Oh, It's A Monday!

When I agreed to take a "temporary" reduction in hours, I was told that while my hours and subsequently, my pay, were getting cut, my "benefits" were not. So that meant my employer part of my health insurance would still be paid and I'd still accumulate my full vacation and sick time (which is on the low end of the spectrum).


Much to my unhappy surprise, I found out last week that the "powers that be"-i.e. the other partners in the company, decided that a reduction in hours meant a reduction in benefits, specifically, my vacation and sick time. It's been dropped by more than a third. And I'm not happy.

I'm not happy because I did not get the reduction in writing with the promise to keep ALL my benefits. I'm not happy because my immediate boss (and a co-owner of the company) told me otherwise and he knows it. This means I've used up just over half of my vacation time for the year. I did have a mini conversation with my boss about this and he is "willing to work with me if I need additional time off".  Boss speak for I f*%$ up. He knows he gave me misinformation, but he won't 'fess up to that. I know he had a meeting with the other partners and they decided otherwise. I know he knows he told me one thing in November and now had to tell me another. Grr.

The part that is the kicker, is that I did not use all my sick days last year, I had about three that I was under the impression could carry over to be used as vacation days instead of being paid out as "well time". Since I told my boss about my trip I had made the assumption that I could use those three days as paid vacation time and save my 2009 days for later this year, maybe actually take some time for me. Guess I was wrong-what did Felix Unger say? "An assumption makes an ass out of you and me".

This is what bothers me most. This is a small company that I work for, but we have two "silent partners/investors" that are not active in the business. We do utilize their other businesses to assist with payroll, accounts payable and receivable, vendors, etc. My boss can if he wants to, over ride the other partners on certain decisions; I've seen him do it before. I've said it before, our company is feeling this economic pinch and my boss has some very odd money saving ideas. I don't get paid that much, I don't have tons of vacation/personal/sick time and I was under the impression that if I agreed to the reduction in hours, those other benefits would not be affected.  I'm pretty positive that he caved in on this because he's picking his battles and my time off is not a battle he want's to fight.

I'm also annoyed at myself. I did not get this in writing and it has come back to bite me. I'm annoyed because this happened at my last job with the new bonus structure supposedly to be paid out and did not. I'm too darned trusting and you would think I would have learned my lesson the last time. And I'm going to make sure I take a sick day as a mental health day pretty dammed soon too.

Can you tell it's a Monday?