truvy
Friday, January 31, 2003
The result...and what's on my nightstand
Well, the results of my talk the other day were so-so.
One thing first, though - I think by the term "bonus", it sounds like something extra, something special, something above what you normally get. That's only true in the sense that it's not part of my base pay.
When I moved in-house from being at a law firm, they matched my salary the 1st year. However, they did that by paying me a significantly smaller base salary and then making up the difference in one lump payment - so I can call it a "bonus", but it's really just deferred compensation. M'kay?
So, I had worked out in my head the minimum I would have to get before I freaked out, and based this on calculating a small percentage to be set aside for my 401(k) and then taking out my 42% taxes, and using the remainder to pay off my credit cards and 2 of the school loans to smaller loan agencies (I still have all the others with the Graduate Loan Center, or whatever name they're going by this year).
Well, it was exactly this minimum number. So, I'm disappointed, discouraged, generally not happy to be at work, but it did fulfill the very lowest of my expectations, so I can't really justify storming out in a rage. I still think that my 2-year reduction is grossly disproportionate to the "message" they stated that they were trying to give me, and I'm not happy, and of course they've generated NO loyalty whatsoever, but unless I can find another job, I guess I'm staying put.
The reason I was told so late in the day was because my boss wanted his boss to be at the meeting to further explain the department's overall lowered numbers, etc. etc. So, no great drama, just disappointment, which I expressed, got up & went back to my office.
I am now re-circulating my resume with 3 or 4 of my favorite headhunters, and put my name in for a few things that looked interesting from Monster.com and hotjobs.com, but I'm not exactly holding my breath on those.
So, I've gone away in my mind again, this time escaping into a book that I picked up in the airport last week when I had finished all my other reading material and needed something. I'm reading We were the Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates. I've read essays and short pieces by her (mostly in The New Yorker), and have really enjoyed her writing, so even though I was afraid of being looked at as "one of those Oprah's Book Club" type readers, I picked it up. Well kids, I must say that I like the story, and it's very well written. The story supposedly has a redemptive ending, but I'm 2/3 the way there and it's depressing and frustrating the shit out of me, but right now I don't mind because that's the kind of mood I'm in anyway.
I have to be careful though, I get awfully anti-social & tend to shirk duties of all sorts when I'm engrossed in a book. Robert is very accommodating really, but there are only so many times he's going to walk the dog before he tells me to put the book down (luckily I tend not to read many books over 500 pages, so as to avoid total social shutdown, and so he knows at least that an end will eventually come). Ah well, hopefully I'll have time to finish it this weekend, and then rejoin the world of the living.
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