Dear God and Oshkosh city employee: Thank you

I lied. But in my defense I think this deserves a post.

Apparently ice is slippery or something. I’m not really sure, but I do know that you should never UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES try to break when you need to stop in this weather on said “slippery” ice.

I know. it SEEMS like braking would be the best choice to stop an all. and TRUST ME it’s your first instinct. But when your driving over snow and ice — especially if say, hypothetically, you have a tire that some car-repairman said you should fix so you don’t die when you drive and you hypothetically ignored that advice — what you should do is let your car glide to stop at red lights.

I’m stupid. So, when I was in driving along this morning I went ahead and followed my instincts — I braked.

And the first time, my car spun out and I thought ‘wow, stupid girl, you are SO lucky there were no cars around so that you didn’t just crash.’ (and don’t worry, there weren’t any cars around the second time either.)

A block later i saw a red light ahead and thought ‘probably a stop is going to be needed soon.’ At this point i braked (because it REALLY is your instinct) and I lost control of my car and slid off the road. (you saw that coming, didn’t you?). I barely missed a pole and so I thanked God for that (seeing as how my car insurance ALREADY is about the same as my rent each month, a car accident probably wouldn’t have been so good on  my record) After the prayer, I tried to back out of the 7 feet (ish) of ice i drove into.

FRIK! 

Alas, at this point i did the opposite of thank God.

My next first instinct (after the whole, break to stop thing) was to call my mom and cry. Realizing that if i did this my tears probably would freeze and my mom wouldn’t be able to help dig me out from three hours away, i thought I’d call work. I mean reporters ARE kind of like super heroes, so I figured AT LEAST one of them would come to help. Luckily, i didn’t have to beg anyone for help, because at that moment, God (that’s right, GOD) sent a city employee my way and then GOD told him to stop and dig me out. or maybe he just did that on his own. Either way, he was able to get me out of the 7 feet (ish) of ice that i had driven into. I said thank you, thank you, thank you, but his only reply was ‘straighten out your wheel when you try to back out.’ (i think he was cold).

I then drove about 4 miles per hour to work so i could avoid any breaking — and it only took about an hour to go three miles! so i made pretty good time.

Hopefully this stupid stupid stupid weather will end soon. Either that, or I should get new tires.

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i hate being an adult

So if i ran the worldwhen i run the world, i’ll require all employers to give out three numbers for salary:

1. how much they’ll be paying you.

2. how much you’ll get after taxes and

3. how much you’ll get after you pay taxes AND we guilt you into contributing AT LEAST 6 percent into your 401k so you don’t retire broke AND you get health insurance AND you get dental insurance AND if you’re stupid enough to be blind, you also get vision insurance.

IF my current employer had told me figure number three, i probably would have ended up just staying in south dakota — where they at least don’t have a state income tax.

i was stupid enough to not only accept the job without figure three, but i also thought it would be good to start on Nov. 5 . Of course, now i won’t get insurance until after 90 days pass, which would be Feb. 5 and THEN, nothing actually starts until the beginning of the NEXT month, meaning i’m pretty much waiting until March 1 (FOUR months) for coverage (NOTE: this also sucks becuase on Nov. 4 I happen to kind of step on my glasses and break them in half and now they are constantly crooked because they are super glued together, and im waiting for my vision insurance to start so i can get contacts).

Even though March 1 is more than a month away, I enrolled in our benefits package today. and while i was at it, i figured I’d go ahead and start saving 6 percent of my check before taxes. SIX PERCENT PEOPLE. that’s a lot of freaking money, but the web site says if I DONT save that much I’ll probably be homeless when i retire, and it seems like that would kind of suck.

While enrolling, i had to figure out who i wanted my beneficiary to be — my mom — then explain to the computer that she was not my spouse, my domestic partner or my dependent because I basically suck at life and I haven’t got ANY of those things. The computer didn’t understand how my beneficiary could be NONE of those things, so i had to mark ‘other’ and now i need to either find a husband or have baby so my company will understand me.

then, i did a little math and figured out that after all the insurance and the 401k savings, I’ll be making about $6 a month in take-home pay, which shouldn’t be a problem as long as my landlord is cool with me not giving him rent.    

