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#5248 – and how was YOUR day at work?

what did i do? NOTHING!

when did i do it? ALL THE DAMN DAY!

it’s a mixed blessing, folks. i swear i’m slowly going nuts. hopefully things will pick up once this current project is done since i came in mid-stream and project roles were already pretty much determined. when i do have something to do, it’s just sit and take notes in a meeting and that’s about it, and even then it’s not unusual for meetings to be cancelled or not even scheduled for a day, so since there were no meetings scheduled for today there was nothing for me to do all day.

it’s like i’m living that book “the four-hour workweek” except it’s like 5 1/2 hours of meetings in a week, maybe, and i have to go into the office whether or not there’s something for me to do that day. if only i could just listen in on conference calls and take notes from home since then i could actually get other stuff done like schoolwork and housework. oh man, i think then i’d do so much better in my classes, too.

but on the good news side, today i paid off a credit card that was kicking my butt. 😀 still more debts to pay off like school loans and other such stuff, but i’ve got a plan of attack and that’s what’s most important.

eta: oh! and since i see that i haven’t posted about it yet, i DID trade in my MINI (hence how i was able to pay off that credit card today)… for what they gave me, it was enough to pay off my auto loan, pay off that credit card, and still have enough to start a downpayment on a new MINI — you can follow along with it over at its twitter account. i’d also tell you about my undercover alter-ego twitter account for my bathroom adventures, but even though homodachi favorited that time i farted on someone by accident (I SWEAR THEY SNUCK UP BEHIND ME) and greyplanet would probably think it’s pretty chuckles, 95% of you who are on twitter probably don’t want to hear commentary about that sort of stuff. but if you do, send me a DM over on the twitters so the account stays on the down-low for maximum mystery, hahaha…

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#5246 – so my MINI might be an investment

so i got this email from my dealership in the mail today; apparently they need used MINIs so bad that now through november 2nd they’re paying 120% of trade-in value on ’08s and older. i put in the details for my car at the kelley blue book and edmunds.com websites, and based on the prices i got there for trade-in value and based on how much i still owe on the car, i’d get enough to pay off the car loan, knock out the rest of my credit card debt, and still have enough money for a down payment towards a new MINI, bahahahaha. if the car loan interest rate is less than the credit cards, why not??

i’m thinking about stopping by the dealership on the way home from work tomorrow to see what they think the car is worth so i can think it over more.

the funny thing is, i went online to configure a MINI, and it was exactly the same as my current one. go figure, bahahahaha…

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#5244 – as if i didn't need more encouragement to look

so i’ve been searching for a new job the past week or three for a few different reasons:

– i want to try something different

– i’m tired of spending literally 80-90% of my time with nothing to do at work (seriously, i have to find work for myself to do, and it’s a lot harder trying to look busy than actually being busy)

– when i do get assigned work, 9 times out of 10 it’s to sit in on a conference call or a meeting and take notes (that aren’t used)

– i’m still a bit annoyed about not getting really any sort of a pay increase when i took this position. granted, for the work that i’ve been doing, it’s like “you’ll give me an extra $100 / paycheck to sit there and not do anything? SURE!”, but it’s disappointing to think that it was going to be even less than that and that the manager who hired me had to tell HR that the amount they offered was unacceptable. it’s about the same as what i was making when i started my previous position and didn’t have a degree, and now that i have a BS degree + 15% MS degree it would be nice to be making a bit more than what i was making almost four years ago.

– i feel like my skillz are atrophying because i’m not DOING anything with them.

Рmy r̩sum̩ makes me sound all badass.

so today i saw a blog post on mint about asking for a raise and was like “huh, like they’ll give me one after i already tried fighting for increasing my base pay”, and then i saw this link it has for the bureau of labor statistics. did you know that the BLS has information on salary ranges for different job functions, and can even give you region-specific information? i didn’t, but it’s all here.

so i looked for a job title similar to what i’m doing now in my area, and guess what? i don’t even exceed the 10th percentile. LAME. the median salary is still about $20k more than what i make, and salary amounts even go UP if you look at my job in the wireless telecommunications carriers industry. so that’s a kick in the pants.

the problem with me trying to find a new job is i do too much research into other companies, if that’s even possible. see, i find a job that looks interesting, but then i look up the company on glassdoor or i get annoyed by poor site design (it’s a first-impression sort of thing, if you can’t get your site to look decent and work well — ESPECIALLY if it’s the section with the job search — then WHY would i want to come work for you because it definitely seems you don’t know what you’re doing) and after hours of job searching i say “screw this” and resign myself to boredom at work for the next few days.