John’s Blog

Haven’t written in the blog in a long time. But then again lots has been happening and it is hard to keep up with everything these days.

So far in the last week we have:

• Moved to a different state
• I started a new and complicated job
• Been trying to get settled into new house

The result has been a very large lack of sleep, and almost no free time. So yeah, can you say tired and stressed out?

I will write more about our move, my new job, and other interesting developments as I get more free time (hopefully soon, like this weekend).

Had a very nice Thanksgiving yesterday. We decided to keep it simple this year. My wife and I cooked a nice dinner at home, and spent the day together just relaxing. It was a nice change for me to get to spend the day relaxing instead of working or running errands. And after everything that has been going on lately and how busy we have been it was much needed.

On the moving front, we are finally finished unpacking and getting almost everything straightened out. It took quite some time to get settled in, but we finally got there. Really the only thing left to be setup is my home office. I have made exactly zero progress on that so far. The main reason being is that in our new house the cable modem and router are a few rooms away from the office. So I have to figure something out for access in that room. I am thinking a wireless bridge to bring signal in to the room and I can hook a switch to it from there. It would be nice to have that all setup, but for right now I am working off wireless and my laptop. On another note I have to admit that this is the first place I have ever lived that has oil heat, and man oh man is that expensive. Right now heating oil is around $3.09 a gallon, I bought 100 gallons when we moved in and that gave me under half a tank for $299.98 (oil was only $2.99 a gallon at that time). So it’s looking like we have an expensive winter ahead of us.

As for work, well that could be going better. It has been busy and stressful as usual, but lately things have been getting worse. I am feeling more over worked and  underpaid than ever before. It is at a point that I am contemplating leaving the company. Right now I am holding off on making an decisions for a few weeks. That is when my yearly review is up. I am going to be asking for a good bit more money and a better schedule (no more Saturdays). If I don’t get it then I am going on the hunt for a new job. It’s not that I hate my job or where I work, but at this point I just need more money (like something close to what I and the things I do are worth).

Well that’s all for right now. Going to head home from the office soon for some leftover turkey.

I wrote a post the other day expressing the fact that I was getting really stressed out at work. And it would seem that the gods read that post. Yesterday we had a meeting here in the office and after over a year of not having our company website up, it was finally approved. At first I was excited about this since in this day and age to not have a website up is almost laughable. Well my happiness declined greatly when I found out that instead of outsourcing the task of designing and implimenting the site to a company we do business with, it was decided that it should be done 100% in house. The worst part of that is that the task is mine. Since I am the only one here that has ever done any type of web design I now have to take on this project. The problem with that? I don’t have the time. I already have so many other projects going at once that taking this on is going to kill me.

I have started looking into using a CMS package such as Joomla or Drupal to possibly streamline the process. But I am still unsure how well I will be able to get this done and balance the rest of my work. Looks like things just got even more stressful for me.

I think I am starting to get burnt out at my job. I’ve been with the company for two years now, and in that time have not had more than two days off in a row (and that has only been once or twice). And when I do get a day off, I am usually getting called at home, having to log in from home, or take conference calls from home. Not to mention approving purchase orders, etc… The thing is that I really need a break. I have 2 weeks worth of vacation time that I can’t seem to take, and that is driving me nuts since if I don’t use it by December I lose it. It’s not that I don’t like the company, it’s just the hours and the amount of work. I guess I just needed to ramble and vent a little.

Seems like every time I resolve to get some things done in my personal life it never happens. If you follow this blog you’ll remember me saying not to long ago that I was looking to get web hosting and get my blog on my own domain again as well as put up some sites I used to run. Well I got about as far as looking at a few hosting companies and it hasn’t gone far from there. Between things at work getting even more hectic, and the fact that I am the best man in a wedding this Sunday, as well as car shopping for my wife, I have almost no down time…and it’s starting to show. I really need some time off. In the last two years other than having Sunday’s off and the occasional holiday I haven’t had much for time off. I have already lost a weeks vacation by not taking it, and I have one week left that expires in December. I had hoped to take that soon and give myself a little break. But the person getting married (who’s wedding I am in and has been nothing but a headache) works for me, and he is taking ten days off for his honeymoon. So it looks like there is no break in site for me. Maybe around Thanksgiving I can finally get to relax. That is if the holidays don’t drag me down with all the rushing and stress.
Well I guess I just needed to vent a little. But now it’s back to work…it’s 9:20pm and yes I am at home and still working…seems like it will never end.

One good note though…Dunkin Donuts has come out with a pumpkin spice latte that is just as good as Starbucks…which is good news for me since there are almost no Starbucks around here, but Dunkin Donuts are everywhere.