After spending most of the day, wondering if the Owner would talk to me today about a job offer, I finally marched into his office and asked him what was going on.

He looked a little bewildered at me and then said he needed to “find” the papers he had printed out, get something to eat and then would be upstairs to talk to me. That was at 3pm. At 5 minutes before 5pm (end of my shift) he came strolling in.

We talked for about 40 minutes. He laid the offer out for me. I told him I would have to think about it, pray about it and get some counsel. I then left a few minutes later, feeling very insulted.

I’m going to lay it out here, because I need to show you why I was insulted (in case you don’t understand.) I’m currently making $12.50 an hour (with no benefits, perks or reimbursement of gas costs) to do the jobs of three different positions: Marketing Assistant, Admin Assistant and Marketing Database Analyst. I do data entry into this database, I maintain this database and I analyze the reports that *I* generate from the database. I am currently the only person in the office that KNOWS the database.

I asked the Owner for a hefty price after researching said three jobs online at salary.com. I averaged the three of them together from the average (for Lexington) of the three salary base. I figured it was a fair negotiation to start at. Right?

The Owner today almost had me laughing in his face. While he DID offer me some great perks, there is no dental and no vision coverage. He offered to either a) help me get out of my lease or b) pay the fee to break my lease for me. That was nice. He also offered to reimburse my gas costs for the last two months AND until I could relocated. That was nicer. He offered me a company matched 401k and great medical benefits, that’s nice.

He then offered me $14.00 an hour to continue doing what I was doing. Or….I could stay at the pay rate I’m on, get the benefits AND go back to just basic data entry into the database.

While I knew immediately in my gut, heart and mind what my decision would be, he asked me think about it. I told him I would let him know tomorrow. I’ve put it on paper. I’ve put all the pros and cons on paper. I’m going with the Fire Department. I start there a week from today.

This week at work is going to be hectic because not only do I need to do the job I’m doing, but I need to finish that instructional manual I started last week. I’ll get it done though.

I went to my meeting right after work, then talked to GB for an hour after the meeting and ended up driving home with the WORST cramping in my right foot and toes (yeah, the right foot is the one needed to drive. At least, for me it is.) I was DYING. I was actually screaming in my car. I put it on cruise once I hit the freeway and tried to stretch it out while driving. Don’t try that at home kids.

The cramp finally subsided and went away when I got home and was able to walk it out barefoot. Oh man that sucked!

I am quite happy right now. I just did the LAST 12+ hour Monday that I will have to do. It actually ended up being a 15 hour day for me. I left the house at 7:30 and it is now 10:30. I’m exhausted.

Until next time….