Showing posts with label Work.... Show all posts
Showing posts with label Work.... Show all posts

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Disturbing news

At 6:30 am the temp was 58 degrees...the sky was pretty dark.  The house was showing about 58 degrees as well, even though I had dropped the windows before we went to bed.  Might have been a touch warmer if I hadn't left the front door open so the dogs could hang out on the front screened porch.  Such is life. 

Mojo enjoys the porch more than the other two and if he wouldn't think I was mad at him, I would close the door and let him stay out there  But, if the door is closed, he thinks he's being punished, so for now I'm leaving it open.

Hubby came home with a bit of disturbing news last night...today might very well be his last day on his job.  Seems he has finally come to realize what I've been seeing with this job.  When he was hired in it was as mechanic/driver.  The owner was wanting to retire out and had sold the company to another on payments.  When that deal seemed to fall through, the old owner took the reins back.  This was just after the accident with hubby and the oldest boy being run over.  The old owner was aware of hubby's physical condition and asked him to come back and work for him.  In the first few months, the old owner wasn't pushing him to do things outside his limits...but as time has passed, now he's pushed hubby to his limit.  He knew hubby wasn't to be lifiting, and also the climbing on the truck to tarp the load was just more of a physical job than hubby could handle.  They installed a motorized tarp rack on the truck he normally drove...life was ok.

Now it seems they want him to play laborer, constant bending, dragging and tossing.  As well as putting him in one of the trucks that not only bounces and jars his body, but is one he has to climb on to tarp again.  He's been in pretty intense pain from this for the past week.  Yesterday was his final straw.  When he said something about the new driver giving his truck back, the owner informed him that it wasn't his truck.

I'm pretty bent over the entire situation since it has cost us money for hubby to work for this group since year one.  He has not been holding taxes...which makes hubby a self employed sub-contractor...and with no expenses, we get hit for the full amount.  Hubby has stuck with this company because "..... is a good person".  Yeah, well honey, I hate to say I told you so, but I've seen the kind of 'good' person this man isn't. 

When hubby was sent home the other week 'because the permits aren't ready'...he had already been at work for almost four hours...because the boss's daughter is the one cutting payroll, she didn't deem it necessary to pay him for that day at all.  Just lots of things that have rubbed me the wrong way, especially lately with them.  When hubby only worked 13 days in August...the boss's kids who also work there, were still drawing their full paychecks of over a thousand bucks a week.  We were the ones who did without cash several weekends as the daughter didn't bother to let him know he could pick up his check after having a short week.  He was given days off because 'we just don't have the work' and then getting a phone call on Sunday night to let him know there was work Monday, with the little side remark 'you know your paycheck is at the office right?'  This after being told they didn't have the money for payroll the last day they worked.  GGGRRRR  This makes me insane.

Yet in spite of all this hubby has remained loyal to this group.  During the past five years that he has been with them, even after the accident, he has missed less than two weeks work in that entire time.  Yeah, it might take him twice as long doing heavy mechanic work as it once did and he might have to have a helper depending on what he's working on, but he's there on time every day and works at whatever they've asked.  The mechanicing he's done has saved them thousands of dollars as he's been doing this type of work his entire adult life.  He can work on heavy equipement and the semi tractors as well...re-building big engines is something he once enjoyed immensely, but has to have help with now.  Since he's been working for a flat per day fee, whether he works a few hours or the entire eight hours he was being paid for the full day....until the daughter began doing payroll.  Now it seems that they are trying to push him to work ten hour days for the same pay at times...which doesn't set well with me, or wanting him to work Saturdays and then conveniently 'forgetting' to put the extra day in his pay.  I've been ready to raise hell with them for over a year now and this is just the final straw in my book.  Makes me fighting mad when people take advantage of my husband.

So last night when hubby came home he made the statement 'you might need to go find a job'...HUH?!!  That was when he began telling me about what has been going on with the new driver taking over his truck.  He has only mentioned it a couple of times in the past few weeks and I had already told him he needed to speak with his boss about it and let him know that what he was being asked to do was creating physical issues again..  But for the boss to inform him, after referring to this semi as hubby's truck, that 'it isn't YOUR truck...that ticked hubby off.  It takes alot to really push my husband to the point of quitting a job he enjoys.  Since he began working at 16, he's held only four jobs....all of them mechanic related and the current job he went and upgraded to a CDL license so he could get away from the mechanicing. 

