Jacquelyn's Space

When my hours got cut at work, I immediately complained on Facebook not realizing that only 2 hours were actually taken from me (but it is a loss of about $40 a week). Well, you know, I gotta complain on Facebook or why have it? LOL. But I complained and my complaints were answered with a job offer. First time my complaints were that noticeably productive. It wasn’t for a job I particularly wanted but I appreciated it and pursued it all the same. I am serious about paying down some bills and saving to go back to grad school! My friend is a manager at McDonald’s and said she needed someone in the morning to work my favorite spot–back cash in the drive-thru. So I am now working M-F 5am to 8am before I go to my full-time gig. It works out quite well except I have to get up super early (not my forte) but so far I’m lovin it. Ha!

No, when I got back my back cash gig it was like I never left. The customers seem nicer at the store I am working at (compared to my old store) and I love working with my friend. I had a pit in my stomach and felt depression knocking at the door when I considered taking the job but now that I am back at I really do enjoy it. I get lots of compliments from the customers–one told me I was “so cheery” even though I am blurry eyed and droopy tailed in the morning. I do try to pull it together for the customers though, and I give them smiles and I hope I brighten their morning, or at least their commute to work. One lady told me I “look like a little angel.” This both gratified me and amused me. If only she knew….

Plus, I get the joy of helping a friend out. She had it really rough there in the morning, trying to handle both the front and the back end, plus do her manager stuff. She said she was so happy to have me there in the morning. So YAY! And now I have some extra money to pay off bills with.

Ugh, but I am tired. I am working about 63 hours a week. I didn’t think I could do it. I am motivated though…but I gotta turn this motivation to looking for a better job.

I hate thinking about looking for a job. I love my medical transport gig. I get lots of compliments there too. It is a rewarding job. One of my regulars, who I want to adopt as my grandpa, kept telling me to be careful on the roads and get home safe. He thanked me for getting him home safe (the roads were bad) and said to me, “You get home safe too. I wouldn’t want to lose you.” Awww.

But I have to look for another job. I helped a lady (I transported) try to get home care and also called an elderly day program to see if they could help her. I would love to do that full-time–set people up with resources and programs. These home care places have what they call a care coordinator and I feel like that is something that I would be good at. A transport also told me I have a calming personality (I’ll have to write more about that in another post)…and that made me really want to make a push to get some kind of counseling degree. It wasn’t the first time I have been told that but it is always good to here. I just love helping people and making them feel better.

I wish they could pay us more. I know it is a low wage job; I almost said low skill but it truly isn’t. Sure, I don’t need any certifications besides a chauffeur’s license to do the job but you do have to have skills to do it properly. I know I’ll never make the kind of money I want to make at it but I think they should give us a raise. We never get raises. My husband has been getting raises steady (as a paramedic, I/C, and now a field training officer) since he has been with the company (nice raises too) and that makes me happy. I am glad they recognize his value. I feel like the company does recognize my value too but perhaps does not recognize the value of the wheelchair division or make the most of the division. We all need a little raise, regardless if the division is not a money maker. I was told they do it as a community service but I know they need us to keep a contract too. Our business is picking up somewhat since the first weeks of January. I feel like management could really go after some new business too, or come up with a plan to have the drivers–at least some of us– go after new business other than handing out pens and post-it notes. I haven’t come up with a solid plan for that yet but it is on my mind.

I don’t know. Some of it has to do with our dispatch. They don’t pay attention to our division like they should. I don’t think they know what customer service is. I had one little dispatcher (her father is a dispatcher and her grandfather was, so it is a legacy position, ha) once tell me (earlier on in my career as a medical transporter) that I was the low man on the totem pole (meaning our job was of low value or prestige). Okay, way to make me feel good and valued. That showed me what the dispatchers think of our division. I told this little girl though, that I don’t care that I am low man on the totem pole, that I wasn’t bother by or don’t care about rank (not seniority), prestige or low pay, I was helping people. I don’t think she understood but I do and I have to always remember that because it matters.

Recently, one dispatcher who think’s he knows everything (he is insecure when it comes down to it), told two drivers that our “division doesn’t matter” because it isn’t a money maker. That made us feel real good. UGH!! I had a bad attitude for a few days after that until I really helped a couple of transports out and they thanked and complimented me. I started thinking about all the times I have went above and beyond for people and how many people need help out there, as well as how many people have told me that the wheelchair transport is a valuable resource. I already knew that dispatcher was full of shit but dealing with people that need my help helped me remember my value.

