I’m back… home, but that’s a
Sep. 19th, 2016 12:22 amvia http://ift.tt/2d9ceT6:
I’m back… home, but that’s a confusing concept at this point. Back in my house, anyway, in Buffalo, as opposed to my other home which is the yurt and the farm and my sister’s ruthlessly-organized chaos.
The way the weekends and all are going to fall, I’ll be leaving again probably Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, so I’m here for a matter of days only.
I spent a lot of the drive trying to think of other things but obsessively circling back to how upset and hurt I am to realize that I’ve had so few raises at my job that the government’s minimum-wage increases have now caught up. (Actually, as of Dec 31st, they will still be five cents under my wage. So I won’t get a raise. However, I’m currently at the minimum for fast-food positions; apparently they now have a different pay scale. As of the end of the year, starting wages at McDonald’s will be higher than mine.)
I just looked it up; I started that job in May of ‘09.
(cut for whining)
Sigh. I’ve been a reliable employee, have taught myself new skills and adapted as needed, and I know for a fact that Idiot Coworker was making $3 more per hour than I was as she was setting the building on fire on her way out, so. I’m just a little bitter.
Farm sister wants to pay me. She has started to do the math for how to at least pay me to make holiday wreaths, since those are a thing they sell pretty much right away so there’s cashflow. She’s doing all her math predicated on $10/hr, which is more than she can afford but she feels anything less is insulting. (They pay their field hands less than that, and one of their first goals is to fix that. At the moment, though, they’re not paying themselves anything near that, so.)
I have had this arrangement at work that I do whatever I want, but between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I come back and work the busy season. But, shit. If I could actually make more doing fucking farm work, then what the hell is the point of driving 300 miles each way twice a month, and then abandoning my sister when she could really use my help? Ugh. I don’t want to abandon my coworker during his busy season, but every time I bring up the fact that I haven’t had a raise since 2012, he says now’s not a good time.
Well. It’s not even that I’m bitter, I’m just sad. That’s seven years of my life that have just… not mattered, you know? Nobody there gives a shit about me and now they’re not even afraid of me quitting. I guess they’re trying to get me to quit. I just don’t know. I do so poorly with these sorts of things.
Anyway. I wish I could stop thinking about it, because there’s nothing constructive I can do about it. I know if I bring it up, either it will get brushed off exactly like it has been every time I’ve brought it up for literally years, or I will escalate and flip my shit badly, and I don’t want to do that. But I’m just so upset; I sobbed for probably an hour in the car about it. It’s so fucking demoralizing. I’m 37 years old. I’ve been working there since I was 29. It’s gone past cute and bohemian and is now actively into destroyed-my-resume territory.
But I never had much of a resume. i’ve never been an attractive employee. I’ve never been super good at the working world. I work like a dog, but not in the kind of corporate-friendly way.
And I’ve tried, but I can’t like, write a novel on the side and make my breakout that way. Because nobody gets paid a living wage for writing novels. But, fuck, if I’m making minimum anyway…
I’m just so demoralized, in general. And add onto that the fact that I haven’t even written anything, and I’m just a big ball of nothing today.

I’m back… home, but that’s a confusing concept at this point. Back in my house, anyway, in Buffalo, as opposed to my other home which is the yurt and the farm and my sister’s ruthlessly-organized chaos.
The way the weekends and all are going to fall, I’ll be leaving again probably Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, so I’m here for a matter of days only.
I spent a lot of the drive trying to think of other things but obsessively circling back to how upset and hurt I am to realize that I’ve had so few raises at my job that the government’s minimum-wage increases have now caught up. (Actually, as of Dec 31st, they will still be five cents under my wage. So I won’t get a raise. However, I’m currently at the minimum for fast-food positions; apparently they now have a different pay scale. As of the end of the year, starting wages at McDonald’s will be higher than mine.)
I just looked it up; I started that job in May of ‘09.
(cut for whining)
Sigh. I’ve been a reliable employee, have taught myself new skills and adapted as needed, and I know for a fact that Idiot Coworker was making $3 more per hour than I was as she was setting the building on fire on her way out, so. I’m just a little bitter.
Farm sister wants to pay me. She has started to do the math for how to at least pay me to make holiday wreaths, since those are a thing they sell pretty much right away so there’s cashflow. She’s doing all her math predicated on $10/hr, which is more than she can afford but she feels anything less is insulting. (They pay their field hands less than that, and one of their first goals is to fix that. At the moment, though, they’re not paying themselves anything near that, so.)
I have had this arrangement at work that I do whatever I want, but between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I come back and work the busy season. But, shit. If I could actually make more doing fucking farm work, then what the hell is the point of driving 300 miles each way twice a month, and then abandoning my sister when she could really use my help? Ugh. I don’t want to abandon my coworker during his busy season, but every time I bring up the fact that I haven’t had a raise since 2012, he says now’s not a good time.
Well. It’s not even that I’m bitter, I’m just sad. That’s seven years of my life that have just… not mattered, you know? Nobody there gives a shit about me and now they’re not even afraid of me quitting. I guess they’re trying to get me to quit. I just don’t know. I do so poorly with these sorts of things.
Anyway. I wish I could stop thinking about it, because there’s nothing constructive I can do about it. I know if I bring it up, either it will get brushed off exactly like it has been every time I’ve brought it up for literally years, or I will escalate and flip my shit badly, and I don’t want to do that. But I’m just so upset; I sobbed for probably an hour in the car about it. It’s so fucking demoralizing. I’m 37 years old. I’ve been working there since I was 29. It’s gone past cute and bohemian and is now actively into destroyed-my-resume territory.
But I never had much of a resume. i’ve never been an attractive employee. I’ve never been super good at the working world. I work like a dog, but not in the kind of corporate-friendly way.
And I’ve tried, but I can’t like, write a novel on the side and make my breakout that way. Because nobody gets paid a living wage for writing novels. But, fuck, if I’m making minimum anyway…
I’m just so demoralized, in general. And add onto that the fact that I haven’t even written anything, and I’m just a big ball of nothing today.
