It's been a couple bad weeks at work. We had the first D&D session in like 6 months. I wrote about a page of my new story but am wondering if I'm making it too long. I got caught up in Mad Men again. I have some financial questions about debt, savings, and purchases.
But lets take this in order:
Health
Last update I mentioned my doctor's visits and a migraine. Well, in the last pay period I had another migraine. Put these together and I went into lost time. I look at leave in a fairly easy, but strict, way. Annual leave is either granted in a couple times a year during our vacation book (more on that later as we're going through that now), or is asked for. "Hey K, can I have this Friday off?" Sick time, on the other hand, is specifically related to health. It can be used for yourself or for a direct family member (parents, children, siblings, grandparents, step versions of all those...) and is either a pre-planned event like an operation or a doctor's visit or is a sudden illness where you can't work. Basically it's not a request for time off, its telling work that you will not be there due to a health concern.
So, both my migraines qualify as I can't work through them. My doctors and dentist visits qualify as they're pre-planned health issues. Now, we have a fairly generous sick time policy at work. We 'earn' 4 hours of sick time each pay period. More or less we get a sick day each month. I have co-workers that have banked well over 400 hours of sick time. That's months of time off. That really shouldn't be looked at as unusual though, as what happens if you have a sudden heart surgery? That's months of recovery and rehabilitation before you can return to work. Well, primarily because of my migraines I am always bouncing on 0 hours. I try to balance it out by 'asking' my supervisor if I can have time off for a doctors appointment or such so that I can feel better about using annual leave, but honestly I use way more sick time than I earn.
I don't know how I feel about that though. I don't sandbag. If I can work, I work. If I can't, I don't. In addition to my general practitioner and dentist, I have an optometrist, an endocrinologist, and a neurologist. So, I have more doctors appointments than the average bear. I can say they are all worth it as they are hopefully preventing me from calling in with other health issues, especially the neurologist.
A thought just hit me... maybe this feels worse because of the doctors appointments. When I was working at my previous job I worked every 5th weekend, so every 4th and 5th week I'd have an extra day off. I scheduled my doctors visits on those. The job before that I worked every other weekend, so I could schedule weekday visits every single week. And even up until this time last year, I started my work day at 1000 or 1100, so I could schedule an early morning appointment and use maybe an hour of sick time if any at all. Yeah, that's not all of it, but that might be a big chunk of why I feel I'm burning through so much sick time. Add in an increased frequency of migraines (that hopefully the increased depakote will fix) and that's my extra 'lost' time.
Anywho, if I didn't explain earlier, lost time is when you go down to 0 in leave and simply do not earn money. It's a quick and easy way for HR and the Warden's office to see who is 'slacking' as they're gone too much of the time. My HUM called me out saying that because I dipped into lost time the Warden was 'pissed'. Well... fuck him. If he wants to be pissed, he can just sit in his piss and be a pissy little baby. I could NOT be at work due to sick reasons and was in such a state that I exceeded the amount of sick time the state has arbitrarily deemed appropriate. If he has another solution, I'm all ears, but it's not like somone found out and had to report me... I self reported this on my time sheet. I could have just used annual leave and no one would have been the wiser.
So... fuck him.
The only real health issue was a migraine last week. I mention it not to keep track, but to say that it resolved in the same day it started and that's unusual. It started with me being incredibly tired the previous day/evening. I fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV and slept there for about 3 hours, then had a good 4 hours of further sleep in bed. 7 might not sound like much, but I'm normally between 4 and 6, and all of that is normally in my bed.
The next morning I had a mild headache, but on the drive to work I knew it would be bad. The sun was particularly painful. When I got to work I didn't even turn the lights on in my office and just worked in the dark as the migraine got worse. Headache, light sensitivity, sound sensitivity... but no loss of concentration. At least not a bad loss of concentration (let's face it, it's hard to judge when one of the symptoms is an inability to judge things!). Anyway, I was considering if it was bad enough to go home but it hovered at that point and didn't get worse. By the time I got to the end of the day it was actually improving and it was gone by the end of the day.
