Weekend Job Alternatives

I'm hoping to catch up with my weekend job boss like very soon. We need to sit down and discuss a schedule.  As I stated before, I was a replacement for someone who got injured and was unable to work.  As far as I knew, the person I replaced was still unable to work at this type of job.  Taking care of horses and animals means you have to be fairly mobile and healthy. You can't come back to this type of physical labor if your body is not up to the work.  It's my understanding while they were healthy, they were not very mobile.

My weekend boss has said to me on a number of occassions that he is comfortable with me being at the facility when he is out of town, the system seemed to work for both of us. I had asked on a couple of occassions how my predecessor was doing and if there was an ETA to return to work. The last I heard from my weekend boss was no return date was given.  As I stated earlier this week, I was a bit distressed to hear my hours were going to be cut. His temporary solution, work one day a week is not satisfactory.  Lest you think I'm turning down work, I'm not.  The facility is not close to home and requires that I travel almost two hours to get there. I am lucky that I can bring my dogs with me to the weekend job.  I load up dogs, food, laundry, clothes, etc when I leave my house for the facility. I just don't think it will be cost effective or a good use of my time to do this one day a week, the gas and wear and tear on the car would eat up 1/3 of my pay.  My solution, alternate weekends or let me do two days (worth it in time and money to me).  I do have some weekend things I would like to do over the summer and my yard and house need some work. A weekend home would allow me to get things done. I have no idea if this will fly with my weekend boss. 

The facility has one other person who fills in for on site staff if no one else is available,she actually has a horse in training at the facility and will swap out work for board and training fees. Jill called me last week to talk about the facility and also was a bit surprised that my predecessor was coming back. We chatted a bit about the situation and I told her about the one day a week thing. Jill agreed with me about the one day a week thing. She said it before I did. Actually, she said 'WTF was he thinking when he presented that idea to you?"  I told her that I think he was hedging his bets just in case the person I replaced finds out after a couple weeks they can not physically do the work, I'll be available. I also told Jill that I wondered if money was an issue. I think I get a better daily wage than the person I replaced. The old A/P person let that slip to me one day when there was an issue with my payroll.

So, what I am going to do?  Not much right now. I need to talk to the weekend boss, get his feelings on all of this and see what solution we can come up with to make us all happy. It might happen, it might not. There are not a lot of evening and weekend opportunities around where I live, I keep looking.  The old facility I worked for does not currently have any openings on staff. I left word with my old boss and I know he just does not have my old job available. It's doing similar work, but its much closer to home.  With the hours at my "full time" job still at a reduced rate, I have to do something.

Ah well, I can let this ruin the rest of my week and my weekend, or I can just file it away in my brain and deal with it in a rational manner when the two of us can sit down and figure out a schedule. Like Scarlett O'Hara said, Tomorrow Is Another Day and I'll worry about this when I can give myself some head clearing time and not feeling like a picked upon child.