Monday, June 28, 2010

A Not So Bad Monday

Today was a pretty easy day at work. It went by fast, I got some work done, I was able to quickly respond to most requests and no one yelled at me. If the next 6 months go like that then it won't be so bad. Too bad that is highly unlikely.

I am really liking not carpooling. I know that gas is going to cost a fortune this month but the extra time is great. I am more relaxed in the morning because I don't have to rush to meet my carpool and I get home 30 minutes earlier because I leave on time. The only thing that I miss a little is talking with my carpool. We could talk about work stuff that we couldn't talk about in front of other people.

4 more days until the 3 day weekend. People at work are planning vacations and asking me about my vacation plans. I have to sadly inform them that I only have 3 vacation days left until December 8th. They shake their head and look at me with pity. In a year and a half I will get 3 weeks vacation...if I last that long.

Rain is forecasted for tomorrow. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I want to fill up my jacuzzi again!

5 comments:

Dave said...

One year (1998), I used most of my vacation days by the end of March so I had very few of them left (maybe 3 or 4) for the rest of the year. That made for a tough rest of the year, including late December when I often took many days off between Xmas and New Years.

I never carpooled so I can't relate. But the commuter trains were really one big, lousy "carpool" with hundreds of strangers and I hated every minute of it, as it was the main reason I retired in 2008. Not being able to take advantage of monthly pass discounts, it cost me about $20 per day to go to my office in 2008, or $2,000 per year (for 100 days I worked had I worked the whole year). In 2000, the last year I worked full-time, I paid $2,000 to make about 225 trips to the office.

Beating Broke said...

A friend of mine works at a company that gives their employees PTO instead of vacation and sick days. So far, this year, her daughter had strep and then she had strep. That was a week off. Then her grandfather died. Another day. Then her grandfather in law died. Another day. Next thing you know, she's completely out of time for the entire year!

Daizy said...

Dave, $20 a day to go to work sounds outrageous although maybe it costs me that much to drive myself if I added in insurance, gas, maintenance, etc....

I was hoping that I could just use leave without pay once the mortgage was gone. Looks like the mortgage is trying to drag itself out though.

Daizy said...

Beating Broke, that's awful to have to use it all for such difficult occasions. I guess I should be thankful I get sick time and bereavement time too.

Dave said...

Yes, Daizy, mass transit here in New York is expensive, especially without any discounting for daily or very frequent use. At least some of my mass transit fares were tax-deductible via the federal TransitChek program (like Health Savings Account for mass transit).

And remember one more thing - I still have to pay many of the fixed (or somewhat fixed) costs of owning a car such as registration, inspection, and insurance (to a degree - those who drive more do pay more but I don't pay anything near zero).

Commenting about Beating Broke and the PTO, my company in my last few years of working there changed its system from separate categories of nonwork time to a single PTO bank to end some sick time abuse and to simplify record-keeping. Working P/T, I had only a prorated number of vacation days with no other types of PTO days.