this is the third time in two days i've sat down to concoct a new blog entry (to entertain the one person besides myself who actually reads this), and my mind is a blank. actually, that's not quite accurate- my mind is asleep, not blank. i'm so used to staying up late, but not used to getting up early, as i am doing this week, due to overnight babysitting. i got into a warm bath last night around 10:30 (needed to thaw out my toes after attending one of my charges' softball practice in subzero temperatures), and didn't make it out again until over half an hour later. then, i stayed up for awhile to work on the makeup order that's being placed in a couple of days. (i'm not sure i got anywhere with it- just brainstorming, mostly.) so, late to bed (11:30, i think), early to rise (6:30 a.m.) is not doing my body good. (it probably doesn't help that i'm spending over 9 hours a day with my two year olds- and the prospect of a lunch break is a little iffy, since we're short staffed at school and i'm always open to the thought of overtime.)
why is that, you ask? well, overtime pay can be a great incentive. sometimes i wonder why more people don't take advantage of it.....which may be why most people look at me a little funny when they find out how much i work. you see, my college degree hasn't exactly landed me a $20/hour job. not that i regret going to college- nor do i regret my highly useful majors- it's just a little frustrating sometimes to compare my paychecks (two official, plus avon and babysitting) to what my younger sibling (who went the military route instead of college) rakes in. but, rather than get too frustrated, i simply work harder, as i operate under the theory that eventually hard work will pay off. (if that doesn't work, i'll start looking for a sugar daddy who's not broke.)
so, i continue to plug away- an extra hour or so each weekday with the two year olds (several of whom come ealry and stay late, as their parents are busy working overtime so they can afford the $600+/month tuition at school), followed a couple of nights a week by babysitting, 20+ hours of radio shifts on the weekends (plus filling in other folks shifts weeknights on occassion), sometimes followed by babysitting, and working on my avon orders whenever i can.
however, there is a nice perk to my full time job- one that makes putting up with laughable pay almost worthwhile- vacation time. i only get two weeks of paid vacation (which still seems to be up for dispute, even after working there for better than four years.), but unpaid vacation is fairly easy to acquire. since my radio stuff is considered part time, i can request to have a weekend off here and there without much grumbling from my three bosses. as for babysitting and avon- i tailor both of those around my schedule, so when i'm off, i obviously turn down babysitting (hard for me to do at any other time- i hate to say "no", which lets people down, in my mind) and either take care of my avon orders wholly online or (as i will most likely do at the beginning of may, when i'm traipsing around the bottom of the grand canyon) skip a campaign.
admittedly, i'm a borderline workaholic. i inherited too much work ethic. or am i just buying into the american dream- work hard and achieve greatness? i'm not sure anymore. however, while freezing my butt off at softball practice last night, i came across an interesting tidbit in the december 2004 issue of details: the average amount of vacation time for americans is only 10.2 days, and we aren't required to have any time off by law. meanwhile, canadians lounge around doing nothing for an average 26 days per year (10 are required by law), they get 15 days, as required by law, in china, 25 in great britain (20 by law)and anywhere from 24 (legal requirement in germany) to 30 (average- 25 legally) in france. if you add that to the weekends that most folks have off......well, let's just say that one of these days, i may have to go to canada on one of my famous potato chip runs and not come back for awhile.
speaking of potato chips, a bag of sea salt and pepper flavor lay's chips would go great with the soda i'm taking to work to help me through the day. off to the coal mines...
No comments:
Post a Comment