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teddy_radiatorWhen we last met, dear reader, I had just been offered a job, and realised I'd been a bit conned because they never mentioned it was a temp job until they offered it to me. Well, I turned them down.
The good news is that the next day, I was contacted by the company I wanted to work with in the first place. I had a video interview on Friday, and I got the job! Full Time, permanent, work from home, benefits, everything!
The only real downer is that the hours aren't exactly what I wanted, but I will have the chance to periodically switch hours. I'll be working 10:30 - 7:30 Monday through Friday. But I'll be home, it will be a reputable company, it's a little more than the first job was paying, I will have regular hours, and TheHubs™ won't have to get back out in the COVID melee. I will actually be making more by myself than we were together earlier this year.
I start training on June 8, and while I'm a little nervous, I'm also quite confident that I can do this. I spent all afternoon Friday filling out paperwork and making sure they had everything they needed, and they are supposed to be sending me equipment to use, so I don't even have to use my own computer. I'm excited, apprehensive, and relieved all at once.
I wrote the first company and told them that, while I was grateful they wanted me, I had originally made it very clear to the recruiter that I was interested only in permanent employment, and I was not comfortable accepting a job which had no guarantees after 90 days. I haven't heard from them, but then again, I probably won't. Irony of ironies, Charter Spectrum finally sent me the new modem and router via FedEx. Good thing I wasn't waiting on them to show up!
TheHubs™ and I are planning on getting the house in order these next couple of weeks - doing a bit of spring cleaning, etc, so that once I start training, which takes two weeks, we can develop a routine that will allow us to stay on top of things. One thing is for certain - we have to get back to walking regularly. Working from home will mean that I won't be moving around as much and that will be bad if I don't do something physical. We are both gaining weight, sitting at home. I confess to baking a good bit of goodies like homemade bread and cookie bars and sweeties. Once we get back to work, I have to nip that in the bud.
For something to do, I planted a bunch of green bell pepper seeds I saved from a pepper, and a few tomato seeds (I just sliced up a tomato and planted the slices). I'm amazed how well they are doing. I planted them in a cardboard egg carton, so I have no idea when to graduate them to a bigger plot, but I am determined to keep them going. I had zero luck with a couple of avocado pits (I once grew a really nice tree from one), and I even threw a few lemon seeds into some dirt to see what would happen. We also grew some cress on a paper towel, and had them with some egg salad (it was yummy), and an old potato TheHubs™ chucked into the ground after it grew some legs was harvested into some small but delicious little salad potatoes. I had planned on having an herb garden this year, but didn't get the supplies before COVID hit and so I'm improvising with what I do have. It's all very Hygge, which I'm trying to adhere to, even during the summer months. Hygge is all well and good during winter when you can be cozy and warm and surrounded by twinkling Christmas lights and sipping hot cocoa. It's a little more challenging to manufacture this time of year.
It sounds like I've been a bit productive, but in reality I haven't been doing that much. I've had zero luck writing lately, and even the uke lessons were off last week. I'm 3/5 the way through the lessons, so I need to get them done before June is out, but I just don't have a lot of creative impetus, beyond food. I bound another book, but I don't have a good cover or the materials for it, so it will have to wait.
My poor hands are turning into mummy's hands from all the washing. I have some pretty good goat milk soap, and it seems to be a good choice, but I'm starting to have a lot of irritation right around my wrists. I guess this is where the skin is stretched and manipulated the most. It's like a burning/itching, but no rash. I think it's just very dry and irritated. I need to find some very good hand cream, I suppose. Any suggestions?
In other news, a friend gave me a really sweet writing desk/chest of drawers, last week. We braved her home, keeping our social distance, and brought it home, where it replaced a couple of cheap old cd cabinets we'd had since we moved in. I think I may allocate it as my note and letter writing/coloring/bookbinding space I need to give it a good going over with some furniture polish, but it doesn't look too bad. As usual, my photography skills are diabolical:
TheHubs™ and I celebrated our 20th anniversary on Friday. We toasted the job news and our anniversary with sparkling grape juice, and I made a lovely roast pork dinner with all the trimmings. He also took a 'Then and Now' photo of us:
The photo on the left is from our wedding. Regarding the one on the right, as I said in my FB post: "Who is that old lady leering behind my beautiful husband?" It's amazing. Twenty years. It seems about like twenty minutes. So many incredible things happened in those 20 years. I'm just so grateful to have him with me, a little older, a little frailer, but still the sweet, lovely guy I married. I'm so proud that I have found a way to ensure he can stay home and away from the risks of this awful sickness.
Here in the south, people are being assholes about wearing masks and treating all of this like they can somehow prevent getting sick just by being defiantly stupid. They've all got this dumbass redneck "There's never been a virus invented that can get me!" mindset, and all the roughing it survivor types are ticked off that they're not getting the 'I'm gonna shoot everybody that don't do what I tell them to/I'm the king of my territory/I'm going to take over and be the boss and y'all are going to be my slaves' apocalypse they were hoping for. We're just staying out of it, and wearing masks even though no one else is. No one. And yet, so far, our little county is managing to stay relatively COVID free according to the daily head count reports. Sadly, those reports seem to support their dumbassery, but I'm not taking any chances.
