Jacquelyn's Space

I have not learned to love my new job yet. I don’t know what it is or why I can’t. I think my lack of love for it has to do with Covid-19 and I’ve been really anxious this year. It could be just me.

I should love my new job. The pay is much better. It is basically doing what I was doing before. Everyone I work with is nice and I still work with some of the same people that I did before. I know many of the participants we serve already, because we transported when I was at Swartz. The benefits are better. Perhaps only the PTO and sick time are about the same as my old job. Still trying to figure that one out.

The downside is I miss my old work. I miss Swartz. My husband still works there so I still have a strong connection to the place. That’s good.

I really miss my van at Swartz. I drive a shuttle bus at the new job. It is basically all mine–I take the keys home with me and I am the only one that drives it. It is just so much bigger than what I used to drive. And the ride is rougher. I definitely don’t like that for my passengers. I can deal with the bumpy bounciness. It is the noise that bothers me (and them.)

The new job is less organized that the old.  That sucks, especially when we aren’t really open yet–our center is only open for clinic appointments and physical therapy. Still no participants coming to the day center just to hang out, eat, and get involved in activities.

I take participants to outside appointments. Most days I only have 1 or 2 appointments. I am used to having down time but at the new job I feel more at loose ends. Of course, I feel guilty in having so much downtime because the pay is so much more. Yet, I don’t want to go hang out at the center for fear I’ll be in the way…at least until I learn more of the business or the participants come back at full force.

I don’t know. The real downside is I have to look for a new doctor. That sucks because too many doctors suck. The ones that don’t aren’t accepting new patients. No doc does evening hours and I hate taking off work for an appointment. I want something close to home–which my old doc was–but the only one somewhat close is one I don’t really care for. They were supposed to call me to let me know if they were accepting new patients–they haven’t yet. Another office I reached out to was supposed to get back to me–haven’t heard from them either. I hate looking for a new doctor!

I suppose I am not dealing well with all the changes this year. Well, in addition to all the madness going on in the world.

One good thing–no more polyester uniform!! Now that’s something to celebrate. I get to wear my own clothes, and I can wear shorts at my new job. I am much cooler than I was and….yet another confession: my nipples stopped itching. HA! Yeah, I think I am allergic to polyester.

I have a confession to make.

I am a pack rat. Okay, okay, I am a hoarder. OMG. I don’t know. Maybe hoarder is too strong a word at this point. I am one tragedy away from becoming a hoarder though. At least that is what I tell myself. It’s kind of scary.

I am trying to get my house cleaned up and organized. It is cluttered. Me and my husband took everything out of our bedroom to rearrange it and clean. This was a couple of months ago. Most of the stuff is mine so much of it has not made it back into the bedroom or its proper place (where ever that may be). We also started to take stuff out of other rooms and closets to try to organize and make more room, or make sense of the mess. We are trying to keep our bedroom less cluttered–it got really cluttered when we had my nephews living with us; we stuff anything extra into our room. So yeah, I started pulling stuff out of closets to go through and rearrange, to try to find more room in other places. It is like, I pull one room or closet apart and I think of things I want to put into the closet that requires me to pull other closets apart. So I have a big mess. And I haven’t had the energy to deal with it all. That is the way it typically goes with me. So a lot of the mess is piled into the living room.

Right now I am in a spare room, the office, trying to organize all my clothes. I determined that this closet in the office would hold all my “spare” clothes–clothes that don’t fit but I am saving for when they will. When I lose weight. Hahaha. OMG. Well, wanted to put off-season clothes in there too but I don’t think I will have enough room. I have sooo many clothes…clothes that fit and whole other wardrobes that do not fit. Tubs and tubs! It truly is ridiculous. When and if I ever lose a significant amount of weight I will have enough clothes for the ride down the sizes until, or if and when, I get really thin.

I should just donate the stuff. But then that hoarder mentality kicks in. Some of the stuff is so pretty! Some of it has never been worn! Some of it I just love, they have memories attached. I wanna wear this stuff again. Of course, it won’t be stylish if I am ever ready to wear it again but who cares for that?

I have to work on my hoarding tendencies. I have to work on some weight loss. Perhaps I should give myself a challenge. If I don’t lose a significant amount of weight by a year from this date then I will donate all these clothes to charity. Mark my words!

Driving through Flint yesterday, I saw a black kid, a boy of about 10, riding his scooter up and down a little section of Saginaw St in front of the stores. I was momentarily filled with joy that he was having a carefree moment. I thought it was a blessing that he was able to do that in Flint of all places, and that he felt safe.

But did he really feel safe? Was it really a carefree moment? My thoughts turned darker…how long would this kid have this carefree time? IF he actually felt carefree. Has he ever? I started thinking about George Floyd. Is that what this poor boy has to look forward to? Well hell, it was totally probable that racism and brutality had touched his life already. At what age was he first called the N-word? At what age was he first brutalized for being black? I know the very young aren’t spared racism, as much as I may hope. The image of this boy and the image of George Floyd pinned to the ground by a white man’s knee kept flip flopping back and forth in my mind. I cried all the way home thinking this, and I cry writing it now, but I know my tears are not enough.

