I only have 3 vacation days left

And I didn't use them for fun things. I was so sick last week that I missed Thursday and Friday. I did come to work Monday but I almost left at lunch because I was still feeling bad. I didn't feel better until Wednesday. I think that was the first day that I didn't sleep almost 10 hours either.

I don't have anything planned for the days, mainly because I don't have any money, so it's not a huge deal that I don't have a lot of days left. It's just nice to be able to randomly schedule a day or two off and be able to sleep in and watch tv all day long.

This year sure has sped on by.

I still have 5 vacation days left

Or in other words, a cool week. In a way I wish we could sell the days back like at some companies. I don't have any plans and I really don't need the time off. I also have a ton of work and I really need something to keep me busy.

But don't worry. I will surely take those 5 days off and be a happy camper. The only thing I really need to decide is whether I want to take it as an entire week or if I want to break it up and take a day here and there.

Either way, it's time off that I'm really looking forward to.

My vacation was great

I didn't go anywhere and it felt great. Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to have gone on a "real" vacation again this year. But that's what happens when you don't plan and execute. I knew I wanted to go on vacation and I knew it was coming up. However, I didn't save anything for it and once it got here I knew it was not economically feasible for me to go.

I did have plans to do a quick baseball trip but my car decided it wasn't going to cooperate. Also there used to be bus service to the city I wanted to go to. They have subsequently discontinued that route from my city. The only way to go besides flying, which was way too expensive, was to take 2 buses. That would have turned a 8 or so hour trip into over 15 hours. Hmmmm no thanks.

I probably won't start saving for next years vacation until after January and I close on my house. At least if I start putting something away I may be able to do a really quick getaway. Sometimes that's all we need.

So I'm not going anywhere

And I wrote things that suck but it certainly does. I'm not going anywhere this year. Ughh. I have another mini-vacation coming up but that's in late Fall. It will also be crunch time to buying my house so I doubt if I'll have a large outlay of cash coming out of my account.

When I worked a job that made a lot less money I seemed to have much more money for travel. Now I make a decent amount more and I don't have anything extra. This bites!

My last post sounds like sour grapes

And in a way it is. I gave someone a heads up on a job and they aced the interview and got the job. It was a job that I really wanted so I was bummed out to not get it. The kicker is that the person is now looking for a new job because she doesn't like it anymore. To be honest, she never liked it but she recently completed her 1 year job requirement and she graduated from school.

There is someone else that I know that is looking for a job and if I can help her I will. But if it's a job that we're both competing for, I won't give her any heads-up about anything. If that sounds like sour grapes then so be it. I won't give away another job like that again.

I won't give anyone a heads up on a job again

Basically a friend got a job over me. I was more qualified than she is but she gave a better interview. The reason? Because I told her every interview question ahead of time. While I had to think on my feet and not have a good experience, she was able to coast through and seem like a dream to the manager.

She caught on to the job and is progressing nicely. She's also leaving in a month so they still need someone to fill the spot. I will not apply and interview for the job again. Although she's doing a good job now, I already knew how to do the job. Now instead of having someone that would have stayed for several years, they got one and done.

It worked out for her and not for me. But if someone else is in competition with me for a job again, I will not hand them the job over me. Not again.

Why I stayed so long at my last job Part II

I just realized that I wrote this post months ago and never posted it. Better late than never I guess.

After staying at my job for 1 year and waiting for the perfect opportunity for another year I decided enough was enough.

Nothing was happening for me so I started to apply for any and everything. If I met the qualifications I applied. But now I was dealing with a post-merger company. The company was bought didn't have a lot of turn-over in their positions but they adapted to our culture really fast. Since most of them had been in their positions for years, they were considered better candidates. There was also the "we already know who we're hiring, but we have to post the job anyway" syndrome. It was bad.

I had to fight for another 2 years before I got the job that I have now. Out of all of the jobs that I applied for, I only had about 5 interviews. One job I lost to a friend, on a side note I'll never tell anyone else about the interview to give them a leg up on me again. Another job they wanted someone who would stay long term and they could tell that I would move on. The other jobs just went with better candidates. It was an extremely frustrating process.

Now I'm in a good place with a job that I think has a lot of potential for growth and that makes me very happy.

Why I stayed so long at my last job Part I

A lot of my friends ask why I stayed so long at my last job if I didn't like it. It wasn't for lack of trying to leave either.

When I first started my last job the requirement was 6 months before you could leave for a new job. In my 3rd or 4th month they changed it to 1 year. Instead of fighting to get out, which I should have done, I decided to tough it out for the full year.

After the year was up, I only posted for jobs that I really wanted. I wasn't competing against a lot of people but some of them had much more experience than I did. So it was a tough road but I wasn't discouraged. After 6 months or so I had only applied for 4 or 5 jobs.

To be continued.....

I'm settling in nicely at my new job

Whenever you go to a new job there is a learning curve. My curve seemed steep because what I'm doing is new but it wasn't that steep at all now that I think about it.

I don't want to make it seem like I'm totally okay just yet but I have to say that I'm settling in quite nicely. The new area is pretty quiet but it's also pretty loose. There are some people that stay to themselves and some that love to talk to anyone that will listen which is right up my alley.

All in all I like it and I can see my staying for a while. That is in stark contrast to my last job where I didn't like it from the first week.

Going through growing pains at work

It's always a challenge learning something new. Especially when it's totally outside the realm of what you already know. Right now I'm just trying to hang on and keep my head above water with everything that I'm learning. If I fall behind, I don't see any way to catch up.