The good news is that the next day, I was contacted by the company I wanted to work with in the first place. I had a video interview on Friday, and I got the job! Full Time, permanent, work from home, benefits, everything!
The only real downer is that the hours aren't exactly what I wanted, but I will have the chance to periodically switch hours. I'll be working 10:30 - 7:30 Monday through Friday. But I'll be home, it will be a reputable company, it's a little more than the first job was paying, I will have regular hours, and TheHubs™ won't have to get back out in the COVID melee. I will actually be making more by myself than we were together earlier this year.
I start training on June 8, and while I'm a little nervous, I'm also quite confident that I can do this. I spent all afternoon Friday filling out paperwork and making sure they had everything they needed, and they are supposed to be sending me equipment to use, so I don't even have to use my own computer. I'm excited, apprehensive, and relieved all at once.
I wrote the first company and told them that, while I was grateful they wanted me, I had originally made it very clear to the recruiter that I was interested only in permanent employment, and I was not comfortable accepting a job which had no guarantees after 90 days. I haven't heard from them, but then again, I probably won't. Irony of ironies, Charter Spectrum finally sent me the new modem and router via FedEx. Good thing I wasn't waiting on them to show up!
TheHubs™ and I are planning on getting the house in order these next couple of weeks - doing a bit of spring cleaning, etc, so that once I start training, which takes two weeks, we can develop a routine that will allow us to stay on top of things. One thing is for certain - we have to get back to walking regularly. Working from home will mean that I won't be moving around as much and that will be bad if I don't do something physical. We are both gaining weight, sitting at home. I confess to baking a good bit of goodies like homemade bread and cookie bars and sweeties. Once we get back to work, I have to nip that in the bud.
For something to do, I planted a bunch of green bell pepper seeds I saved from a pepper, and a few tomato seeds (I just sliced up a tomato and planted the slices). I'm amazed how well they are doing. I planted them in a cardboard egg carton, so I have no idea when to graduate them to a bigger plot, but I am determined to keep them going. I had zero luck with a couple of avocado pits (I once grew a really nice tree from one), and I even threw a few lemon seeds into some dirt to see what would happen. We also grew some cress on a paper towel, and had them with some egg salad (it was yummy), and an old potato TheHubs™ chucked into the ground after it grew some legs was harvested into some small but delicious little salad potatoes. I had planned on having an herb garden this year, but didn't get the supplies before COVID hit and so I'm improvising with what I do have. It's all very Hygge, which I'm trying to adhere to, even during the summer months. Hygge is all well and good during winter when you can be cozy and warm and surrounded by twinkling Christmas lights and sipping hot cocoa. It's a little more challenging to manufacture this time of year.
It sounds like I've been a bit productive, but in reality I haven't been doing that much. I've had zero luck writing lately, and even the uke lessons were off last week. I'm 3/5 the way through the lessons, so I need to get them done before June is out, but I just don't have a lot of creative impetus, beyond food. I bound another book, but I don't have a good cover or the materials for it, so it will have to wait.
My poor hands are turning into mummy's hands from all the washing. I have some pretty good goat milk soap, and it seems to be a good choice, but I'm starting to have a lot of irritation right around my wrists. I guess this is where the skin is stretched and manipulated the most. It's like a burning/itching, but no rash. I think it's just very dry and irritated. I need to find some very good hand cream, I suppose. Any suggestions?
In other news, a friend gave me a really sweet writing desk/chest of drawers, last week. We braved her home, keeping our social distance, and brought it home, where it replaced a couple of cheap old cd cabinets we'd had since we moved in. I think I may allocate it as my note and letter writing/coloring/bookbinding space I need to give it a good going over with some furniture polish, but it doesn't look too bad. As usual, my photography skills are diabolical:
TheHubs™ and I celebrated our 20th anniversary on Friday. We toasted the job news and our anniversary with sparkling grape juice, and I made a lovely roast pork dinner with all the trimmings. He also took a 'Then and Now' photo of us:
The photo on the left is from our wedding. Regarding the one on the right, as I said in my FB post: "Who is that old lady leering behind my beautiful husband?" It's amazing. Twenty years. It seems about like twenty minutes. So many incredible things happened in those 20 years. I'm just so grateful to have him with me, a little older, a little frailer, but still the sweet, lovely guy I married. I'm so proud that I have found a way to ensure he can stay home and away from the risks of this awful sickness.
Here in the south, people are being assholes about wearing masks and treating all of this like they can somehow prevent getting sick just by being defiantly stupid. They've all got this dumbass redneck "There's never been a virus invented that can get me!" mindset, and all the roughing it survivor types are ticked off that they're not getting the 'I'm gonna shoot everybody that don't do what I tell them to/I'm the king of my territory/I'm going to take over and be the boss and y'all are going to be my slaves' apocalypse they were hoping for. We're just staying out of it, and wearing masks even though no one else is. No one. And yet, so far, our little county is managing to stay relatively COVID free according to the daily head count reports. Sadly, those reports seem to support their dumbassery, but I'm not taking any chances.
