the navel times and observer

Well, not completely, it's a pretty shallow sort of love.

But I did notice reading through my company (a small, one-owner company within south central Missouri) employee manual that I don't get any vacation for a whole year (yeah, i knew this) and for the first five years of my employment I get only 1 week each year.

Ironically at my last job, which, albeit, was part of a large nationwide corporation, paid me $500 less per year for simply reporting rather than photography, editing, designing and reporting, but gave me I believe nine days vacation time after just seven months of employment (it was also ironic that, while I left for a number of reasons including my inability to meet the job's requirements and frequent errors, I only became eligible for vacation days less than a week before I left).

So, while a small company has its benefits (I know the company owner by name and face, he knews me and has been in my cubicle just to talk casually), I feel like I kinda got the shaft in the terms of benefits. Ouch.

Oh well, while there's far less to do around here than there was around Joplin and while I'm not reporting for a real city as much as I am for a small town, I am actually meeting the objectives of this job, which is a significant advancement over working in Joplin.

In short, I dunno, I still wish I could say I were writing for a city of Joplin's size, even though I've managed to prove by now that I just don't meet those standards. On the other hand, I'm not putting myself under stress every day just to live (only those Saturdays where I don't come in on deadline).

To update my readers on Saturday's entry. I was pretty well calmed down by the time I finished that and actually ended up staying awake the rest of that night just because it was late enough by the time I calmed down.

I topped it off with an early-morning 7-mile walk around town. Felt good.