I've had migraines fully express themselves in a single day before, but its rare. This one just so happened after starting the increased dose of depakote so I naturally think that might have been part of it. But you never know... it might have just been a rare mild migraine.
Finances
I had a good pay period. I technically 'get paid' on Thursdays. That's when the money is deposited into my account. With my current schedule, I don't have the time to do my finances that morning, so I just wait until Saturdays. I keep a spreadsheet with all my bills on it, and account for every single penny spent. Not cash, but I don't spend a lot of cash these days.
Before all this COVID craziness, I kept an 'extra' balance of around $1000. All the rest of my money went to paying off credit cards or put into a savings account for later larger purchases. The $1000 was 'spending' money if I needed it as I only rarely got close to that number. I have an Amazon credit card for their purchases because I get 5% back in Amazon credit and so long as I pay it off each month, there's no interest.
Well, COVID changed a lot. First, I put a LOT on the Amazon card and couldn't afford to pay it off. I'm now paying like 24% interest on its balance. I also didn't move the money out of my account keeping myself at $1000. I figured I didn't know exactly what expenses would be, even with the spreadsheet, so I needed to keep it all available.
Well, I've now been back 'home' for long enough for my accounts to settle out from living away and all of those bills are in the past. I am right now sitting at $4000 extra in my account, $300 in my savings, a balance of $2300 on the Amazon card and a balance of $5800 on my primary Visa. The 'Visa' is from my credit union, has a very reasonable interest rate, has a $10,000 limit, and is where I put almost all of my 'big' purchases. I pay it off with a monthly payment of $200 and some 'extra' every few months. Normally this is where the stimulus money would have gone and/or my tax refund. The Amazon card, before this got paid off each pay period, so I didn't have a planned payment. But now, since I'm trying to pay it off fairly quickly, it's getting $200 a pay period. $400 a month.
Now, I could slip $3000 from my primary account into my savings. And yes, if that number sounds familiar, it's the $3000 down payment I had thought of for a winter beater. I could save that money for some big upcoming purchase. OR... I could pay off my Amazon card and still have money left over. That would actually save me on interest and could save me on monthly bills. Looking back, I put between $100 and $200 on my Amazon card each pay period. It only rarely exceeds the $200 (I think that's where I came up with the $200 payment each pay period). It would also free up the credit to be used if I need it, but it has a $5000 limit leaving me with over $2500 free credit right now.
Before COVID, this would be an easy decision. Pay off the credit card. But it struck me this morning and I couldn't pull the trigger. I don't know why. It's not like I want/need the money for a down payment on a car as I'm 99% sure at this point that I won't get one. Being home reminded me that if it's bad, I can always borrow Mom's Escape. I'd like to think that I'll be reasonable and just pay off the card as I don't need the cash... but that will be for future me to decide.
Oh, and speaking of down payments on a car, one thing I think about a lot is how underwater I am on Nina. Now, I try to keep in mind that I brought in $6000 of debt with Isabella's lease and paid around $2000 or $3000 on a warranty, so that's $9000 more than sticker that I paid. But here's my current details:
The current payoff on Nina is $41,599.69
Kelly Blue Book trade in value on Nina is $33,178
(KBB values include current mileage, all options, claiming its in Very Good condition, and is the middle of the range they give)
That's $8,421.69 extra I owe. BUT... take out the extra debt I brought from the lease and the warranty, and Nina's value is right about even with what I owe. I think this is GREAT news with the miles I have on the car. A 2019 Mustang with 39,000 miles still worth thirty three grand! That's past the bumper to bumper warranty which is always a big drop in value. I can only hope that the value drops slower than my monthly payment. I won't update this on every update post, but I'll try to keep track of it.
Family/Friends
R got his first Pfizer vaccination and felt sick and worn down the next day. I hate to be 'that guy' but YAY! I'm not the only one to get sick!
