Mishmash Musings

In cleaning out my desk today, I found that I’m running dangerously low on some office supplies that I use all the time: white out, printer paper, paper clips, and ballpoint pens. I need to restock very soon because I’m the type of person who can’t sit down to work unless I have all everything in place. Even if there’s no chance that I’m going to need a paper clip for a particular project, I somehow manage to convince myself that I still can’t begin until I replenish my supplies. Yes, I realize it’s a procrastination tactic, but I can’t get past this quirk!!

I don’t know why this always happens to me. I have a consulting gig that I agreed to take on merely as a favor to a former boss of mine. I have no interest in working full-time outside my home at this point, so this gig seemed like a good one for me. It only required that I put in one or two office days per month, and that I spend time writing e-mails and company memos as necessary.

Recently, however, my boss has totally been taking advantage of me. He’s shorthanded right now, so he asked me to fill in for three weeks while he looked for a couple of new employees. Even though I hate working every day, I agreed to do it just to help out.

But now, my willingness to help is coming back to bite me, as my employer has extended my office time to six weeks. I can’t really say no, as it’s in my best interest to have this gig to fall back on should I ever need a full-time job.

But going from working 2 days per month to 20 is really taking its toll on me, as I’m completely running myself ragged. I barely have time to eat properly, I’m not getting stuff done around the house, and I’m not sleeping as much as I need to. I guess on the positive side, I can say that I’ve lost a couple of pounds without having to take any fat burners or supplements, but that’s really a small consolation these days.

Yes, I get paid above and beyond my contract for all of this extra time I’m putting in, but money’s not the point right now. There’s a reason I don’t want full-time work, and that reason is my son. It’s his summer vacation, so I wanted to spend a lot of time with him, but that’s not happening since I’m working so much. I feel guilty about it and feel bad that the boy has to go to a babysitter (albeit my mom) every single day.

Ugh. I don’t know what to do. I just wish my boss would get his act together and find new employees ASAP!

We’re nearing the end of the month (EOM), which means there are a bunch of accounting tasks I have to tend to. Since the IRS considers me self-employed, I must keep meticulous records of all the financial transactions related to my freelance writing business, including how much I’ve earned, how much I’ve been paid, how much I expect to be paid, and how much I’ve spent on related expenses.

Along with a huge stack of receipts, I’ve got about seven Excel spreadsheets open, as well as a couple of Word documents. I’m definitely stretching my computer memory to the max here! But I find that it’s a lot easier to keep a running total for the year (updated monthly) than to try to figure everything out on April 14.

All of this accounting work is very tedious, and is a very boring way to spend a Sunday night. I wish I had the funds to hire an assistant for this stuff!

As many of you know, I have an outside-the-home consulting gig that usually takes up a few hours of my time every week. On occasion, however, I have to put in substantially more time than usual to help keep things at that business running smoothly.

This is one of those times.

For the next month (4 weeks), I’m slated to work 4-5 hours per day, 5 days a week. I have tried reworking other employees’ schedules to reduce the need for my presence, but so far haven’t had any luck. That 20-25 hour work week was the best I could come up with.

At any rate, between that job and my family, I will have very little time for blogging, so don’t be surprised if you see only a handful of updates for the next month. I’m not abandoning this blog; just taking a bit of a break. Hopefully, I’ll be back to a regular posting schedule by August!

Instead of having to check back every day, why not take this opportunity to subscribe to my feed? That way it won’t be as much of an effort for you to keep up!

I just realized that I haven’t posted about my consulting job in a while, so this update is long overdue.

I’m happy to report that things haven’t been too terribly taxing on the work front in recent months. I’ve just been putting in the minimum number of office hours to fulfill my obligations, and haven’t had to do anything outside of my job description. It’s funny that I’m happy about the way things should be, isn’t it? I mean, why is it such a surprise that things are going smoothly?

Well, actually, there have been a few annoyances lately, but nothing major. One of the things I have to do is observe new-hires in action and then write detailed evaluations about their performance. The idea is to help get employees up to speed as quickly as possible by nipping bad habits in the bud.

Anyway, I had a lot of trouble communicating with one of our latest hires. This young woman is a total Nervous Nellie type to begin with, and she practically went off the deep end when she learned I’d be observing her. The first two times I tried to do it, she begged off, asking me to show her how it’s done instead. I felt bad for her, so I complied.

