Life is Never a Done Deal

Embarrassingly, I admit it has been fifteen months since my last post. I had been doing some record keeping in a journal style app and also became busier with the transitions that were occurring in my life.

Since my last post I have had more life changes than I care to list. Some of my own making, others I was at the mercy of. I retired from my job of twenty eight years in April 2015. Some training I received there set me up for my next job in May of 2015. I took a three day weekend after I retired and started the new job the following Monday. Life cruised along quite nicely for three months until my father in law passed away. The home we were living in was owned by him. We had previously lived in another house owned by him in another city in the Bay Area. We seized upon an opportunity to move a year earlier when my sister in law and her husband bought a house on the other side of town in their smallish, somewhat rural community. We moved from the urban sprawl to a quiet street in that small town that was far enough from the city to feel small but close enough to make the trip if necessary. Our son remained at the house in the city and was able to get a couple of roommates so he could afford the rent.

After my father in laws passing, the sister in laws decided to sell those two houses I just mentioned. As this was just beginning to proceed, I nearly lost my wife to a triple brain hemorrhage. She was in a coma in the hospital as the sale plans on the houses continued. I ended up quitting my new job to care for her. With the exception of one Saturday afternoon when my pastor and two others came to help me move the heavy items out of the house and into the PODS storage containers I had rented and a few days where my brother was in town, I had to move out of our house by myself.

As I mentioned, I quit the new job to care for my wife. While she was in good hands during her forty six days in the hospital, she needed and advocate because she was unable to communicate for the majority of that time. It wasn't until just a couple of weeks before she was transferred to a rehabilitation facility that she was able to converse in any significant fashion.

[fast forward three years]

The beginning of this post was written shortly after my wife's strokes. It's now three years later in May of 2019. We bought a home outside of Cincinnati, Ohio about half an hour from our daughter and the grandsons. It's in an amazing neighborhood that we couldn't touch if it was in California. Our neighbors are awesome and my commute is less than ten minutes. At this moment, life is good and we've been incredibly blessed by God to have had truly miraculous recovery from strokes.

And, They're Off....

I have a priceless package coming in the mail. Yesterday I initiated the process of applying for my pension benefits. While it is still a number of months away, it made me a bit giddy to know the ball is rolling and the paperwork to apply for benefits is in route.

I also received a phone call from the HR department of Fuel Delivery Services. Several days ago I had filled out an employment inquiry form on their website. Just basic information about myself and expressing interest in working with them.

Two instances on the same day cementing the reality that retirement and job change is truly on the way.

Future Tense

Here we are gently creeping into 2012. The year that will inevitably be the end of the world. According to the Mayan's, or even Harold Camping. I used to listen to Art Bell a number of years ago when my shift work made his overnight radio program easily accessible. He used to talk about what he called "the quickening". It was his impression that technology, world events, political change, etc. were changing faster than ever. Whether this was actual or perceived was difficult to quantify but none the less interesting. I find that my perception of the world is changing as well. I'm not going to give it a moniker like "the quickening" but it does seem that events are moving at a more rapid pace. That may be due to the increased access to information and information delivery. The twenty four hour news cycle and all news cable channels give the impression of constant "breaking news" and "alerts". Natural disasters can be viewed in real-time like the Japanese tsunami. 9/11 was essentially a live event. I recall getting ready to leave for work as the second plane plowed into the towers live on Fox News. News headlines are fed to our phones and displayed on monitors in coffee shops, restaurants and gas pumps. Twenty five years ago I had no thoughts of retiring from my current job. It was just the next best job that came along. I'm now three short years away from being eligible to retire. My frustration is mounting daily with the economic situation of this job. The feeling of being "trapped" here until I retire. I could actually leave now and have the same pension benefit that I would in four years. The reason for staying is the dang retirement medical coverage. That in itself is a HUGE reason for staying. My actual wage has diminished to where I am earning a mere fifteen cents an hour more than I did when I got hired twenty five years ago. I am tempted to forego the retirement medical coverage and get a job with a wage I can survive on. Working overtime is not the way I want to increase my income stream. I treasure my days off. Having a job with lousy hours and ridiculous days off used to be offset by a decent wage that made it worth the sacrifice. No longer do I see it being "worth" anything. The company has stripped us of our hard earned benefits under the guise of keeping the doors open. Yes, this is an industry in it's death throes. I hope it can cling to existence for just a few short years.