When he told me last night I should go get a job, my response was 'we better start getting things dealt with here and begin downsizing our junk so we can head to the mountain...I'm not working in this state again'.  Don't know what he thought about that, but the way the work is going around here, we can do better working for ourselves.  Why work for minimum wage when we can work together and make the same as what's being earned by him right now...usually more in fewer days?  We used to enjoy working together and for a couple of years prior to him working at his current job, we were doing pretty good working for ourselves.

I'm ready to take the leap and head to the mountain...things can only get better from this point on.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

GRRRRRR....wages, work, worry

Minor weather from Ike is expected today as the storm moves into the Gulf. Currently its a sticky 78 degrees...very cloudy and overcast at the moment. I've got the door open and the fans on for now...we've been having to run the A/C night and day due to the high temps and humidity...feels nice to just have the fans on right now.

After sitting here all weekend with no cash, hubby finally got paid for last week....but not his full pay...seems the boss's daughter didn't deem it necessary to pay him for the FULL day he worked on Saturday last week....and then of course this past Friday he was sent home due to the boss's son having the entire shop garage full of his toys so hubby had no place to do HIS job....
We can't continue to survive on this type of crap. Last month, hubby only worked 13 days...because his boss didn't have the money to pay him...this month is beginning the same way. Friday he was told they didn't have the cash to pay him...but they'd make sure he got money by Tuesday. Yippee, skippee...bet the son and daughter drew THEIR full paychecks. Just really on my last nerve with this crap. The daughter has played this game before with one of the other guys...but, hubby doesn't work for the daughter, he works for the FATHER...and in my mind, if he isn't going to get paid for being there, then he might as well stay home.

I'm so upset over this I can't see straight!!!! Hubby's words this morning were 'oh, its ok, no need to be upset...its not like there's other jobs out there right now'....GRRRRRRRRRR, my response..'so because jobs are slow or unavailable, you should get screwed out of pay?...they should think they have you over a barrel because jobs around here are scarce???' I'm ready to go to the shop and give every last one of them a major piece of my mind. We are struggling to make ends meet and now we should live on less? I know what the son and daughter are being paid, and I also know that both of them live way outside their paychecks...but for them to think that my husband should be happy to have a job and work basically for nothing so they can continue to lay out and sleep on the job while they draw over a grand a week...oh HELL NO!!

Looks like we shall be having a major go round now. They don't hold taxes and now they think they are going to monopolize his time for pennies. I'm about to go redneck on someone's ass.
Good thing he didn't say anything last night or we'd have been scrapping for sure....he waited until this morning, just seconds before he left for work, to give me less than half of his normal pay to make a deposit. I'm pissed...no ifs ands or buts about it.

We were discussing the camper we looked at over the weekend, again last night. After going through one of the RV trader magazines, I finally got him to understand that this camper is priced pretty reasonable....I'd like to look at it again, inside and make the guy an offer...let's see what he'll take...he's asking $6500, which isn't bad, its a 1998...a new one, similar size, make, can be bought for double that...figure offer the person $5000 for it and see what he says...hey, if it can be got for less, might as well go for it. We can always work it back higher if need be. But I do want to see it inside first.

While in the RV trader, we also ran across a nice 2008 model, 7000 watt DIESEL generator for $750...gave that person a call and it turns out they aren't that far...ok, about an hour's drive away....but they are a company that sells these generators....this is the same price as the smaller generators are being sold for and this is an 'industrial' model....
Right now, from what they said, they are delivering a truck load of these to Louisiana and will be back sometime around the middle of next week. This generator is capable of handling quite a bit, so we will definitely be going to check it out in person. We've been talking about one like this for the mountain property anyway and with this price, its a great deal. The entire cabin (future) would be able to be run with this one. We've been discussing using solar panels for hot water and such anyway and other alternatives for power....still in the planning stage, but might as well use what's best, rather than continue being slaves to the utility company.

For the time, living in a camper is looking better and better. At least it would be paid for and the property is almost paid off...fuel and food would be about it...oh, and taxes of course...can't live without taxes...hahaha