However, in case i get a random illness i want to make sure im covered (note the insurance) and in case i don’t i want to make sure i can retire (note the 6 percent).

At this point in the enrollment process im thinking everything if all good, but a screen pops up telling me that once i click submit I CANNOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES change my coverage. Crap. ok, I cancel that and go back to make sure everything is ok. Yes, i want medical. yes, i want dental and yes, i want vision. looks good to me. ok, submit and… confirm.

FRIK!

I accidental put that I’m a smoker. Apparently that’s the default setting (such crap, because, really? is the default AMERICAN a smoker?? and this is STILL america? right?) and they want to charge me $750 a year for that! i am, of course, NOT a smoker. and I don’t even live with a smoker, so such a charge is TOTALLY NOT COOL WITH ME. I try to hit the back button, but alas, my company’s enrollment Web site is too smart for me, because hitting the back button only brings up an error message. great. this sucks. and seriously, if the HR person can’t change this tomorrow and re-classify me as a non-smoker, i’m probably going to have to quit my job. i’m not saying definitely, im just saying probably. either that, or I’ll have to start smoking so i can get my money’s worth.  

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really, even THEY don’t want me?

So I know I know, all you naive people out there are thinking ‘she’s a journalist at a REAL newspaper, she must make a TON of money.’ Well, here’s my confession: they basically pay me with Monopoly money. And I really love what I do, but these weird things called bills keep showing up in my mailbox EVERY month ( I know, you’d think they’d at least give you January off) and they want me to PAY them and I don’t know if you know this about me but when I moved to Wisconsin I had to sell all my furniture, so my living room set currently consists of an air mattress.

All of this led me to believe that I should apply for a second job (couches seem to be more important than I once thought). So I figured, with my MASTER’S degree and all, this would be no problem. I immediately decided against waitressing because I hate waitressing (little known fact: waitresses spend most of their shift rolling silverware in disposable napkins so that you can unroll it 5 min later and leave a $3 tip.) I also decided against working at Google, because there is no Google in my town. Then I had a great horrible idea. Duh, i could apply at my old stomping grounds — Wal-Mart! I did work there for five years when I was in high school and college. I do know how to bag and zone pretty well. I know they give a 10 percent discount to their employees. The list of wonderful things about this goes on, but I won’t bore you.

So, one snowy Tuesday afternoon I went into the local Wal-Mart and started filling out the SERIOUSLY long application. I’m telling you they wanted to know more about me than my Gyno. And then, after about 25 minutes, I got through the first of SEVEN sections. At this point they asked me to list ALL the information about ALL the jobs I’ve had for the last TEN years. Um, i’ve only been a member of the working world for eight years, and I’ve had like 56 jobs. Even so, I started this process with the intention of listing every place I’ve ever worked for. and their address. and their phone number. and what my job duties were … .Then I finished the second job and gave up. and I clicked yes when asked if I had IN FACT list ALL my jobs for the last TEN years.

After about an hour I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel — I had reached section 7, a.k.a. the part of the application where they ask you the same question in 15 different ways. i.e. do people like you? do people say they like you? are you likable? ect. ect. On the last page they asked me how many jobs I’d had in the last five years. (I’ve had 6). And because I’m the worst liar EVER, I clicked six, even though I had clearly said I’d only worked at TWO places for the last TEN years a few sections back. I was hoping whoever read my application would scan over that part. I’m thinking they didn’t though.

See, I put down some references and one of those references called me and said Wal-Mart had called and I was thinking i would therefore be a shoe-in for an interview sometime soon. But seeing as how my local Wal-Mart has yet to call me more than a week later, I’m now thinking I’m not going to be interviewing with them. 🙁

But it’s ok, because I don’t really NEED to pay my student loan every month, right? It’s not like they can repossess KNOWLEDGE. right? right.

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