On the positive side, it's a positve learning experience and there is plenty of room to grow. Or I could just wait until my year is over and move on. Either way, it's up up up I go.

I'm still job hunting

I have 2 jobs in the pipeline that I'm currently working. I don't really think I have a shot a either job but for various reasons.

Job 1 - there is another equally qualified candidate that I know the manager is looking at. She's a networker/brown noser which helps her. Don't get me wrong, she is qualified. I just think her people will help her.

Job 2 - is only 1 grade higher than where I am. My salary is currently at a level 2 grades above where I am. I don't think this new job will want to pay my salary when they can get someone for a few thousand dollars less than I'm already making. I've already decided that if this job offers me even a minimal raise, I'll take the job to learn new skills as well as raise my profile.

Hopefully I'll hear something within the next week. The waiting really is the worse thing.

Boo hoo Overtime is over

It happened so unexpectedly too. I knew it was coming to an end because my coworker told me that our manager had been hinting around to it. Then one day we came to work and were told that as of Friday, there was no more overtime. This happened on a Tuesday. Luckily I was hadn't planned on any more overtime so I was good. At one point I was living to make the overtime but I think I got burned out.

We may have more overtime at the end of the year but I wouldn't count on it. To be perfectly honest, I hope I've found another job and won't be in this area to worry about overtime. I'm just glad it lasted as long as it did.

My project is finally over

I never thought it would end. I've been working on a several month long project that was a killer. Towards the end, my manager decided that they wanted it done sooner rather than later. So they threw 2 extra people to help me out with a 3rd doing minor work. Instead of taking another 3-4 weeks, we finished up yesterday.

Now I'm working on a normal work project that will take 2-3 weeks. No rushing and no one breathing down my neck. Just working at my own pace and getting my work done which is just the way I like it.

Still waiting

Ughhh I haven't heard anything from any of the jobs that I applied for. I've applied for several jobs both internally and externally. There is one job that I really want. It's in my field but again someone with the right degree can trump me. I've also noticed that managers tend to look at my current job and not my previous jobs which is where most of my experience lies.

The job that I really want is at a great company with a wonderful culture. I've heard nothing but great things about the company in general. It's only been 2 weeks so I'll wait another week or two before I throw in the towel.

Fingers crossed that something good happens soon.

Applying for a new job

I just applied for a new job. That's nothing new because I've been applying for several months now (actually a lot longer but I won't go into that). This job is different because it's a semi-good fit but it's external.

It's only a semi-good fit because I have the knowledge that they want but I don't have the degree that they want. I do have a degree just not in their preferred field. This is such a tough job market that people with Master's degrees are taking what are normally entry level jobs so I'm not holding my breath to get a call.

The external part does worry me a tad bit. I'm used to the corporate culture where I work and the thought of going to another company does scare me a tiny bit. But at the same time, I refuse to just sit back and stay at a job that isn't offering me anything. I may not get another job any time soon but it sure won't be for lack of trying.

Should I reapply or not?

I really don't know. I applied for a job that I didn't get. I interviewed for it and everything but the hiring manager went with another candidate.

Now I found out that the department has more openings and they're hiring several more people. The only problem is that the job is several grades higher than the last job. There is always the possibility that the manager can offer me the job at the lower level but I don't know if I should apply or not.

I didn't get the job the last time but that doesn't mean that I won't get it this time. There is also the possibility that my application won't get forwarded because it's such a high jump. I'll probably go ahead and apply and let the chips fall where they may.

I hate when I have to compete with friends for something

Especially a job like I'm doing right now. There are 3 people from my area and 1 person from down the hall that all had interviews for 1 job. The question though is how do they decide between the 4 of us? We all have similar skills and similar backgrounds. Although I know that I have a skill set that 2 of them don't have and I know the other candidate is really strong in a area where the 3 of us lack.

I haven't even considered that they still have more people to interview. The next few weeks should be very interesting to say the least.

I need 1 more large paycheck

We've had overtime available for the past few months. I didn't jump on the bandwagon until late because I didn't want to start depending on the money. Instead I've been paying extra on a bill to get it paid off sooner and adding money to my savings account for my house purchase. I've also started saving 10% of my overtime money in a separate account just to add to my savings.

If we work at least 2 more weeks of overtime, I'll be in a very good position to pay my loan off earlier than expected. If not, I'll still be on track to pay it off but paying extra is the goal. Of course, anything over 2 additional weeks of overtime will just be gravy.

I'm sitting here pretending to work

I've been away from work for 2 weeks. Unfortunately, it was because of a death in the family and not for anything fun. Today is my first day back at work and I haven't done any work all day. For the next day and a half, I'll just be here getting used to being back at work, answering coworkers questions about why I was off, and taking care of personal stuff that needs to get done.

Maybe by Wednesday I'll be ready to start actually working and stop wasting time. If not, then I'm totally fine with waiting until Thursday. With deadlines looming early next week, I can't afford to wait much longer than that.

I can not wait to get paid

I get paid every two weeks but it seems like I haven't been paid in forever. This is a 3 paycheck month so the weeks seem extra long even though I know it's the same amount of time between pay days.

I have a lot of plans for my next couple of pays which is one of the reasons I'm so anxious to get my hands on the money. I want to pre-pay one of my bills because I like to have a little bit of breathing room. I'm also looking into adding some bullion or a coin or two to my investment portfolio. I feel like gold is a great investment right now. Especially since it's on a recent tear. The best part is I don't have to buy any kind of fund to invest. I can get a real piece of gold in my hands.

When you consider that diversification is the key to any well rounded portfolio, I'll never doubt my decision to add gold to my personal holdings.