Love the commute...

When you do something for a long time it tends to become mindless. It cant be helped, it just happens. I am talking specifically about my commute. There are some days – especially when I am tired - that I don’t remember driving to work, and yet there I am sitting in the parking lot getting ready to go into the building. I joke that my car knows the way to the office and that is how I get there. I have been doing this commute for almost 7 years and I still love it.

When I first started doing this commute, I was going to college. I was taking the back roads from my house to the college every day. This back way takes me through farm land on 2 lane roads. It isn’t uncommon to encounter a tractor or big hay truck along the way and people on these roads are generally unhurried and friendly. Since I loved going to college and was in a great mood this commute was literally a drive in the country for me.

Now that I am working, I am doing the commute through the farmlands on the back roads again. The job I do is incredibly suited to my strengths and likes. The people are friendly and nice. The company is strong and ethical. I have been here 6 months and while the honeymoon is definitely over I am still happier here than I have ever been anywhere else. I have a sense of accomplishment and productivity when I leave at night. And when I leave I get to drive home through some of the most beautiful roads in Maryland.

Because I have been doing this commute for a while I have a sense of ownership for it. I notice when the roads are getting worn, I notice when the house for sale needs its lawn cut, I notice when one of the houses along the way gets a new deck. I track the seasons by my commute as well – in spring the hay gets tall, gets cut, and gets baled, the calves and lambs show up and the corn fields get tilled. Summer brings the shoulder high corn, fall is like driving inside an intricate stained glass window, and winter brings the silvers and grays that seem bleak and never ending. I grieved for the house that lost a mature tree after a particularly fierce storm, and was relieved when someone bought and refurbished the old Victorian on the hill.

We are on this earth for such a short time that it seems silly to do something that makes you so unhappy. But at the same time I can see how the commute can seem like a necessary evil - Ya gotta work and ya gotta get there somehow. But maybe taking a back road will make a difference. It may increase your drive time by a couple of minutes but if it alleviates some road rage, or the sights make you appreciate your life a little more, isn't it worth the extra time?

Just stay off my back roads. I have my commute timed to the minute and the addition of your car to my commute will just piss me off. Just sayin...

Downsizing - Not Your Average Response

Wow, I cant believe how I lucked out!

About a month ago I was downsized from my job at a small, financially struggling company. I hated that job, but I don’t give up easily so I stuck it out. I stuck it out even after I realized that the Controller had something personal against me, even after his actions proved to be chauvinistic, even after the entire office knew that he had something personal against me, and even after he called me an ‘airhead’. I dont quit unless it is a lost cause (though I was planning on looking for another position after I had been there for 6 months).

The layoff wasn’t surprising. They were talking about their cashflow problems all the time. My friend in Collections was getting huge amounts of pressure to have people pay their debts because the company was having problems paying the bills. They pretty much got rid of the people they didn’t like. There was me, a girl who was actually using her health insurance because she had breast cancer, a girl who had been there for 6 years but was suddenly ‘making mistakes’ and the receptionist who played solitaire all day.

When the first person got the pink slip that Thursday, I was surprised. She had been with the company for a very long time. Then, my dick of a boss said he needed to see me at 1 that day for a meeting. Well, this was at 11 and I didn’t want to wait. I was already looking forward to a nice long weekend, and I wanted to get it started. But, on the off chance that it was just a meeting and not a layoff, I didn’t start packing my stuff. I did, however, call my friend at Accountants Inc. and told her what was going on. She was shocked but believing. She told me to give her a call and let her know what was going on and she would start looking for another job for me right away.

At 1 I went into the snake pit that was the Controllers office and he had HR on the phone. I was getting shit-canned and couldn’t have been happier. I know the jerk was surprised to see a look of pure happiness come over my face. They said it was downsizing so that meant I could apply for unemployment, and according to my contract, I would also get a severance package. I was so happy! Being downsized looks much better on a resume than ‘the boss was a jerk so I quit’. LOL. And my friend at Accountants Inc was already setting up interviews for me.

In all, I was out of work a whole 2 weeks. So I got my last paycheck and my severance package and then went back to work. There was no lapse in pay and I didn’t even get to apply for unemployment!

What is best though is where I ended up. My job is awesome. I have only been here 3 weeks, and I still have moments of ‘Holy shit! I LOVE this job’. By this time at my last company I was wondering if I had made a huge mistake.

Things are really good. So good in fact that I feel like if I keep talking about how good they are I will screw it up! I will stop talking about it after I say this last little bit.

Reasons for the Job Awesomeness:

I am actually doing accounting work – Balance sheets, income statements, taxes.

I work 37.5 hours a week at the office. I get there at 8:30 and leave at 5 with an hour lunch. Right now we are in our busy season and I bring a file home every night, but I log how long it took me to do the file, and that info will be used for the next year when they hire the temps for the busy season. It takes me about an hour to do a file. I tend to do it when I am waiting for supper to be ready, or at night, on the bed while Michael is watching golf. Lol.

I completely do not have to deal with traffic. I take the back roads all the way to my house. It takes me about 30 minutes and is a really pretty drive. I used to have to deal with traffic AND it would take me 30 minutes.

Big raise – Yippee

10% Bonus – also Yippee

14 Personal days up front and 2 weeks accrued vacation a year to start – Mega Yippee. And I don’t have to beg and plead to use any of it. They don’t care if I am not here as long as my work doesn’t suffer.

Incredible benefits.

Very private workspace. The only way you pass my doorway is if you come to see me by mistake. I am completely out of the way.

Really, really nice boss. She is smart, funny, and incredibly competent.

Incredible director. She is a work hard/play hard kind of person. When it is busy she expects you to work as hard as she does. When it isn’t busy, she doesn’t care what happens as long as the work gets done.

Incredible learning and promotional opportunities.

Ok, I have raved about my job enough for one day…I don’t want to jinx it…But…Holy Shit! I LOVE my job.