I was actually amazed that it's been a year already since I did the fed loan restructure thing on my house.  I've made a year's worth of on-time payments, but for whatever reason, my mortgage company always lags behind on updating payment information by up to 3 months.  Once it ever updates to showing a full year's worth of on time payments, that should bump up my credit score. I don't know how much, but that's what i was reading some time back about the subject.

I am trying to wait until I get my score up into the good range before looking for a car loan.  My current car is simply falling apart, has a lot of miles on it, I"ve been driving it for 9 years now, I'm tired of it.  I want something - newer.  Not new, but at least 2010 with low miles.  I just don't want to pay anything even remotely akin to "high interest".

With a new job, hopefully I can start saving money again.  I am literally down to almost nothing in both my checking and savings accounts, which is what led me to start looking for a new job in the first place.  I haven't been in this position in a long, long time and it doesn't feel good.  The manager could care less.  He's a total jerk. He knows business, he doesn't know people, how to deal with them and how to treat them.  He should have never been put into that position, a scenario that will likely play out as more people leave the company solely because of his bs.

When I do the exit interview - they call you - I'm going to spell that out.  In fact, I am writing my thoughts down so I don't forget anything.  They will have heard by 3 different people at that point complaints about this manager's behavior and how he treats the employees.  When the other inside salesman quits - providing he does - that will send a resounding message, this manager is a piece of s*** and needs to be dealt with, ie: fired or moved back to his old position.  Not that it will matter to me, I'll be gone, but in this case, that dude has ruined for me a 12 year career that I was attempting to make out of that place, has forced me to find new employment because of his petty, narcissistic and egotistical views on things and now I am losing the ample amounts of vacation time.

Note that OT wasn't removed from anyone else in the region. It was reduced slightly, but they are still getting OT.  I looked at our sales today, pretty lame.  This time of year should be double what's in there near and at least triple that by the time the end of the month gets here.  Writing on the wall, since I've been through this with this company before: enough of that and layoffs.

Well whatever.

Sunday afternoon.
Haven't been to work since Tuesday morning - went and came home. Sick. Been sick the entire time.  I was hoping the flu would run it's course and go away, but it got replaced by other things.  I finally went to the doc yesterday who said I have an upper respiratory tract infection, sore throat, had the flu, had GI tract junk and .... possibly TMI....but jock itch.  Never had that one before so I didn't know what it was, only that everything in that region was quite sore.

I wasn't able to get the prescriptions til this morning, pharmacies close early around here on weekends.  I was, of course, there at opening.  Because right now, I still feel quite bad and if I feel like this again in the morning, it will be yet another day that I don't go to work.  Which might cause issues at work with this manager.  Not that I care what he thinks, but I would rather not hear it.  People get sick, oh well, s*** happens.

The whole thing has put off my new job aspirations at least temporarily.  I can't even think about starting a new job feeling like this. Heck I can't even think about doing my current work like this, but at least I know what I'm doing, if I must go, I can force myself through it.

Well anyway, nothing really new going on.  The part for the dryer came in, popped it on there, fixed in less than 5 minutes.  Dodged another bullet on that one.  Of course, I didn't dodge the bullet on the doctor's visit, hence the reason I hadn't gone.   $108 just to walk through the door of the place and pay that up front.  I didn't have to pay anything else so I guess not that bad and I will get half of that back - eventually, like a month or two down the road.

_______________________________

So, the inside salesman quit on Friday.  Today, showed up to find out they had already transferred a young dude from one of our stores down south to take his position. The position was never offered to any of us, at all. Not to mention this kid doesn't know anything about the software that we use, doesn't know the basics of anything, really.  It was astonishing to see that they had not only filled the position that quickly, but also just passed over all of us for any kind of promotion.

That prompted me to write the manager and the GM a short letter.  Basically, I'm quitting.  Unless I receive and offer of increased compensation, Tuesday of next week will be my last day working here. That was his advanced notice. The inside salesman gave no notice and the other drive didn't, either.  I got no reply back from either of them.  I didn't expect them to offer me money, at all, but I did expect that they would at least have the courtesy to say something.  I hate going to work.  It's a daily thing. Go to work, dread being there.  It's even worse now. In the middle of summer, our sales are slumping when they should be rocketing towards the moon.

The reality is, several contractors despise this manager - decades old bad blood - and refuse to do business with him.  That coupled with the fact that we start at 8:00 - none of our other outlets start that late.  That means, we come to work, contractors want their stuff, we aren't even out of there sometimes as late as noon.  We aren't servicing the customers.  That's it, this is the kind of business where you go out of your way to do whatever it takes to make them happy, and a large portion of that is early deliveries.  I was amazed that this guy was allowed to even get away with starting that late, but, the GM is a gutless wonder. He doesn't have his managers under his control.  He simply lets them do what they want.

So, I was discussing this with the other senior driver today. Good luck! I exclaimed to him, because now they are going to have 2 new drivers that know nothing or very little about this type of work.  they nothing about loading big trucks.  If you stay here, you do understand that this isn't going to get any better?  Remember what happened when the other driver quit? We were still held back at 8 hours.  He hates driving the big truck.  He's 57 years old and tired of all the work entailed with it.  The new guy has no clue.  I'm not leaving to spite him or most anyone else, I'm leaving because of low wages and an ass**** manager whose bizarre, narcissistic and egotistical behavior is insufferable.  Tho if they offered me enough money, I would just ignore his stupidity and do my job.  That would be a far easier thing than going to some company I have no clue about excepting what I can find online, get thrust into a totally new environment and also have no tenure, ie: benefits.

But, now I've freed myself of this current place, I have nothing anchoring me down anywhere.  I'm fine with going to work for this place and if it doesn't work out too well?  Find another one, keep going til I find the pay and home time that will work for me.  Pay being the biggest issue.

Meanwhile, my new Citi card arrived.  It has no credit available since I am transferring it's limit from my Capital One card. It's a zero interest deal for 18 months.  So, that pays down the Capital One card quite a bit, still some on there tho.  This deal was just to get zero interest, not to have more credit available.  It will, however, increase the amount of available credit on my credit report, so my score should go up a few more points. It's slowly creeping up there.  Still a bit off from the good range, but it's actually a light at the end of the tunnel now.

My sickness is almost past now.  That is one of the worst ones I have ever gone through - 6 days laid up in bed.  I can't remember being laid up by a virus that long.  I can remember being bedridden for a long time after getting fully injected with a black widow spider's venom, that was a hellish event as well.  But this thing here was an animal  I got hit with the flu - body aches ALL over, terrible headaches, fever, cold chills.  Then 3 days later I got hit with an upper respiratory infection and a terrible sore throat, meanwhile, the flu symptoms hadn't subsided and in all of that, I had stomach junk going that ended up with - a lot of bathroom visits and then on top of that, I find out I had jock itch, I a thing I have never had so I didn't know what was going on.  The doctor just said - you've had a helluva a week!  Yes and it sucked, totally.  Sometimes you get in the middle of these things and wonder if you're ever going to get better.  Like, am I dying?

I can't say that I'm 100% but dang it's good to be back among the living!