My Boss' Job

Sorry to my little gang of followers for not working on this more. Life if busy and writing takes time I rarely have. The good news is that you will start to see more writing from me in the future. That's right, folks. I am on the edge of no longer being employed.

The prospect of losing a job in this economic market is daunting. I admit I am a little scared, but, at the same time, I am excited. Possibilities open up all around me. We will be poor...really poor. Crack open the ramen and cry in your soup poor. Yet, with poverty comes the opportunity to write, paint, carve, refinish furniture, and hopefully sell my first novel. I welcome poverty if the payoff will be time and happiness.

Here is the skinny on the job situation. I'm sure you are all dying to know what happened. I have worked for the same company for over three years now. I was promised a new title and raise months after I started. Three years later...nothing. My direct boss has been trying the whole time to get his boss to look at my situation and fix this oversight. He has been ignored.

Let me fill you in on my job really quick. Sorry, but it will help you understand. I work fifty plus hours a week. I work in the Hotel Industry. That means I also work weekends, holidays, never have a set schedule, and get phone calls on my days off or in the middle of the night. I deal with angry guests, sometimes slacker employees, a micro-managing boss, and a lot of financial headaches. Its a tough job, but I have enjoyed the work for years now.

This started to change with my current employers. They dump more and more workload on me and my boss. They ask for more hours. They offer no incentives. They squeeze every cent they can out of the hotel and give very little back. My work/life balance does not exist. I started to edge closer toward sixty hours a week there for a while. If you break down how much I truly make an hour, I made more ten years ago. Still they ask for more. I finally had enough.

I sent an email to my boss' boss voicing my frustrations and asking for her to look at the promised promotion. She came to talk to me. It did not go well.

She pretty much told me I needed to make a passionate commitment to the company. How can I commit to a company that has not kept its commitments to me? She set aside all talk of my promotion and raise and never returned to it. She instead focused on the possibility of my boss leaving sometime in the next two years. She wants me to prove I can do his job. This is where it gets good, people.

She told me I needed to do his job to show her I was ready to take over in 18 months to two years. So, she wants me to do my job and the job of someone who makes 26 thousand more than me for two years without compensation in order to prove I can do a job that I am already lined up for and ready to do. Crazy, huh? She gave me two weeks to think about her proposal and my commitment. Commit or start thinking about my "exit strategy." That's what she called it.

I don't need two weeks. My answer is no. I have put up with a lot from this company, but this is too much. I am done. Funny thing...I am happier than I have been in months. Just knowing light exists at the end of this corporate tunnel has made me near giddy. Yes, scared too. We don't have savings to cover a job loss, but we will make do. Don't tell me otherwise. My soul already feels less starved and compressed at the thought of being free.

I have never really been unemployed. Don't worry. I am not the kind of person to sit in front of the tv, eating nachos and playing xbox. My beard growing shaggier while my wife cleans around me and pays the bills. I have plans. My refinishing business made me a whole 1,000 dollars this year and that was with me barely doing anything. I have paintings to sell, light-boxes to build, refinishing to do, and a novel to write. If worse comes to worse, I will get a part time job while supplementing my income with my random endeavors. Weird, I felt so trapped a month ago. Now, thanks to a ridiculous ultimatum from my boss' boss, I can let the invisible bands loosen and make my escape.

Thank you for reading. Wish me luck, but expect great things from me too.