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Momentary Thought
Our tax guy made a mistake on our '99 returns, and as a result the IRS has hit us with a tax debt, plus interest. I'll be getting no raise this year. I haven't heard back from the jobs I've applied for. Damn, I'm ready for some good news, here.
High/Low
High: We heard from Michael, and he gets 17 days of leave for the holidays. He's safely ensconced in Pensacola, Florida, and is starting his training for his MOS. A helicopter dude of some sort - I lack the genes to fully understand it. Calvin thinks it's cool, so I guess it's a good thing.
Low: No raise for me this year.
Current Obsession
I might as well take out this line, since it never changes. Everybody, all together now... "Finances!"
Grin Source
Nothing, really.
Singing
Nothing, really.
A Year Ago
More or less
Life resumes after the HIPFH (tm).
Storyteller
Bio
Dramatis Personnae
Who I Read
Recipes
What did we do this weekend? We went back to the Rainbow Trout Farm so Marie could see the guy eat the fish hearts. Now, we expect, her life is complete.
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I have 260 messages in my work e-mail. I have a staff meeting this afternoon in which I present on "team building" activities that our group can do for a minor amount of money (we'll be paying for it ourselves, you see). I have a meeting this afternoon in which I get to try to convince the heads of various departments to do something that I know jolly well they *don't* want to do. I'm signing up for AcronymCo's "Stats 101" course, which dedicates an afternoon a week for eight weeks to try to pound statistics into my non-analytical brain. Aside: at least I'll be able to use it for credit at WIU as an Assessment of Prior Learning. I told my manager two weeks ago that my load was lightening a little, with the transfer of one of my teams to another engineer in my department. She responded by giving me four new projects.
It was just announced that raises have been "postponed" this year. Better no raise than no job, I guess, but I wish they'd just tell the truth and say that raises have been cancelled. All the re-evaluating they claim to be doing in January will just re-confirm that they're not handing out any more money. Yes, I'm grateful to even have a job, but it still bites because I've done an exceptionally good job (if I do say so myself) this year and would have kicked ass on the compensation end of things this review period, had business conditions been normal. Now I won't get recognized at all for all the work I've done this year. I hope next year provides as many opportunities to perform at the elevated rate I did this year, but knowing my luck it won't. Damn, this is frustrating.
Once again, I repeat, "Thank God I even have a job." I'd do well to remind myself of that fact repeatedly before my next 1:1 with my manager - I certainly don't want to put forth any impression other than that I'm perfectly ecstatic to be gainfully employed. Which I am. But I can still be disappointed, can't I?