A Performance Review-Sort Of

Last week I posted that I had a meeting with my boss at my "full time" job.  It was a very unexpected and short notice performance review.  Like I had all of 5 hours to prepare.  I was dead certain I was going to get the proverbial boot from the office because of the slow down in our work.  I did not.

The reveiw was to tell me that I still had a job, no return to full time hours, no increase in salary, but I still had a job.  I got some feedback on my job performance, none of which was a surprise to me. I pretty much know where I "lack" and what I do well.  Thankfully, there was nothing major thrown at me that was negative.  My job description stays the same, my pay stays the same, he is happy with my work, our vendors like working with me, etc and for now I will have reduced vacation hours based on my working hours. I did in turn tell my boss I was not happy about the unclear notification on my vacation time and he acknowledged that he did not flat out tell me my vacation time would be cut.  To be fair, I did not ask flat out if my vacation time would be cut,at the time I was more focused on my health insurance.  A majority of my time off in 2008 revolved taking the odd Friday off, I did not take a "real" vacation in 2008 like I did in 2009. Since I was no longer scheduled on Fridays, neither of us really thought about it until I decided to go to the UK in March.  Oh well, live and learn. When I go back to full time hours, I will get more vacation time. I don't have any thing planned until fall anyway.

I guess what I have to put some serious thought into is what I want to do with my working life.  I feel like I'm in a limbo stage. Can you say Mid Life Crisis?  I know that the next few years are crucial to me, personally and financially.  The decisions I make in the next few months will impact my life going forward.  With the reduced hours at the "full time job" and the reduced hours at the weekend job, I have to decided what I'm willing to give up or change. I have given up certain work perks because one decision I've made is to work no more than 20 miles from my home.  I used to commute almost an hour by car to a job and the quality of my life suffered.  It did not help that the job also did not offer enough "perks" for me to put up with the commute. Jobs and perks are a whole 'nother post.

I have almost no savings, my small Roth IRA got hit hard in the stock market downturn and my house, while retaining it's value barley, really is not going to provide me with any sort of a nest egg if I decide to sell it. In fact, one of my goals going forward is to pump up my income and qualify for a new mortgage and maybe I can move into a larger home. My current home is very small, like large studio apartment small.  I do know that a person with a discharged BK can get an FHA loan, provided you have kept your credit clean, are gainfully employed and meet the other lending criteria set up by the FHA. 

Ah well. Like I said, I have a lot of thinking to do in the next few months about where I want to go,what I want to do and if the BK will affect any of it.