Management needs to do something about that attitude though and they need to knock dispatch down a peg but they don’t. At least that is the feeling among the wheelchair division. One driver said our ops manager defends dispatch like they are his mother, haha. It does seem so. I know when our old ops manager was in place, he knocked on dispatcher down a peg in regards to her treatment of me. I miss our old manager.

“Somebody’s gotta be the ditch digger” is what my dad always told me. I keep remembering that.

Look, I have held low valued jobs all my life. I like serving people (even food). I love helping people. I would just love to make more money and have better benefits. The prestige associated with the job (or lack of) doesn’t bother me…something needs to be done about pay though, and people’s attitude towards low prestige job workers, because more and more of these low prestige jobs are needed and more and more workers are turning away from them because they don’t pay and they get shit on by management and co-workers. If you are lucky enough to find a job that makes you happy, it would be nice to have good pay and benefits to go along with it, and some respect, rather than having to pursue something that may not make you happy just to feel like people respect you more. So much in this world is out of whack and doesn’t make sense. People that help people aren’t paid shit, while people that are basically paper pushers or are clock watchers, whatever,  make way too much money.

But I’m working it. Hanging in there. One benefit of working at McDonald’s again is it makes me feel like a teenager. LOL. And I feel like a guest star because I get to come in, do my thing, smile for the customers, and get the fuck out. Then I go to the gig I love and maybe catch a nap.

I bought this cute little book for me and my husband for Valentine’s Day. It is a bucket list book for couples. Our Bucket List Adventures: A Journal for Couples

I think it would be great for me and my husband to come up with a bucket list of things we want to do before time gets away from us.

My husband is already planning a bucket list adventure of his own. He is really into The Curse of Oak Island and wants to make a visit. He started planning one a few weeks ago. I guess he wants to stop by Montreal and Quebec on our way because that is where my ancestors are from. Truthfully, I want to make an ancestor trip a separate adventure because there is so much to see and do. Plus I’d like to learn more French before I go. If we go to Oak Island, I think a good thing to pair with it would be a trip to Prince Edward Island. I have always wanted to go and see all the Anne of Green Gables tourist attractions. I love that! So we may do that this year.

There is so much we have already done, but much of it has been in Michigan. I love Michigan and love to revisit my favorite places. Some of my bucket list items would be revisiting places but with a variation on what we have already done. Like I’d like to stay at the Grand Hotel during Somewhere in Time Weekend. Well, plus during Titanic Weekend and during the jazz festival weekend. I was on the porch for jazz festival one year and it was magical.

I’ve been to Mammoth Caves (Kentucky) twice already but I really want to go and explore more. I guess a bucket list item for me is to take all the tours they have to offer. This means multiple trips.

I can think of a whole host of repeat visits I want to make but there are a bunch of new things I’d like to do to. I’d really like to go abroad. I know one of my husband’s bucket list items will be to visit Scotland again. I have never been. Of course I’d like to see Ireland too and England. I need a few months for the British Isles, especially England because I really want to visit all the Jane Austen sites and the Shakespeare attractions.

Then I’d definitely would like to explore Europe…my husband isn’t really into that to much but I know he’d have fun if we were able too.

I need more money!! LOL. I suppose I need to by a book, Travel Europe on $10 a Day, or something like that. Or win the lotto. That is definitely a bucket list item.

I can’t wait til I get that book. We will have fun dreaming and filling it out.

Weirdness is:

When someone you went to school with, who was a grade behind you and seemed like a younger brother because he looked so young is a grandpa now….

and looks the part. He is bald and everything. What little hair he has and his mustache is gray! He looks old now!!

And I’m over here feeling like a 14 year old…

thinking I’m still pretty young and have the aura of youth because of my youthful (immature?) mindset. HA HA

Before Christmas we got together with my husband’s family. Our nephew Calvin was at the gathering. We don’t see him too often because he lives in Lansing and has 2 young kids now. He was talking about going up north, more specifically the U.P. I hear his new wife’s family has money and has a home in the U.P. so they have been making a few trips up there. We were talking about how much we love it up north. Calvin loves it too. Then he kind of got sentimental and thanked me and my husband for taking on trips up north when he was young. We took him a few times when we went camping or went up to my parent’s place when we had my stepson. Calvin thanked us! He said he remembers those times and is trying to do that with his kids, take them on family trips around Michigan.

That made me feel so good. I am glad he had a good time and remembers. I was hoping it would have a positive influence on him and my stepson. It was sweet to get a thank you for it. It makes me feel so good, all warm and fuzzy. You always wonder if the kids will remember, if the things you enjoy can be passed on to them.

I told Calvin I wish we could have down more with him, taken him on more trips (you always wish you could have done more). He said we can still do that. Yes, yes we can. It would be fun to take a trip with him and his new family.