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no subject
Date: 2020-05-26 02:54 am (UTC)This is so good! Bravo!. Also, congratulations on your wedding anniversary. It's been a long path you've done together.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-26 03:04 am (UTC)The job is great news; it's so difficult to get anything full-time with benefits these days. And I'm thrilled to hear that you both can stay home.
People in my area are behaving just like yours: refusing to wear masks, refusing to distance, casting their ridiculous defiance as some sort of virtue -- as evidence of bravery or of intense religious faith or as a refusal to give in to "tyranny" (by which they mean any attempt by any government to . . .you know, actually govern for the good of all. Such are the wages of sixty years of relentless Republican undermining of the very notion of "government" at all.) Madness.
My county has had low infection rates so far, too, but of course that won't last. The virus is getting to rural areas more slowly than urban ones. . .but it's getting here. No place is immune, especially now that the American government has abdicated all responsibility and is just letting the virus run rampant, with no attempt at a plan. Other than securing economic protections for the rich and the corporate, they've just turned their backs. Though many people refuse to see it, there's a clear and direct correlation between our government's shameful inaction and the fact that the US, with five percent of the world's population, has a third of the world's deaths.
I will not be glad to see it, but rural areas are going to get their comeuppance, sadly. I have a friend whose family lived in deep woods Appalachia during the 1918 flu pandemic. Their large rural area and small town had virtually no infections in 1918 and 1919 -- but a large proportion of the county, including four of my friend's great-aunts and several cousins, died in 1920, when the flu finally came roaring into town. The same will happen to us who live rurally now. Those of us who are able to distance and stay home will be at an advantage.
So yay for you and your husband, that you will now have the means to protect yourselves!
no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-26 03:35 am (UTC)This is the best hand cream I've used that I was using after handling cardboard and paper and washing my hands working in an Office Max, since my skin was dry and splitting: https://www.target.com/p/gold-bond-ultimate-healing-hand-and-body-lotions-3-fl-oz/-/A-14679563
no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-26 03:50 am (UTC)One of our supermarkets recently had a promotion where they gave you seeds and a tiny planter. Their website has the info on when to move them outside..
no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-26 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-26 05:47 pm (UTC)Twenty years. It seems about like twenty minutes. LOLs about this. I was talking with my daughter the other day--the 'baby' of the family--she turned thirty last year and just had her third baby in March. She was saying how time is going by so fast she can't believe it. I laughed and told her enjoy every minute of your life and your kids because it goes by in the blink of an eye. My late mother in law used to say the older she got the faster the years went by, and I think she was right. When you're five, a year is a fifth of your your life, if feels like forever from one birthday to the next. But when you're forty, fifty, sixty, etc, etc, they seem to come and go faster and faster. LOL!
no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-27 12:59 am (UTC)Smart to get the house sorted so it can run like clockwork when you're in the midst of your new schedule.
You guys are the cutest :D Happy 20th anniversary! That's an awesome milestone - I'm glad you had so much to celebrate!
love you!
no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-27 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-27 06:54 pm (UTC)Hell fecking yeah to the new job!!! I’m so happy for you my dear. I know that is relief of all kinds. I think you and Trev are as adorable as you were 20 years ago. Goodness, and good hearts, are woven into you.
I use Soap and Glory Butter Smoothie something or other on my hands - it’s a body cream but it was made to rescue hands imho. Burts Bees used to make a healing salve before that went mainstream- if you can find it it is gold in a pot.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-27 10:22 pm (UTC)I love it when people take pictures over time.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-02 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-02 02:25 am (UTC)OneSupport and TTEC are hiring lots of work at home people. OneSupport are the ones who offered me temporary work, but some people may only want to do it temporarily. TTEC was interested, but my PC is 6 years old. I had a decent amount of initial response to take things to the next leve, so I know there are legit jobs out there. Lots are in sales, which is something I didn't want, but they pay better.
For someone really serious about applying to work at home, my best advice is to get your internet and equipment in place before you start. Most employers require that your download mbps rate be at least 10-15 and your upload mbps rate be 2-5. They also require you to connect your computer directly to the modem, and not wifi. The legit companies will want to do both a phone and a video interview, so you need some kind of camera, and some type of headset/mic combo with a usb connection to your pc. They also require a background check and training time. Some have set hours, some are more flexible and allow you to choose. OneSupport pretty much let me choose anything I wanted, whereas I had to choose from a narrow set of schedules in the job I ended up going with. They do have times during the year where you can 'trade up' if things become available.
I had to scramble to get some of that stuff in place, and fortunately the companies interested in me were willing to wait on me, since they knew I was serious. A lot of companies are looking at the work from home option as a good thing.
I hope your folks can find what they are looking for. I feel really fortunate to have found a company and knew someone who had previously worked with them who gave me a glowing recommendation. Take good care of yourself!! ♥
no subject
Date: 2020-06-02 03:18 am (UTC)