The Empowered Employee
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You need to make less money. đ€Ș
Seriously, you have a wife that can't work and a couple of kids in school, you put your head down and get it done. I did at least 50 hours/week for over 20 years. At one point, I had three jobs - FT, Adjunct and PRN.
I missed a shitload of birthdays, holidays and all kinds of events and little things I wish I had been around for.
But... The bills were paid, there was food on the table and both of my kids would have graduated college debt-free, except my son majored in coeds and my daughter had to pay her sorority stuff (I wasn't paying for that).
I'm not griping. I never worked as hard as my dad and I wouldn't have made a scab on a good cow's ass compared to Grandpa. I'm just glad I had the opportunity.
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@Jolly said in The Empowered Employee:
Money ain't everything...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/josiecox/2025/01/21/pay-vs-work-life-balance-study/?
The problem with these sort of âstudiesâ is that they donât show you the cash value of âwork-life balance.â
Take the âno working from home, must work in officeâ policy for example, may be a worker will quit when that job pays $X, but that worker will not quit when you raise the pay to $(X+â).
May be it really is hard to translate âwork-life balanceâ into cash-value, but more likely, I suspect the people who commission or indirectly fund such studies really donât want to see any study results that say âyour employees will be happier when you pay them x% more.â So all the MBAs and the professors that teach these would-be MBAs just donât publish any result along this line.
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It's no secret that I'm pretty pissed off with my job at the moment for a number of reasons, but I need the work to pay for the family. I can also see the light at the end of the tunnel. Despite my kidding around I'm not really somebody who would feel happy goofing off, but it's felt a bit one-way of late.
What rather concerns me is that not one but two people my age that I worked with died last week. I've long had this fear that I'll get hit by the metaphorical bus on the way home from my retirement party.
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These days, my job situation is nothing short of a real hoot.
My wife has a nominally paying job as a med assistant while she's in nursing school. The pay is crap but it keeps us in the black. Thankfully, her other credits transferred so while she's starting clinicals this year, she only has to do the clinicals; no extra classes alongside. But no doubt about it, she's going to lose her job in 2 months.
She already lost it last week. She let her managers know her school schedule as she had done the past 3 semesters. To which they said hey, that's great. I'll expect your resignation by the end of the week. Which, what the fuck. They acted like this was just some kind of standard procedure. So she went home and we had a good long talk about what the hell we were going to do as we weren't prepared for that turn of events.
Then one of the docs called. She's only doc in the place that does mohs surgery and it's who my wife's assigned to over there. She wanted to know "just what in the hell is going on."
The next morning, my wife was asked to put in writing what her school schedule was just so "expectations could be met." No other talk about resigning; it was like it never happened.
But, since that's in writing, and she's going to miss even more work once the clinical part of clinicals kicks in, yeah, I don't think the docs are going to be able to save her next time.
As for me, I work with a bunch of very affable sociopaths who write me very nice performance reviews while doing absolutely everything they can to replace me and everyone else with AI. I don't know how much time I can hold out. I have no idea where anything stands, only that there are talks and the powers that be are battling it out. If it happens, then like all the others, I'll get an email I won't receive because IT will shut off my logins before HR sends the paperwork.
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@Aqua-Letifer I feel bad about laughing but what can I say, you write about chilling personal circumstances in a funny way. I hope it works out. Things'll get a lot better once the nursing degree is secured.
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@Horace said in The Empowered Employee:
@Aqua-Letifer I feel bad about laughing but what can I say, you write about chilling personal circumstances in a funny way. I hope it works out. Things'll get a lot better once the nursing degree is secured.
Don't feel bad at all! Way I see it, I could try to laugh about it, or opt for crippling anxiety. (Already dabbled in the latter and wouldn't recommend it.) Thanks, though, and you're right; this is just the weird period until she finishes.