Racing Towards the Future

Nearly three months having passed since I last wrote, I return with trepidation. I skimmed over my last few blog entries to get an idea of where my head was in the last quarter. In the midst of my father's passing was where I found myself. In the time that has slipped by since then there have been a number of events that have given me pause. They deal with daily life, work, family and future.

A new union contract at my place of employment has put a new perspective on a great deal of my daily life. The changes from the previous contract are significant. Top of the list would be a nine percent pay cut coupled with a completely new health care package that involves new costs and restrictions. There was also the loss of a week of vacation and the elimination of the job I currently perform. That doesn't mean I lost my job, it means I have to bump a less senior person off their job and take that one. While this has happened numerous times in the past, the current incarnation of the procedure lends itself to a paradigm shift in my overall perception of my job and near term future.

I have an opportunity to get a class A commercial driver's license with this change. I have had a class B license for about twenty years and have had the occasion to use it on the side for part time employment to supplement my income. Obtaining a class A license that will accompany me when I retire from the company in a few short years will provide an additional opportunity for work once I actually do retire. Wait...doesn't retirement mean ceasing to work? Well, at most times and in most economies it does. However, living in the San Francisco Bay Area the cost of living is astronomically high. I have been fortunate enough to earn enough so that my wife has been able to stay home and raise our kids and be a homemaker once they were old enough to fend for themselves. Now that the kids are (mostly) out of the house, my pay has descended to levels slightly above the rate I was making twenty five years ago when I started here. That does not bode well for the future. I want to be able to retire and live comfortably on my pension and whatever income I may need to earn to supplement that.

The new health care package involves changing from a PPO with little or no restrictions on who or where we went for care as long as they were in the network to an HMO. Previously we had no co-pays for office visits or medications. Great coverage you say? Yes it was. We paid dearly to maintain our coverage. Our contractual pay raises were diverted to pay for the rising costs of our health care coverage. Our new HMO has co-pays for office visits and prescriptions. We are able to stay in a Teamster plan so we retain our retirement healthcare benefit. That is essentially the only reason I stay at my current job. Sad but true. The few years I need to reach retirement are what keeps me there.

Years ago I could say that I actually enjoyed my job. We still had the worst schedules of anyone in the valley but in the past we earned enough to make it worthwhile. We had five weeks of vacation that was well deserved. This job takes it's toll on your body and your home life. You essentially live on the opposite side of the clock from the rest of your family. The middle of my work day is the middle of their night. I'm punching out and heading home when their alarm clocks are ringing. If one makes it to retirement they most assuredly posses numerous surgical scars from repairs of rotator cuffs, knee ligaments or replacements, back surgeries. The list goes on. I earned a good wage and had good benefits so subjecting myself to the rigors of the job seemed worth it since I kept a roof over our head, food on our table and we seemed to have a decent amount of disposable income. There was also camaraderie with the other guys I worked with. We could have fun, work hard and earn a good living. Fast forward to the present day.

I recently found out that I qualify for P.G.&E.'s low income rate assistance. That was an eye opening moment. I realize the industry I work in is breathing it's last gasps of breath. I know for sure that the company I currently work for does not care one bit for the struggles of it's workers. It's their bottom line. Cut, reduce, consolidate. Whatever needs to be done so the profit margin maintains some elusive level. At the moment I'm reevaluating the basic services that we bring into our home in order to see which are necessary and which are luxuries. I find us shopping more at Dollar Tree and looking for bargains in even more earnest. Juggling bill payments between paychecks seems to be my part time job now.

I don't want this to sound like I am whining because I honestly am not. I am trying to frame my current point of view and how it affects my perception of the future. I can't hardly stand the wait until I can leave this place. I know I can get an exponentially more satisfying job than this one doing something I like to do for a company that appreciates my efforts. We are currently viewed by management as overpaid. The same way they view the contractors who actually deliver their product. They are trying to cut the rate of pay to just above the point where a contractor would want to quit because it's not worth their time and effort. Here's a thought...reward your workers for the hard work they do and make them want to work for you. I know that won't happen so I've resolved to "make it through" the last few years I have to put in. Sad commentary on twenty five years of life.

The silver lining is that once I leave here, "my future's so bright, I gotta wear shades"!