The third time I went in for her, she finally let me do my job — except she then made herself unavailable to sit down with me and go over the evaluation. I tried phoning and emailing her for four straight days (no exaggeration) before I got a response. She just wouldn’t call me back! WTF was that all about?

And then to make matters worse, she made an appointment to go over my notes by phone — and then completely blew me off, again refusing to answer her phone or call me back.

It’s too bad I don’t have the power to fire people, because I wouldn’t have hesitated in this case. I can’t believe how totally unprofessional she has been… I have a bad feeling about this employee, so I hope my boss doesn’t invest too much time/money in her!

I’ve been working from home for three years now, and can’t imagine ever going back to a full-time office job. Yes, I still have a consulting position that requires me to be in an office two or three times per week, but that’s a far cry from being the paper pusher I once was. I don’t think I could handle 8-hour days of filing, typing, answering phone calls, providing quotes for life insurance rates, or dealing with angry customers.

Thank goodness my private business ventures are profitable enough to allow me to continue staying home for the time being!

I’ve been thinking about doing more in the line of freelance writing with local clients that I find in the community rather than on the Internet. Towards that end, I’m wondering if I should get an office address of some sort to make my operation seem a bit more professional. There’s a place a couple blocks away that rents out mailboxes for a low monthly fee, and I’d be able to have an address with a “Suite #” in it. Do you think it would be worth the trouble to go set one up?

I just found out that I have to put in 5 office days in the next two weeks for my consulting gig. I guess that’s not too bad, since I only went in a total of four days in June. This is what I expected when I accepted the job, so I can’t complain. It was when my boss was expecting me to be on hand 3 or 4 days per week that I had a problem.

Anyway, I could use some extra cash right now, so the timing is actually pretty good. My husband’s van is probably not going to make it to the end of the year, so we’ve got to start planning and saving for a new one. What a big hit that’ll be to our budget!

Yesterday was another killer day at work. Without going into details, let me just say that I can’t believe how clueless some people can be.

You know, when I accepted this job, I agreed to some very specific terms — especially regarding the number of hours I would be expected to work. I don’t want to be a full-timer and refuse to work those kinds of hours. Nevertheless, I’m getting called in for a bunch of b.s. “emergency” situations, which significantly boosts the number of hours I’m working. Plus, when I do go in, I get sucked into performing chores that don’t fall under my job description simply because we’re shorthanded.

I’ve only been back a little while and I already feel like I’ve made a huge mistake. This sucks!!

I told you all about how I recently went back to work after taking few years off to raise my son. Well, I’ve been back for just over a week and I’m already facing the kinds of problems that prompted me to leave in the first place.

I work for a small, privately-owned company. The owner is a stubborn guy who thinks all the problems that plague his business are a result of employee error when in reality, his poor decision-making skills are the cause of 95% of everything that’s wrong.

To get me to come back to work, he promised me that I wouldn’t have to come into the office every single day. That was a critical point because I am not ready for full-time work yet and told him so 1,000 times before coming back.

So what does the owner (let’s call him Mr. D.) do? He’s got me scheduled to come in every single day this week, plus every day for the next two weeks as well. Some things got messed up (his fault) and he’s likely going to be shorthanded for a long time.

Well guess what? I just can’t do it, and I won’t. But I’m not looking forward to the inevitable confrontation and attempted manipulation that will occur when he broaches the subject. Ugh. I hate this already!

Yesterday was my first day back at my old company. I’m just in a consulting role now, so the job isn’t too bad. But the company still suffers from the same problems and I ran into quite a few frustrations already — all bureaucratic b.s. that hopefully can be eliminated sometime soon.

Although I was dead tired when I got back home, it was nice to get dressed in business attire, put makeup on, and talk to people my own age about non-parenting issues for a change! I’m anxious to see how this whole thing turns out….

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote how one of my old employers contacted me about working again. After thinking about the implications and talking the matter over with my husband, I’ve decided to accept the offer. I’ll be a manager/consultant and will be able to set my own hours. This was a very important factor in my decision. If I had to show up at the office every single day, I would have declined. But with the way things are set up now, I will have a great deal of control over what I do.

Anyway, this should keep me busy while my son is in school and will definitely help pad our bank account. We need to save up for a new car for my husband, so this is actually pretty good timing for us. I hope it works out!