On All My Motions

Just a few days into my work-from-home cycle (and it may continue after the new center opens, or I may get the offer and choose not to continue it, because I’m still learning how this all works).

Upside: no hour spent driving to work (I gave myself 90 minutes to allow room for any complications), no hour driving home afterward.

Downside: no time to unwind on the way home.

Upside: I can work in whatever clothes suit me at the moment.

Downside: I was sent home with just the laptop, not the extra screen and extra keyboard, and I don’t have the ergonomic desk or chair available at work, so I get kinks in my shoulders from peering at the screen — and typing — from a different position.

Upside: I can relax on my own couch, browsing my own laptop, during breaks and lunch.

Downside: no actual downside on that.

Upside: much reduced gasoline consumption (enough to equal a 75¢-per-hour raise, which goes to over $100 a month, and you can better bet I can find a use for the spare coin).

Downside: I was accustomed to doing any shopping on the way home; now, I have to make a specific trip just for that purpose.

There are enough favorables that I probably will choose to keep going this way if the choice is offered. It’s not unalloyed advantages, though. I’m not making any objections, just trying my best to keep my eyes on reality.

I’ve never worked from home before, except decades ago when I was taking in typing from college students (yes, word processors already existed then, but they were far from widespread or affordable). It’s not too bad. We’ll see how this goes as it continues.

Let’s see:

Yes, my old car is totaled. Still, the insurance process is moving quickly, and they’ve decided that its value is (shhh!) about the same as I paid for it sixteen months ago, so I should be able to get a replacement in short order.

Susan is back from China, and back to work this week (she had an additional week off to decompress after she got back). She’s still talking about retiring and moving closer to our granddaughter. Now we’re discussing Malaysia: still not quite on the same continent, but very low cost of living, and a four-hour flight (instead of twelve) that costs a couple of hundred dollars (instead of somewhere around a thousand). I thought my adventuring days were over; am I about to become an expatriate in the exotic Orient?

I got my first comprehensive review at my new job (new in that I’ve been there less than six months). I was scored a solid performer in all categories … and, now that I know what I’m doing, I can focus on actually improving, with the potential for advancement. (And I qualified for a bonus, which will show up in my next paycheck, plus a pay raise, likewise.)

I’m back at work on a story I started a few years ago, and have kept in the background while I addressed (and mostly finished) other stuff. It’s fighting me, and progress is slow, but it is progressing. We’ll see. My output has slowed lately, but I think that’s a matter more of my having fallen into bad habits than of a problem with creativity. (Right now, I feel like what I’m turning out is uninspired hack-work … but I recall that feeling from times past, and have learned it’s not a sign of actual impediment.)

Tomorrow is March. “In like a lion …” We’ve made it through the worst of the cold weather, and I can look for things to get gradually better, just as the days are already getting gradually longer. (At the extreme before Winter Solstice, it’s possible to go to work before sun-up and drive home after sunset. That period is past, thank God.)

Oh, and I’ve lost 7½ pounds since returning from China. Let’s do some more of that!

Let’s see. My son Kevin just started a new job in China, higher position with more pay. I also have a new job, and I’m beginning to get genuinely interested. I have to drive farther to get to it, but it pays more than where I was before (25% more while I’m training, nearly 55% more once the training is finished), so that’s worth the shift all on its own. The opportunities seem to be more substantial, though, and more importantly they’re opportunities that actually appeal to me.

My granddaughter started a new preschool last week. She’s only just now three years old, but my son tells me that, yes, the kids will start learning English. Works for me. (And, now that I’m earning more, I’ll be able to save more, potentiating the likelihood of Susan and me being able to go visit them during this coming Chinese New Year, since we had to give up on the last one.)

Susan is now in her final year in California. Sometimes she doesn’t know if she can stand hanging in for another twelve months; less often (but it has happened), she considers whether staying a fourth year would allow her to continue doing the work she’s doing now, with the same or at least comparable pay, but from here instead of there. Probably won’t happen, but it’s a possibility that wasn’t there before.

Less than a month before summer ends, but temperatures here are already trending noticeably milder. I welcome that. Then, of course, after a surprisingly brief time, I’ll need to start getting ready for colder weather. Funny how that keeps happening.

This isn’t the best it’s ever been for me. It’s not bad, though. Not bad at all.

Today is the two-year mark on my current job. Outside the Army, that’s the longest I’ve stayed in one position in the last fifteen years. Which makes it a shame that I’m looking for something else I can do … almost, anything else I can do.

The work isn’t that hard, but they keep changing the job. The company itself appears to be battling a loss of business nationwide, which means they keep cutting our hours — not mine, the total hours available to the store itself — which means they have to get by on fewer workers, which means those remaining have to do the same amount of work with fewer hands to carry the load. Several of the imperatives communicated to me operate in contravention to one another: cover my station, take care of the inventory that’s brought to me, carry out my closing duties (three shifts of every five are closing, two are morning), and do it all within the hours allotted me. Some of the things I have to do require me to go away from my station, but that’s not an excuse; some of them, if I can’t leave my station, require me to go over my hours once someone has relieved me. The totality of it makes a frustration that I don’t want to have to continue dealing with.

I’d like to get back into long-haul trucking; I loved being a soldier, but I actually more enjoyed the actual work of being a truck driver. The question is whether I could hold up to it physically now. I’m still fine at this point, but I’m at an age where things could start going downhill with no warning.

It would be nice to just pick a place and stay there. This one could have been it; the pay wasn’t great, but was adequate as long as other things were under control. As it is, I’d rather switch than stay and fight it out.

( Under the cut )

( Under the cut )