Today is my husband’s 50th birthday! I can’t believe it! It is sad that we can’t have a big celebration. Our families are scattered and the damn coronavirus. We can’t even go out. We can get take-out. I may do that but I was thinking about making his birthday cake from scratch, and I mean NOT from a box. I am talking about a really good chocolate cake–that’s his favorite–and store bought never cuts it for me when it comes to chocolate cake. Wish me luck. 

I put my two week notice in at my job Monday. I hate to leave because I love that job–it doesn’t feel like work the majority of the time–but I have to leave because, when it comes down to it, I need more money and better benefits.

My job cut my hours in January…well, cut a day and just 2 hours. I thought it was worse at the time, until I looked at the schedule. I had 4 twelve hour shifts instead if 5 ten hour shifts. That was okay, workable. And I was still picking up an extra day at work most weeks so I was still making about 60 hours a week. That overtime made my paycheck! I picked up an extra job at McDonald’s before my full-time gig to make even extra so I could really pay my bills down and save to go back to graduate school.

But then, March happened. Right as coronavirus hit, the operation’s manager at my full-time job cut everybody’s hours again. All of us non-emergency transport went down to 36 hours a week. I can’t do that!! I was pissed. I told the ops manager as much. He tried to make it seem like it was because of the coronavirus but it wasn’t. Our division had been slowing down since late last year and management didn’t seem to care about our division or didn’t have the know how and/or didn’t have a plan to get new business. He told me he was trying to make the department more profitable and that hours may go up when and if people quit, or when we picked up again. He admitted there was no guarantees though. I told him I would have to look for another job. I mean, this was bullshit. I could see where he was coming from but to cut our hours without notice and mostly because management couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to get more business for the division. Communication has sucked on his part when it has come to what he is doing with the division and I believe it comes from a lack of caring. Oh, I think they care about us as employees, but they (he?) don’t care about the division because it is not profitable. When I hired in I was told it was a minimum wage job because the division was not profitable, the company just did it as a community service, and, well, they needed us to keep a contract they have with a hospital. I was fine with that, especially when getting overtime wasn’t a problems. As soon as he started cutting hours, getting overtime became a problem–well since this operation’s manager took over (mid-year last), getting overtime has increasingly been an issue. A lot of it does have to do with him. I think our division was an easy place to make cuts. In my opinion, that is not fair to us because there was no notice, and because of the timing. How in the hell was I supposed to find a new job with everything shutting down to coronavirus? I told the ops manager as much and more…I told him it was a shitty thing to do.

I was beyond pissed and I was hurt.

Okay, I got past that…mostly. Luckily I have an ops manager I can talk to and he didn’t take offense at my complaints. That is an awesome reason why I didn’t want to leave my job there. But, weighing on me was the fact that I need more money, I need more money, I need more money. So mostly I got over the anger but it was still there, deep inside and I knew I had to make some changes. I had to get serious about that!

I didn’t have much hope though. How was I going to find a good job, a full-time job, when everything was shutting down? Was it even possible to find a new job during a pandemic?

My McD’s gig was cut. They started opening at 7am while everything was shutting down. I was working 5am to 8am, perfect hours for me to work that wouldn’t interfere with my full-time work. UGH. I didn’t want to work at McD’s during any other time.

Again, I was lucky. During the stay at home order, one of our drivers decided to stay at home because she has a kid (over 18 but lives with her) that has a compromised immune system so she decided to sit home most of March, all of April, and the first week of May. Then another one of our drivers hurt her ankle so she was out a couple of weeks. So I’ve still been busting my ass picking up all the overtime I can. Thankfully I’ve stayed healthy.

But I knew this wouldn’t last and I cannot do 36 hours a week at minimum wage.

A friend at work was approached by an organization, one that keeps older adults and the elderly living independently, to work for them. They were looking for drivers to bring people into the day program and to take to appointments. Some of this my current job has been doing for them (this organization has primarily been using MTA). I guess that will stop because the supervisor at this program said they will be doing their own transportation in June and she need 10 drivers all together. Thank the universe my friend let me know about this as soon as he was approached with information. Thank you Brad! I put my application in that day and called the supervisor the next week. I went in for an interview with her, albeit, a socially distant interview. She got the ball rolling for me. I got my paperwork in, my documents for a background check, went for a drug test and physical. Finally I got the email that I was approved to start the job. I got the job.

I am excited! I can’t believe I found a better job during the pandemic. The wages are a lot better and I have hopes that the health benefits are better to. This is a national organization that is run by a huge hospital corporation, that is local and nationwide. So I have big hopes for this job. I think I am making a good decision to leave my current situation to work this new gig.

On the downside, I am leaving a job I love. I am leaving a place I am comfortable. But I feel that our division is being left to die off. So, I must leave. But no more napping at work, LOL. I’ll have less independence. Also, the job I’m leaving gives good bonuses. Most of all though, I am sad to leave most of my co-workers (except Brad is going on to the new job with me so that’s good) and my patients.

I found out yesterday that a co-worker from McDonald’s died. I can’t believe it. She was younger than me. She was so funny and so nice. I will miss her even though I didn’t know her for very long. It’s not fair. She loved music. She listened to music all the time while she did prep in the back. She had children. She had a loving boyfriend.