Unpleasant Surprise

martes got her final severance paycheck from her old job. Unfortunately, it was taxed as if that was her normal paycheck, and over $2700 in federal tax alone was taken out of it. This trashed my carefully planned budget completely. So now it's back into the infamous "Mission Mode" to work around it. I have figured out my schedule for the forseeable future to deal with the situation.

I'm going to work 8 hour overtime days Thursday and Friday (my regular days off) from now on. Not my full 10 hour day schedule, just 8's. That way I get off at 1PM and will beat the traffic home.

I have to have a day off a week for personal business and to just recover, and I'll be taking Tuesdays off to accomplish that. Work doesn't mind me taking Tuesdays as nobody else wants that day off and it's the slowest day at the airport. Thursdays & Fridays they need help. Since those are my scheduled days off I have control over how long I work, and I can get out of there before the commute home turns into a 2+ hour crawl.

It increases my gross income by almost $300 a week and my actual work week is not that much longer, 56 hours on the job as opposed to the 51.25 I've been doing for the past year. And with it being indoors now instead of on the ramp It will actually be less tiring than the old schedule.

Though there is one more commute added, it's off-peak and so won't be too bad. I have enough vacation time to keep this up for awhile. Actually I can go to October before I run out. And while this schedule will be more work, it's not burnout. Even this is less than what the Army was having me do.

( 3 days from now )