B is getting used to working full time. His schedule kind of sucks though... 6 days on then 2 days off. It rotates so that every 6 weeks he has 4 days off in a row, but they're in the middle of the week. It feels strange after living closely with him for a year that I now hardly ever see him. He was working only working one or two days a week. He gets home from work around 830 pm. By the time he showers and gets his dinner ready, I'm ready for bed. Not bad a couple times a week, but now I see him just enough to say hi, and a bit later, good night.
We did actually get to play Dungeons and Dragons this past weekend. Even before COVID there has always been problems getting us all together for a D&D session. There's Me, my brother B, my nephews J and Z, and my brother's friend E. With my Monday through Friday supervisor position, I'm really only available on Friday night, Saturday, or Sunday. B's schedule was really all over the place. E is recently retired from the military and going to school. He also has a family with two young kids (J and Z are both now over 18 for comparison) which adds a complex schedule to work around J and Z weren't working, so we only had to work around their school schedules, which was fine because it matched my schedule.
Then COVID hit. The first big thing was actually my schedule changing. Working early in the morning made it so I couldn't stay up late. We used to have sessions run until 2 or 3 in the morning, but now I wanted to tap out at 10 at night. Then, after a couple COVID sessions, the quarantines and lock downs started. With B's and my work we all thought it best to just not get together. We both carried to much risk of getting it and spreading it to the full group.
I think our last session was about this time last year. April. We did have a couple sessions while we were at my cousin's house (they've now moved in, put new floors in, painted the walls... it's their house in my mind and no longer my aunt's), but looking back the last one of those was in October.
Now, I'm the DM (Dungeon Master) of this current campaign. I have the guys on an adventure of clearing out a house. They're still fairly low level so it's just full of misshaped missized animals. A huge octupus, a herd of tiny horses... stuff like that. They entered the house in April of 2020. They cleared out about half of it by October of 2020. And now we should be able to finish it.
One big thing was E deciding he wanted another character. To be fair, B and I were pushing him to change characters. He was playing a Kender (if you've ever read Dragonlance, you know how annoying that race is) and doing it well. He was VERY annoying and really disrupting the group. So, I built into this adventure a point where he could come in as a new character and told him that I'd get rid of his old one. Yeah... I was going to kill him off. He just wasn't going to be allowed to come back.
I had a big reveal at the end of this house as a rival group they'd fought against several times was there and that was the big fun event. At the end of it, whether the rival group was winning or losing, one member of the rival group would dramatically kill off E's old character, steal a special item from him (all the characters have these items and they're crucial to the whole campaign), and run away.
It was all going well until nine thirty rolled around and I started getting tired. Then ten o'clock. Then eleven. I was beyond tired, but really REALLY wanted to get past this one dramatic point. It not only would be a good finale for the night of playing, it would make it easy to remember where we left off the next time we played.
I thought we were a couple rounds of play to go, but I'd been thinking that for a half hour and we weren't closer. After my nephew did something that pissed me off, I decided to end the night. Understand, I knew he wasn't really pissing me off, it was just me being tired. I had hit the wall and needed the night to end or I'd be the one to screw up the campaign. So I decided to storytell the last bit of the fight. Instead of everybody saying what they did, rollng the dice, and going through the motions, I took over and told them what hapened. No dice, no initiative, no direct action from them... just me taking over and killing one of the characters.
Yeah, that went over horribly. No one liked it, everybody was pissed as they wanted to play it out differently, or ask how it happened... it was a stupid idea. I should have just written down the details of where we were and picked it back up the next time with the big reveal at the beginning of the next adventure. I think the biggest thing going against that was time. Even though we're now comfortable getting together, we know it will be another month and a half before we can do it again. We've gone that long before, but there's no chance of it happening earlier now. If we can't do it in a month and a half, we're screwed for another month and a half. Still... I should have been patient.