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Early in my federal career, opportunities of a higher paying position in the private sector were out there and available to me. I almost jumped ship after moving to Fresno for the IRS, when a local hospital was looking for a guy like me and was starting them off at an appreciable higher salary. Who knows if my life would have been more bountiful or not as I stand today on the precipice of retirement. I chose to stay as I tried to glean the importance of the benefits given to me through federal work over private sector. Not saying hospitals don't offer great benefits, they do as a rule. But collectively, the benefits offered by Uncle Sam outweighed the extra 25K per year I would have made jumping ship. I won't fib and state the only reason was a feeling of patriotic duty to my country, as that had yet to evolve to where it is for me today. Today though, I am grateful for younger Sock's decision to stay put as it doesn't look like I shall want for much in this second life coming up that I also hope doesn't end in another story like what D'oh just posted. I've been witness to too many of my colleagues not reaping the benefits of retirement as their health decided to go on strike first. It is a bit frightening to ponder.
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@Aqua-Letifer said in The Empowered Employee:
These days, my job situation is nothing short of a real hoot.
My wife has a nominally paying job as a med assistant while she's in nursing school. The pay is crap but it keeps us in the black. Thankfully, her other credits transferred so while she's starting clinicals this year, she only has to do the clinicals; no extra classes alongside. But no doubt about it, she's going to lose her job in 2 months.
She already lost it last week. She let her managers know her school schedule as she had done the past 3 semesters. To which they said hey, that's great. I'll expect your resignation by the end of the week. Which, what the fuck. They acted like this was just some kind of standard procedure. So she went home and we had a good long talk about what the hell we were going to do as we weren't prepared for that turn of events.
Then one of the docs called. She's only doc in the place that does mohs surgery and it's who my wife's assigned to over there. She wanted to know "just what in the hell is going on."
The next morning, my wife was asked to put in writing what her school schedule was just so "expectations could be met." No other talk about resigning; it was like it never happened.
But, since that's in writing, and she's going to miss even more work once the clinical part of clinicals kicks in, yeah, I don't think the docs are going to be able to save her next time.
As for me, I work with a bunch of very affable sociopaths who write me very nice performance reviews while doing absolutely everything they can to replace me and everyone else with AI. I don't know how much time I can hold out. I have no idea where anything stands, only that there are talks and the powers that be are battling it out. If it happens, then like all the others, I'll get an email I won't receive because IT will shut off my logins before HR sends the paperwork.
After her first semester of clinicals, she might can find part-time work as an ED tech, nurse tech, scribe or as a ward clerk.
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@Jolly said in The Empowered Employee:
@Aqua-Letifer said in The Empowered Employee:
These days, my job situation is nothing short of a real hoot.
My wife has a nominally paying job as a med assistant while she's in nursing school. The pay is crap but it keeps us in the black. Thankfully, her other credits transferred so while she's starting clinicals this year, she only has to do the clinicals; no extra classes alongside. But no doubt about it, she's going to lose her job in 2 months.
She already lost it last week. She let her managers know her school schedule as she had done the past 3 semesters. To which they said hey, that's great. I'll expect your resignation by the end of the week. Which, what the fuck. They acted like this was just some kind of standard procedure. So she went home and we had a good long talk about what the hell we were going to do as we weren't prepared for that turn of events.
Then one of the docs called. She's only doc in the place that does mohs surgery and it's who my wife's assigned to over there. She wanted to know "just what in the hell is going on."
The next morning, my wife was asked to put in writing what her school schedule was just so "expectations could be met." No other talk about resigning; it was like it never happened.
But, since that's in writing, and she's going to miss even more work once the clinical part of clinicals kicks in, yeah, I don't think the docs are going to be able to save her next time.
As for me, I work with a bunch of very affable sociopaths who write me very nice performance reviews while doing absolutely everything they can to replace me and everyone else with AI. I don't know how much time I can hold out. I have no idea where anything stands, only that there are talks and the powers that be are battling it out. If it happens, then like all the others, I'll get an email I won't receive because IT will shut off my logins before HR sends the paperwork.
After her first semester of clinicals, she might can find part-time work as an ED tech, nurse tech, scribe or as a ward clerk.
Oh yes, right you are. She's gotten great help from others in her program and the instructors; everyone's been on the same page about helping people work through their schooling.
She'll be fine. Not so sure about myself.