Let's All Take Turns As the "I" in TEAM

Time is scarce. I work a lot, take care of the kids and now we've even thrown in research on buying and selling homes. Sorry about the neglect but the universe has not shifted and the blog is not at the center of the swirling mass.

I finally had my "training and orientation" at the furniture store job today. After three weeks of working they officially showed my how to use industrial equipment like forklifts, including the terminology like "load center" and "stability triangle," and then they made me sign a paper promising never to operate machinery I haven't been trained on. Starting..... NOW!

Orientation was difficult. I almost made several outbursts and was constantly laughing into my shoulder. It was a strange combination of warehouse dudes and salesmen. The salesmen had NO sense of humor. I thought orientation would make me excited about work, as this is where jobs usually describe in great detail all the ways that they are going to take care of you. But it was just a lot of talk about how "Big Brother is watching" and telling us not to do all the things my bosses do. They won't tolerate harassment, they say, as I described for you earlier.

The health "benefits" are $400 per month. There is no company stock plan unless you want to invest in Warren Buffet, who owns this and many, many other companies. They mentioned the 401k several times over 3.5 hours and in the final minutes I asked what percentage the company matched. The HR lady intentionally coughed as she responded, "Thrrr...percent."

I asked, "Thirty percent?"

"THREE percent." She said.

And then all the salesmen agreed that only some fantasy employer would ever give you a 30% match. It was EVERYTHING I could do not to say, "They sure use a lot of paper and pamphlets to describe such lousy, lousy benefits."

I put my soul into ruin at my desk job. I'm willing to grind my body to dust moving furniture. And I'm not sure what I will have left to work with after that... but I was willing to go on with this for my personal cause. But now I think I finally agree with my wife that I can do better. I was sorely disappointed in my coworkers that none of them thought of these benefits as horrible. Even the store discount was "cost plus 22%." Costco won't mark up ANYTHING over 14% above cost. Makes me want to put a baggie over my hand before I pick up my company discount and put it in the trash.

My coworkers were even annoyed with me for asking questions. They wanted to go home. I wanted to know how my employer was going to take care of my family. I don't mind being the "i" in team but I think it should look more like: Team! (with the "i" inverted)

Back to the grindstone. The fact that the mortgage-man looked at our credit (even with my work history over the past four months) and approved us for $50,000 MORE than what we were approved for when we bought our current house just makes me think lenders are careless and desperate. So maybe we're all in it together.