I cut my own hair last month. Yeah, I did it and I don’t care. I haven’t had time to go to the salon–I don’t really enjoy it regardless–so I just chopped it off one night. Truth to tell, it had horrendous snarls in it that I could not brush out, so I just said fuck it,where are the scissors? I was just washing it and throwing it up in a bun whether or not I had time to comb it out or not anyway. It got to a point where I never had time to comb it out and it got really tangled, then knotted. It was terrible and unhealthy. Plus, I started playing with it too, knotting it even more. {{{STRESS}}} I just didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with it. I was working too much and then my mom is staying with us right now. She had a stroke in September and I have had to try to help her. She is a needy handful, and not just because of the stroke. She lives 3 hours away and I couldn’t just send her home. I can’t make it up there to help her so I moved her to a facility close to me, then to my house once she was discharged from the facility. We did have home care for a few weeks but that has ended too. It has been rough and an adjustment for both of us. She wants to go home. I want her to go home. I just want her to be safe.

So I cut my hair off. I am lucky that curly hair is very forgiving and I could do that. I just cut above the worst of the snarls then evened it out as best as I could. It isn’t perfect but it actually looks cute. I have gotten many compliments on it. I am quite proud of it now. Ha!

I’ll have to post a picture soon.

I need a new job. Actually, I need a career. I need to get off my ass and start looking. I hate looking for a job, plus I really love what I do now; it just doesn’t pay. I did make more money this year than I have ever made–mainly because all of the overtime I worked. Then my cash cow quit. LOL. The co-worker I was getting all the overtime from (she was giving away shifts every week) went on to greener pastures. So I fought my way into getting an extra day a work–built-in OT right in my schedule. I am not too sure how 2020 is going to be. Hours are being cut. My extra day was cut. I was so pissed because my boss did not inform me ahead of time and he just did it right now, around the New Year holiday. WTF? Then I looked at the schedule and I see that even though he cut a day, he has put me on for 12 hour shifts so I only lose 2 hours. I can deal with that but still, I need more money. And I’m not sure if our division will pick up. We were busy until we lost some business from a major hospital. This hospital (or the corporation that runs the hospital) is part owner in an ambulance company and they are being made to give this other company their business. Even though this other company didn’t have a wheelchair division (and only seem to run one van, that I’ve seen) and it is a hassle to set up both wheelchair and ambulance transports with this newer company. Sucks to be them, sucks to be us. My husband says the ambulance side at our work has been busy, it’s just our wheelchair side has lost business. This makes me sad because we are really good at what we do…plus me and my co-workers love our job and our patients. We miss our transports out of that hospital too.

One lovely story:

We transported a cancer patient to and from chemo. She had breast cancer. We saw her at her best and worst. We all tried to be there for her and pick her up when she was down. I always tried to stay and wait for her to get out of treatment so she wouldn’t have to wait to be picked up again. I remember one day I picked her up from a day program. They had had a party that day and she was bubbling over with happiness because they had a DJ at the party and she was dancing to the music. She said it took her back to her younger years in the 80s. We both reminisced about Prince and the music from the 80s we both loved. She told me about the times she used to go to the all male reviews when she used to live in Detroit. It was a joy to see her so happy. Well, I was taking her to radiation treatment. I waited for her to get out and I got her return home. She was a changed person on the way back. It was so sad. I tried to make the trip comfy for her. I tried to cheer her up, keep her up. I felt so bad for her and it was horrible to see her feeling bad after seeing her so happy.

But she survived. She has beaten her cancer! When she was cancer free she was joyous. She also had nothing but good things to say about our wheelchair division–the six of us who transported her through her ordeal. She said we were like family to her–more so than her actual family–and that she couldn’t have gotten through without us. She called us her “A-Team”, called our boss (which got us a shout out company-wide), and even got us all cards and gifts. It made us all feels so awesome. We really love our patients…this lady is one of our favorites though but we try to build up everyone we transport and make them feel better.

This is what the patient wrote in the card she gave me:

“To Jackie:

During my ordeal I will never forget the compassion, empathy, and caring you pour our!!! Thank you”

This made me cry. This job has really helped me develop my compassion, empathy, and understanding. I am so overcome that she noticed and thankful for it. Thankful for this job and all that it has taught me.

All that being written, I need to look for another job. I need more money. Money isn’t everything but unfortunately I am in a position where I absolutely need to make more. If only I would have found this job a lot sooner I’d be happy to keep it forever. But I didn’t so I can’t. But I’d like to find something working with older people if I can, and in social work…I feel like I am good at building people up. I feel that is my calling in life.