I just posted the post below on FB. Well actually my current theme is about job security. I could also write about the fact that my boss at that time is now in jail.
Should that be a warning? Haha. Am I really that powerful? Well, yes. Do the right thing by others and it will be done well by you.
WSK boys sing the Salzburger Festspiele with Ricardo Muti. The year I was laid off, three of my sons sang with Ricardo Muti.
So now a bit of an all around article explaining that I took the day off because I will be laid off a month and have to use up all my overtime.
Even though I work at the UN I feel like a labourer who has to work the seasons and register unemployment for the interim period to cover expenses. But the AMS does not pay us even though I had to pay a whole year in a lump sum the last time, two years ago when I was in “separation” – the term used where I work, for the enforced breaks. Okay, so that must mean I am not good enough to get a “proper job” at the UN. Really? This rule was just enforced when they started to implement an Oracle Business Suite and some big shots believed that they could save lots of money by having the computers do all the work that the administrative staff was doing. So now there is a brake on new contracts until the system is fully implemented (a few more years apparently). Well guess what? I am the main one working on bridging the gaps of that programme to our old systems and training my colleagues on how to use the new system effectively, how to work around the bugs and glitches in the system. But I’m the one that has to save all my holidays so that my family can survive my break of service until I return to work. I’m the one that will be away in September when my director prohibited the whole office from taking leave that month because of general conference. I’m the one that will have zero credits to take the week I want off in October because I’m getting all my holidays paid out at end of service.
Poor me. Yes I know, I am grateful I have a job to go back to. Yes, and I did save all my holidays to pay for my break. Last time I took it as an opportunity to visit my old widowed mother in Australia. It was no holiday. I went on my own. It was winter in Melbourne. I’d actually like to go to Australia with my family when I choose (for example for my nephew’s wedding in March) and not have to save all my leave to survive an enforced break. Bla bla bla. I could go on and on. But I am actually really grateful. I am very lucky. There was a time I was the woman laid off who had small children who were dependant on her for everything. Now I am the proud mother of five fine boys who are making their way through life on a strong family foundation. And no-one can pay for that. No-one can substitute that. No-one can take that away.
Tero, you said you are proud of losing weight. I wish I would, but I know I will. I am proud of my family. We made a commitment years ago without knowing what we were getting into. We have stuck to our commitment. We still don’t know where it’s going. But we are still committed and proud to be unificationists who are matched and blessed by the messiah and committed to loving and raising our children in the same tradition. Regardless of material or social status.
Another rant and rave? Or am I being dangerously provocative?