the job at all and b) getting paid much lower than I should if I do get the job.

I was very excited about all of this and hoped to have an answer today. Now I know I have to be a contractor there, that is if I get the job at all. My friend said that the company really wants me to work there, but I hope that an issue doesn't arise with my contract company and whatever game they are playing at.

I visit my contract company today at 4:00pm. This will be an interesting meeting.

Funny How Life Works Sometimes

Today at work I was told that my contract is coming up March 31st of this year. I've known since last October that March 31 was my date and was not sure if the contract would be extended or not. I now know that it has not. On the bright side, at least I know two months in advance that the job is coming to a close. Not many people receive that luxury. On the other hand, it's stressful to know because it puts more pressure on me to quickly find a job.

I hope like hell I get the job at the company I recently interviewed with because it looks like a good opportunity and I know quite a few people there already that I enjoyed working with in the past. Yesterday the human resource department of that company called asking what I currently make and what I've made in past jobs. In the job application form there are fields that ask this question and I always leave it blank. I would rather talk about money over the phone or in person. I never like filling in those fields anyway because I always feel like they want to know what you're currently making so that they can give you a few thousand more to have you accept the job instead of paying what the job is actually worth. I may be wrong about this, but it's just how I feel.

I answered all of the questions and she thanked me and the conversation was over. This at least means they are working on it and seem to still be interested in me working there. As usual I am keeping my fingers crossed, but even tighter now since I know for sure my last day in Hell is March 31.

It's funny how life works sometimes. I find out that one job is coming to a close while waiting for another job to hopefully pan out. Now I won't feel bad if I do get the new job and tell my current contract company that I'm moving on. I always feel guilty about leaving a company. I certainly won't this time. That's a nice feeling when I think about it.