I did it. I picked a career path.
Writer.
And being a writer means not being in Public Relations, it means being an administrative assistant in Public Relations. It means having BIG IDEAS, but filtering them through your boss because you are just the admin. It means going home at five more nights than not and not thinking about work after you push the button in the elevator to take you from the floor.
Unless it is the day you got your job offer, like today is for me. I’ve been crunching numbers all day. Is the offer enough for me to survive? Yes, of course I can survive. Is it enough for me to thrive? For me to get rid of my consumer debt AGAIN.
One problem of being temp-to-perm is that in the to-perm part is a GIANT fee to the temp agency. That fee is 15% where I temp, so my salary is 15% less than they can afford. The good things are that if my start date is July 29, my health insurance starts on (drum roll) AUGUST ONE!!! Hooray! I can stop paying $300 out of my nose every month for COBRA to a job I left well over a year ago. Also–vacation starts immediately, I get two personal days, sick time, and even one summer balance day.
So next Friday when I go to my (slightly dreaded) Terre Haute South Class of 95 ten year reunion, I’ll BE PAID!!! I haven’t had paid time off in over a year–can you beleive it? I’ll be able to go to Israel this spring AND GET PAID FOR IT! I’ll get paid holidays and… DIRECT DEPOSIT!!! No more trying to get to the damn bank every fucking week… No more running out of deposit slips after one month.
I just have to remember how to budget. I’ll have to put the MasterCard back in the freezer like I did when I lived in Ukrainian Village. I told Ronnie that part of my stress is that I feel like I’m preparing my finances now for marraige. I want to take a clean financial slate into my marraige–no consumer debt, just my mortgage, my student loans, a comfy retirement, and my high FICO score.
If I was a 27 year old renter, this offer would have looked like a gold mine–or at least a down payment on a condo. Now it looks like, “cut out the cofee shop, take your lunch, find a new stylist, do your own manicure” kind of offer.
But can I survive–of course I can.
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