It has been almost a week since my last update (this feels like confession!) and while I really do not have an excuse, I will just blame it on the Christmas season like everyone else does ;) .
Let's start with work. My colleague called off Wed-Fri last week, allowing me the honor of working by myself. I felt kinda bad for him since he found out he had a sinus infection...he was in real pain and work was not possible. I was glad for my sake it was slow.
On Friday I received my yearly review, which could be summed up with, "You are a great employee, we have big plans for you and $Colleague, but we have no real money to offer you...maybe we can work on comp time instead."
I need not remind you that my company had a fantastic year but my division was pulled down (supposedly) by one account (ours did very well) and getting a bonus that was less than the one my wife (who used to work part time for a small roofing company) got. My bonus was less than half of one weeks take home pay...yes, my bonus was 1/8 of my monthly take home pay.
When I asked about real raises (we tend to get them every other year and we got one last year), my boss said he would not know until February or so...they tend to show up in March. Now in March we lose our on call pay, but gain 2 percent as compensation. If we qualified for a raise then it would be on top of that. I will not hold my breath. The guy who told me about the bonuses was dead on in regards to the amount and he told me our raises would be less than 1 percent. At least we get something. Other than that bit of news, my review was very shiny.
Moving on to Christmas...I finished my shopping on Tuesday or Wednesday of last week. I felt like I cheated my wife (I had plans to get her a Wii and a laptop) but lack of a real bonus shot that plan out of the sky. We settled on meager gifts for each other this year...mostly clothing and gift cards. It has been a while since I have spoiled my wife at Christmas.
There was a service on Christmas eve at our church that went well. I had a small reading to do as well as a prayer (my wife had one as well) and overall the service went well. During the candle lighting service at the end, my candle kept going out and I had to keep getting it relit...somewhat humorous although it was not meant to be.
My wife and I opened gifts Christmas Day around 10 AM or so. We were both up much earlier and she was dying to give me my gifts (I had a Geocaching Christmas) so after a few hours of her looking a bit down, I agreed to open gifts.
After the gifts had been opened and the wrapping paper/boxes cleaned up (recycling what we could, trashing the rest) we fixed lunch. The hardest part of cooking lunch was already done...the turkey was already done (my wife started it at 4 AM) we just through together some sides (it was just me and her for lunch) and enjoyed the meal. We had a great lunch together.
After lunch we got dressed and put in a few hours of Geocaching, collecting some stragglers I had missed in the past. Many of these were not hard, but took patience and one even had me climbing a cedar tree about 20+ feet. I dropped the lid to it and since my wife was with me, she was able to retrieve it and keep me from climbing all the way down to get it. All in all we nabbed 7 and did not whiff on any of them. I even found the oldest active cache in our town, although it took a while...even in the winter the overgrowth made it difficult to spot.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning up, eating a light dinner (salad) with more pecan pie for dessert. Once that was done, I walked the dogs and settled in with my wife to watch 3 more episodes of "Heroes". Two more to watch and season one will be complete.
I am off all this week but I will be working next week solo while my colleague takes his vacation. I think he got the better end of the bargain, but I am not going to complain. I will get to see how well I can handle working a busy week on my own. Look on the bright side...I have only 4 months to go until vacation!
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