He Has A Job!

First interview.  How soon can you start?  He came home for his steel toed boots, safety vest and hard hat, and went to work.

Yesterday and today he ran the excavator and rock crusher at one of the mines.   Tomorrow he's working in a different mine loading dump trucks. 

The company does a variety of stuff, from road work, to septic systems, to logging.  He's on a two week trial, to prove that he can drive and adapt to new equipment, and has a good work ethic.  If all goes well, he'll be on 'full time' and  gets a raise that should make it comparable to trucking.

However...  No health plan.  At all.  Ever.  The company does not pay overtime.  They work from contract to contract, so when there's lots of work, he could be working 14 hour days, 7 days a week.  They pay up to 110 hours every two weeks, and then 'bank' the rest of his hours until it's slow.  Then he could be off for days or weeks, or maybe even months, but he'd get paid his 'banked' hours.  Confused?  Me too.  I'm not sure if that's even legal.

However...  If all goes well, the company will file with the government on his behalf, and he will be licensed to operate all of that fancy equipment in the future.  Which could lead to a better job down the road.  He'll be home almost every night.  Occasionally he might have to take equipment a couple of hours away, and the company finds it cheaper to pay for the workers to stay in motels, rather than drive the equipment back and forth every day.  But mostly, he'll be home EVERY night.

However...  I am not used to putting up with him that much, lol!  I love him, I do, but...

I have been a 'single parent' for the past 13 years.  Sometimes he'd be home and tell the kids to do something, or stop doing something, or put something somewhere...  and they just look at me...  cause you know, he's doing it wrong.  He doesn't know the rules.

I'm used to having the bed to myself.  Sure, he'd be home for a few days here and there, and I'd put up with being cramped and kinked, and not being able to get comfy to watch tv, but then he'd be gone again.  The dogs would walk into my room (yeah, my room- it hasn't been 'our' room in years...) look at him on the bed, and go sleep with the kids.  When he's not home, it's me and the pups.

I'm used to having my car to myself.  Not a big deal, I don't go out much anyway.  So when he said he was taking the car this morning, no big deal.  Except I need to go to the feed store.  And it's raining.  So now I have to take the truck and tarp the feed up.  I'll have to learn to plan better in the future.

I'm not used to cooking every day.  When the Bigs are at cadets, the Littles and I eat zoodles or hot dogs or hamburger helper.  That's not going to fly when he comes home for supper.  I also love leftovers.  Because I hate cooking, and I'm lazy.  I can stretch a pot of stew, a nice chicken or a roast into 3-5 days.  He hates leftovers.  He hates eating the same thing two days in a row.

I'm used to having my tea every morning in front of my computer with my online friends.  I make a pot of tea in the coffee pot and drink it all day long.  He seems to think the coffee pot should be for coffee.  Ewww.  And then he thinks I should sit there with him until he leaves for work.  Which is ok when he's only home for a day or two, but when he's home for three or four days, I have run out of things to talk about.  EVERY day?  What are we going to talk about EVERY day??

However...

No more getting ready for the tax man.  No more sorting through 50 billion individual receipts, categorizing, adding them up.  No more accountant.  No more GST rebates.  No more tax bill at the end of the year.  How cool would that be?

I could plan stuff.  People could come to visit, and he'd actually make an appearance at some point.  We could go to dances and community events.  We could accept invitations.  People could say, 'hey, do you want to come over on Saturday?', and I could say, 'yes, my husband will be in the country!'

He could do school stuff.  He could meet teachers, and pick kids up after cadets.  He could be there for sports events, and music festivals.  He could be a part of their lives.

He could be home when the car breaks down, the cows escape, and the basement floods!  Not that any of that kind of stuff happens often, but it ALWAYS happens when he's not around.

Yup, he has a job!  We could get used to this!