well, maybe things have worked out for you

My father has a habit of saying "Well, maybe things will work out for you". In a very dubious tone, like he’s not too sure that’s even possible, but like he doesn’t want to be totally negative about my future prospects. Or our future prospects, or my lazy nephew’s future prospects, or especially Kim’s future prospects, who he actually says that about far more often than he does us these days. Especially since we managed to get decent jobs and a semi-decent house, anyhow.

My whole point here was that I got a VERY happy surprise Wednesday. A very happy, very unexpected surprise. Well, I guess all surprises are by definition unexpected, but this was REALLY unexpected. And really happy. And things are working out!

My highest-up boss, the dean, stuck her head in my office Wednesday afternoon, and said, "I just found out that your raise will be in your November check – just wanted to let you know!"

I say, "My WHAT???"

She said, "Your raise – the raise you got when you moved over to our department!"

Well, the move was lateral, same grade, same pay, and I was told specifically that I’d be making the same money as I did at the College of Ed. Fine with me, I was so happy to get out I’d have taken a CUT, frankly. So I certainly wasn’t expecting a raise. I knew D, my coworker, was getting an upgrade to a higher level and when she retires next summer I should be directly in line for her position, but I wasn’t expecting any more money out of this move. Other than the money I’ll save by not having a nervous breakdown and being institutionalized, of course.

So the dean pops her head into D’s office and I can hear her telling D her upgrade went through, and then they had a brief discussion about when it took effect because human resourses had told D a different date. I decided to go online and check my benefits page to see what mine said — and, to my utter and complete shock, not only do I have a very nice raise… I have an upgrade too!!!!

I think to truly appreciate this, you have to know that K and I tried for five years to get our positions upgraded. Our pay grade was way too low for the work we did and the responsibility we had, and we tried and tried and tried and Captain Airhead told us for five years we were getting an upgrade soon, but it never happened. Insane Boss also told us she’d get us one — never happened. Which was just another reason I was so resentful and demoralized in that job. People all over campus got upgrades while we just sat there with our dean saying he tried but couldn’t get it approved as we did more and more and more work.

So, I move to a different office and in three months not only do I have a completely unexpected raise… I also have a magic effortless upgrade!!! I REALLY want to let Insane Boss know this, since she was just SO sure I was making a huge mistake. Yeah, it’s been a big mistake – I have my own office, it’s quiet, we have a receptionist answering phones and handling walk-ins, it’s quiet, I do variations on one interesting job instead of being overwhelmed by three full-time completely unrelated ones, we never stay a minute past five, and did I mention how quiet it is?? AND I get a raise and an upgrade almost instantly! Yeah, BIG mistake!!

Let’s see, the only drawback I’ve seen so far is that I don’t work overtime any more so I haven’t gotten any comp time so if I take off I have to use some of my, oh, THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY or so hours of vacation time I have piled up. Wow, I might run out of vacation time!!

Well, that was just thrilling, of course. I felt a little bad for Baker B, though, since he’s the same grade as I am – was – and his boss had been trying for something like a year to get him a much needed upgrade. The problem with that was that his boss was trying to get him a really big one, like a three-grade-jump one, and they didn’t want to do that big an upgrade so nothing at all was happening. He kept saying he wished his boss would just settle for a one-grade jump so he’d at least have that and later on they could try for a bigger one.

Yesterday he calls me … and he got an upgrade too! The same as I got, the one-grade jump. But he also got a nice raise, so between us we got a REALLY nice raise. I think we’re making the exact same salary now – we leapfrog salary-wise and I was making a little more than him till now. But this was just such a happy thing to have happen, out of the clear blue, for both of us. Kind of weird, really. GOOD weird.

And in keeping with the happy news, he went down to our fun off-beat video store and found the new season of Trailer Park Boys. Which was released on DVD in MARCH but apparently has never been released outside Canada and they finally just got it from a Canadian distributor. So that was quite thrilling as well, and I am happy to report that it’s just as hysterical as ever. Hasn’t gone downhill a bit, and we still have four or five episodes to go.

AND I’m even off today, although I wish it was being spent traveling to Charlottesville like I originally intended. I decided to take off anyhow, and go see the parents tomorrow. Which is why I’m lazing around in the middle of the day drinking coffee and writing in my diary. I did intend to go out earlier, but it was pouring rain. Which is good, we really really really need rain, but I didn’t want to venture out in it. I think now I will go out, though. The leaves actually look very pretty – this is supposedly the peak leaf weekend – and I believe I’ll go take some pictures. It’s still all overcast and gloomy, which will make for even nicer leaf colors.