Wednesday, November 28, 2007

VERY VERY BUSY BEING VERY VERY SALTY...

Yeah, so you all have been around long enough to know that when the Lizzle isn't happy, NOBODY is happy. And let me just say that at the moment, the Lizzle is super salty. And I don't think I have to tell you that super salty is FARRRRRR from happy.

Let's get through this quickly so that I can get back to ruminating on my saltiness.

Ok, so for some reason, upon closing out my biggest daytime case, NO NEW DAYTIME cases are coming in... which means I sit on my ass ALLLLL DAYYYYY. And then I work for a few hours in the evenings. This sounds kind of nice in theory... You can sleep in, you can run errands all day, you can sit on your ass watching daytime television because you're salaried... But then there are the resulting problems. One - The supervisory staff gets pissy because you're getting paid a full salary but you're underbilling. (They really don't like this.) Two - It comes back to haunt you come payday because you're not getting compensated for bonus hours you're ordinarily working. THIS BLOWS.

Then there are my other cases. One case is a juvenile mentoring. The problem is that she doesn't want a juvenile mentor, so when I show up, she shuts down. This makes it hard to pad your sagging hours by extending mentoring appointments. THIS BLOWS.

Another case is a dirty house. I go in, I tell them to clean up, I point out what it is they need to do because they are too stupid or to lazy to do it, I leave. This case is in no way pleasant. I am currently waiting to hear if it is also going to close... While it would be nice to not have to go in there every day, the loss of the case would also hit my hours hard. THIS BLOWS.

Another case requires me to drive to another county to supervise visitation. Unlike other visits, for some stupid reason, I am not allowed to bill for my drive time. This ALSO impacts my hours. THIS ALSO BLOWS.

Then there is the HR department. The last time I took a couple of days off, I got a sheet of paper indicating how many vacation days I had left. I scheduled my Chicago trip based on this information. I got the approval for my Chicago trip time and it indicates that I have NO vacation time left... and in fact that I am "overdrawn" one day, and thus will not be compensated for my time off... THIS REALLY BLOWS. Sure it's probably a clerical error, and if I go in and talk to the HR lady, it will probably be an easy fix, but if it's not an easy fix then I am shit out of luck and I have no vacation left...WHICH WOULD REALLY REALLY BLOW... Plus, I don't like going in and arguing with HR... They have control over the personnel files... I don't like to tangle with someone who has control over my personnel file when my hours are in the toilet.

To top it all off, do you kids remember how I told you about fighting about a bogus loan charge from my institution of higher education, and how I won and they dropped the bill? Yeah, well, they've decided to renege on their end of the deal and they seem to think that I owe them money again. This displeases the Lizzle. So when I go to Chicago I will be forced to spend a portion of my (apparently non-paid) vacation time arguing with these asshats trying to get them to realize that I am right and that they are wrong... Just like I did a few months ago. Clearly it was time well spent the first time around.

The combination of all these factors has the Lizzle really simmering just below a rolling boil in her saltiness. It is not a good scene. It really isn't.

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