You're lucky to have a job!
That is the buzzword for the workplace these days. It is true, there are lots of people out of work, health insurance, and facing foreclosure or homelessness, if not, struggling with chronic poverty. As job searches and hundreds of resumes, interviews, etc, don't yield gainful or similar wages, people begin to lower standards to a more desperate level- a "take anything you can get" approach. Times are hard, and it's rough out there.
Just like how Real Estate markets fluctuate between "Buyers" & "Sellers" markets, when circumstances favor one or the other, a really bad economic turn creates an "Employer's Market"- where the employer knows these are hard times, jobs are scarce, they can get away with exploitive pay, pay freezes, and unrealistic workload expectations- because- You're lucky to have a job!
Things are looking up!
Yes-- things are looking up. Just the other day we got a notice of a 24% water rate increase.
The Mortgage payment went up. The Insurance rate went up. Gas prices are up. Medical co-pays are up & so are out of pocket costs. Hell even the garbage rate is up!
My wage, however is frozen. Solid.
It's a real struggle to be so lucky these days.
An update on Mr. Ramblings
Many of you have endured listening to the saga of Mr. Ramblings workplace laying off 2,200 employees with promises of a return date pushed back repeatedly. They finally announced all were terminated, filed for bankruptcy, then pulled the rug on health insurance.
It's been about 6 months now. The company was sold, and the new owner took possession this week. Mr. Ramblings has been called back to work~ starting today. No solid information about anything yet, other than they are starting up slowly.
I did come across this article about a project the new company is working on:
Treehugger reports:
US DOE has selected the firm for a "cost-shared award of up to $10 million--half of the total projected cost. As part of the Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Technology Acceleration and Deployment Activity program, Navistar will develop and deploy 60 plug-in electric hybrid buses to fleets across the nation during a multi-year program.Navistar's IC Bus is the only bus manufacturer that currently offers a plug-in hybrid school bus. In the proposed project, Navistar will work to further develop the plug-in hybrid bus into a vehicle capable of all-electric drive for extended periods. This proposed vehicle will have engine-off driving capability, saving fuel and reducing emissions while traveling on electricity only.
We remain cautiously optimistic, while sighing a huge sigh of relief.
Very cool to be on the front end of green technology for big rigs. Yay!
The Who~ Magic Bus
5 comments:
you're even luckier when you don't have a job, but you were once an uppity-up for a failed corporation. what fun to have done a shitty job and still get a humungous bonus check! you'd get a chuckle out of that every day.
Oh Nonnie~ Workin' for *the man* in this corporate climate is brutal. Imagine my contempt when I hear about the billion dollar acquisitions (plural) while my frickin wage is *frozen*. And a shitty wage at that.
While the boss cracks the whip saying faster, more!!!!
I thought slavery was abolished in 1865????
humungous bonus check???
What's that???
ahhh Fran...it doth truly suck to work for a corporate piglet ...(your company is not a hog...) but they treat the employees like grunts and expect more and more as they crack the whip...( sayeth the woman that works for a company that turned off the heat to save money this winter....I have never worked a job that I had to wear a coat and fingerless gloves because of corporate greed....I did write to the managers and ask for a raise so I could buy more winterwear for work,....haha...) ....
I love hearing about your husband and that things are kinda looking up....AND a green mission taboot???wow....that is great news....
Fran: Thanks for the most excellent news (interspersed as it was with reminders of the global glut of labor and skyrocketing prices [of just about everything]).
Today when I walked over to the neighborhood mini-mall liquor store for a six pack of Widmer's IPA, I related the "slight" rise in your water bill (in Oregon??!! of all places to the owner -- what R U guys conserving H20, hence, the need to raise your rates?). I then told him to take a good look at me as I chomped one of my last remaining sticks of gum. That's because my trip to the store this week revealed 42 sticks of gum for the same price as 50 last time I bought any. (A 16% rise in price.)
But then I told him he'll probably be ok, because the way things are going, people will likely drink more rather than less - no matter what it costs!
But the really good news is, it sounds like Mr. Ramblings' new company may be going in the right direction, leaving many unemployed "green" with envy. WTG and congratulations! (Keeping our fingers cautiously X-ed!!)
E ~ I know you share the agony of this phenomenon. You shuddered in freezing cold temps indoors all winter. Uuuugh!
We are still kind of waiting to know more details... but glad that he has work. That is great news !
I think the company trending *green* will be it's own success. That was one glaring element that was missing & the boomers are hitting retirement age.... they ain;t gonna want no stinkin' guzzlers.
Solar, hybrid all electric..... yea baby!
Dada~ Slight rise on the water bill-- we were both shaking our heads going 24% rate hike???
It IS western Oregon, Rainforest.... average rainfall 40 inches a year. (Compared to sunny El Paso's 8.65 inches annual rainfall!) YOU guys should be getting the rate hike- right?
My job is that classic Employers market screw over...(taking full advantage), and lots of unknowns
on the new ownership/boss.
Ya nevah know what kind of entertaining things will be coming down the road.
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