My bad. It was still fun though.
Work
Man, work has been tough. I mean, two weeks of tough. I start the day with the idea of getting a task or two done. I'm not being ambitious with these tasks. I'm not even being reasonable... these tasks should take an hour or two. But each and every single day I barely get TO those tasks.
The two biggest contributors to this nightmare are COVID vaccines and the schedule. The vaccines just take so damned long and we're giving out HUNDREDS!! And the schedule, which isn't easy to begin with, is made just that much harder as we're losing nurses left and right. Two went down with positive COVID tests. One went down with a relative getting a positive test. Another is just sick and calls in a lot, while another two are away on medical (surgeries). We have two nurses on loan to another facility with one transferring permanently and the other being guilted into staying longer than he intended.
The way all of these absences show up for me is empty shifts. We have a critical level of staffing we need to maintain so when there is an empty shift, I have to offer that shift up as overtime. If no one volunteers for the overtime, I will mandate that shift to someone. The rules for mandating used to be through the union contract but are now set up by the state's civil service commission. The rules are basic, but at least easy to follow.
They're easy to follow when I need to mandate one, two or even three nurses. In the past three days, however, I've had to mandate thirteen. THIRTEEN NURSES! Each time a shift goes up like this, I have to call all the volunteers to give them a last chance to pick it up. Sometimes they do, but thirteen times in the last few days they didn't. I swear, people are now avoiding me. They won't answer my calls.
And I swear, at least twice when I thought I had everything lined up and ready to go, I got a call with someone calling off for their shift or saying they couldn't come in for their scheduled shifts a few days out... meaning there was more empty shifts, meaning more calls to volunteers, meaning more mandated shifts. One nurse, who has a family member that tested positive and therefore can't come to work for the next 24 days, had five shifts over the next three days to cover. FIVE!!!!
I haven't left work in a good mood for weeks now. I get home emotionally worn out and dread going into work. And it's not like I can complain about it as who would listen? The nurses I'm mandating? I'd be crying about making them work shifts they don't want to work. I won't get a sympathetic ear there. My boss? She just needs the shifts covered so she can focus on her tasks. Oh, and she needs me to get all my other tasks done. And not call in sick myself.
It's bad. I keep thinking I'm seeing an end to all this shit on the horizon, but the light at the end of the tunnel just keeps turning into an oncoming train that rolls me over again.
Entertainment
So, last weekend I was sitting at the computer trying to find something to do. I had written about a page of my new story, but kept coming up against a problem. Am I writing about dull details that should just be cut, or are these details the ones that make the story fun?
Anyway, I sat on youtube letting it find videos for me. I'm not exactly sure when, but I recently turned off auto play so at the end of each video it will show a dozen or so videos that I can click on next. At one point I clicked on a clip from Mad Men as I loved that show. I didn't watch it on its first run but soon after it ended I watched it from episode one to the finale in one fell swoop (it took months!). That led to another clip. Then another. Then another. Soon, every single recommendation was either another clip from Mad Men or a video ABOUT Mad Men.
I looked around as it seemed obvious I should just re-watch the whole show. It's currently streaming on IMDB TV, but that has commercials and I hate commercials. So I looked at purchasing it. Most places had the whole series at $69.99, but the Microsoft store had it on sale at $34.99. Sadly, Mad Men isn't part of the Movies Anywhere system meaning it would ONLY be available on Microsoft and I prefer to use Google Play Movies and/or YouTube. The price difference was enough to make me pause though as it reminded me I'd be paying nearly $100 for a show I'd already watched.
That lasted a day. I'm now almost done with the first season. What a GREAT show. Oh, and while I was a fan of redheads and secretaries before I watched Mad Men, Joan as the redheaded secretary is like a femme dream for me! GOD I'd love to be her!
I haven't got any new songs except for the Mad Men theme (A beautiful Mine).
I was going to write about my story, but I think I'll put that into its own post. Ta Ta!
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