Working

My school is having their spring concert on Tuesday at 7:00 pm, in which I will be conducting some musical pieces. If you feeling like stopping by, send me an email and I can give you the details privately.

After a promise to get back to pure weblogging, I have failed. I’ve had no time to surf lately. The computer in the band office at school is painfully slow (it took 6 hours to install Finale 2004) so I try to avoid it as much as possible. Besides that, I have no time at school to look at websites or read email. After school, I’ve also had no time, between getting insurance for my car, getting a physical, staying after school with the students, preparing for class the next day, etc., etc.

We had the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York today. It was great, although it snowed the entire time.

I can’t believe they’re actually paying me to teach music. I feel so lucky to have found such a great school music program with a great bunch of students. Even the intro theory class, with all the behavioral problem kids, is going well.

So much to do, so little time. Hopefully, if I can actually get home before 8:30 tonight, I will be test driving a car. The St. Patrick’s Day event at work went surprisingly well last night, and now I have many, many things to do before I can leave for good. This is going to make tomorrow, my last day at the company (and my birthday) a very long day in the office.

Apparently they’re thinking about hiring two or even three people to replace me here. I really didn’t get paid enough…

Theoretically, I can look online this morning at this week’s paycheck to see my bonus and raise. My boss was supposed to meet with me first to tell me the numbers and go through an annual review, but he still hasn’t done that yet. So it’s very tempting to just look it up and find out for myself, but I think I’ll wait until the end of the day. Maybe I’ll have my review by then, who knows.

We’re in the middle of planning a big event right now, and for my boss, it’s right in the middle of a huge international deal that may or may not go through in the end.

When talking to someone about an event I will be planning for March, and how we’re getting a late start again this year, I commented, “… and it’s almost February already.” Apparently, it is February. I guess I didn’t get the memo. I will have quite a bit on my mind this month (you know, people, places, things) on top of school work keeping me busy. The type of school work I’m doing could very well change by the end of the month, however. We’ll have to see about that.

The Axe of Doom came down at work today. We had warning meetings in the morning… In the end, I was not one who perished… this time.

One person was at a training seminar. She was called by the Axe Wielder to come into the office following her class, but wasn’t given a reason. Well, her manager told her during the day that she was going to be laid off, so she called back to say she wouldn’t be coming in after the training. It’s kind of silly to send someone to training when the manager knows the employee will not be staying long.

Last year, I paid $52.89 for my health insurance every other week. This year, I will be paying $61.15 for the same benefits. That’s almost a 16% increase. I’m not going to be getting a 16% raise; at least, I highly doubt it. Part of me wants to be thankful that I have any health insurance at all, but that part of me is barely on talking terms with the other part of me.

The good news is that all employees of my company are reimbursed a partial amount for health insurance payments. The bad news is the amount of reimbursement didn’t increase 16% from last year. It increased 0%.

When it comes to disorder, disorganization and disarray, it’s all relative. My boss called me from London today. One of our conversations went as follows:

Him: Okay, so Thanksgiving is not this week, is it?
Me: No—
Him: —is it next week?
Me: No, it’s the week after.
Him: So I’ll want to be back in London next week?
Me: You are in London next week. You can fly back here at the end of next week or the beginning of the week after to be in the U.S. for Thanksgiving.

My bus never showed up this morning. It was supposed to arrive at about 7:13 am. I was there at 7:02. There were people waiting with me, but by 7:45, there was still no bus to be seen. At that point, I knew that if the bus showed up I wouldn’t make any train that I couldn’t make by waiting for the 8:30 bus. So I went home. Hopefully the 8:30 bus will show up. I called NJ Transit and they don’t know anything about any delays.

So… now I just sit at home and wait. I hate when I’m late to work and it’s not my fault.

I suppose one could say it is my fault for not being able to afford a car and thus needing to rely on public transportation. And I know who that one would be. But he’s a jerk (former boss).