Christmas In NC 2021

 We got to spend Christmas in NC with my parents this year, which felt like a tremendous victory after last year, when nobody in my family felt safe getting together for the holiday.  Sadly, my sister was unable to join us, as she was dealing with a sick kitty at the time.  Scott and I wondered if it was wise for us to travel this year, what with the omicron variant wreaking havoc and with the two of us both working around a lot of people.  So far, nobody has gotten COVID (at last not a symptomatic case), so I'm hoping we made the right decision.  We certainly enjoyed our visit!

I forgot to bring my "real" camera this time and took some pictures with my phone.  I haven't fully gotten the hang of getting everything in the frame with my phone camera.  Also, when we went to the beach after Christmas, I often had to shoot blind because of the glare from the sun.  As a result, not all of my pictures turned out as well as I would have liked, but I got a few!

My parents' Christmas tree

One day at the beach, a lot of horseshoe crab shells washed up.  I hope this was just a fluke and nothing horrible is happening to horseshoe crabs!

Another unusual thing that washed up was this starfish that Scott found.  None of us could recall ever finding a starfish on the NC coast.  We weren't sure if it was alive or dead, so Scott put it back in the ocean.

Sunsets were among my most successful photos

The Salary Question

 One thing I've learned from my relatively short time working as a speech-language pathologist is that compensation is all over the place.  Sure, there are average salaries you can look up, but they can be misleading.  One problem is the different types of compensation structures, full employee vs. independent contractor, salaried vs. hourly.  All of these structures come with their own fine print attached.

For much of last year, I worked as a contractor in a local school district, but was compensated as a full employee by the company that hired me.  So, in essence, I was taxed as a full employee (independent contractors pay a much higher rate of taxes) and had access to benefits (but not the stellar benefits offered to employees of the school district).  I was paid an hourly wage for 7.5 hours out of the day.  The catch was that I did not get paid for days when school was not in session, including breaks and snow days.  I was offered the chance to renew my contract, but knew that I didn't want to be a contractor forever, and decided to hit the job market again.  When I interviewed, and people asked about my salary expectations, I told them what I was making as a contractor.  What I didn't fully realize was that the company I worked for paid me a somewhat higher hourly wage to make up for all the times during the year that I wouldn't get paid.  (Note to any new SLPs reading this: Some contractors will not be as generous, and will just expect you to either subsist on ramen noodles or get a second job for when school isn't in session).

I learned the error of my ways when I was interviewing for my current position.  I had actually had preliminary conversations with them some weeks prior and then they stopped contacting me.  Someone in HR let it slip that the reason they hadn't followed up was that my previous hourly wage was more than they were willing to pay me.  As it happened, while I would have preferred not to take a pay cut, I was still interested in the position because of the sort experience I stood to gain.  So it worked out, but it made me wonder if I had inadvertently priced myself out of other opportunities I had interviewed for.

My preference is for employers to just say what they're willing to pay, either in the job ad or in the early stages of the interview.  But at least in my field, a lot of them don't, and a lot of them ask about salary expectations and press hard for a number.  In spite of the generous free socks offered by my current employer, I'm applying for other jobs again.  I spoke to a recruiter for a job I am very interested in today, and, of course, the question of compensation expectations came up.  I started by giving the usual answer about how I liked to consider the full compensation package, but then turned the tables on her and said, "May I ask what is budgeted for this position?"  Not only was she able to give me a very specific range, I learned how they decide what to pay their employees (completely based on years of experience, in this case).  I'm glad I asked because (a) I didn't price myself out of the opportunity, (b) I won't be surprised at the figure if I go forward in the interview process, and (c) I know now how they decide on compensation.  Now that I've cleared that hurdle, I just have to hope for luck as I (hopefully) move forward in the interview process...

My Phone Is Trying To Censor Me

 The other day, while texting Scott, I tried to type a four-letter word.  While this word would technically be considered "bad," it's not one of the words that's particularly likely to offend most people.  My phone autocorrected what I typed to "dawn."

Of course, I deleted dawn and retyped my intended word.  I tried this a few times, only to have my phone autocorrect it back to dawn each time.  I was forced to give up on my intended profanity.

It made me wonder how often the word dawn appears in text messages.  I personally can't recall ever texting the word dawn, and I don't often hear it in spoken conversations, either.  Maybe all the night owls of the world swear when dawn arrives?  Thoughts and ideas welcome!

Not To Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth, But...

 Ever had a really hard time feeling grateful for something?  If so, you're not alone!

Recently, at work, we had a video call with one of the higher-ups in the company.  It was this higher-up talking to (I think) all the facilities under her leadership.  In the course of this call, this person revealed that (for reasons that may become very clear in a moment), they were having trouble retaining employees, and that they wanted to express their thanks and appreciation to all of us.  As a gesture of appreciation, they were giving us a small gift meant to signify the company "taking a step in the right direction"...

They had gotten a pair of crazy socks for each of us.

To be specific, we had our choice of either an argyle or a striped pattern in bright colors that some people might say clashed with each other.  The company name was prominently interspersed with the pattern.  The socks are of a dress sock weight, with a distinctly casual look.  Which I'm realizing as I write might be unfair to the entire concept of "casual."

So far, only one of my coworkers has claimed a pair.  The rest of them are creating clutter in our shared office.

The higher-up in question assured us at the time that the company wasn't thanking us with socks.  But honestly, the fact that she felt the need to clarify that point makes me think that that is exactly what they are doing.

There are far worse problems to have, of course.  I am grateful to have a job.  But truthfully, I would have gladly taken whatever minimal cash value those socks had over the socks themselves.  Really, when you think about what employees would like at work, I don't think crazy socks make the list for many people.  More money and more time off are probably the most popular perks for everyone.  But mentorship, training, and educational opportunities are also welcome, and not all of those have to cost much money or time.  When all else fails, food is probably a more popular perk than socks.

Starting a new career during the pandemic has been an interesting journey.  I've been fortunate to find work, but none of the jobs I've had since graduating from Grad School 2.0 have been a dream job, to say the least.  As a result, I always have a wish list of things I'd like to have in a job in an ideal world, as well as ideas of how to make the next job incrementally better than the current job.  Short of a dream job, maybe I could shoot for moving up from free socks to free t-shirts.

Pandemic Daze: First Cold

 What with all the time I spent at home during some portions of the pandemic, and all of the mask-wearing and hand-sanitizing during the other portions, I have only now gotten my first cold since the pandemic started.

Naturally, this has inconveniently coincided with my having started a job a few weeks ago.  I haven't accrued much paid leave anyway, and this particular job does not allow me to take paid leave until after I've spent 90 days on the job, so I'm sitting at home not being paid.  Boo.

When to stay home with an illness is one of those points of pandemic etiquette and procedure that I imagine will be evolving.  In the past, I probably would have gone to work like this and powered through, probably at the cost of getting sicker myself (and possibly at the cost of spreading it to someone else).

But now, people are more likely to view respiratory diseases with some alarm.  My work place does a daily temperature check, so in the event that I ran a fever, I would be sent home anyway.  Also, I'm currently working with  a medically vulnerable population.

However, it's worth noting that temperature checks and social expectations are not fool proof.  Not all infections cause a fever.  Temperature readings can be artificially low if someone has been outside in the cold.  And quite a lot of people are unable to afford unpaid days off from work, and will very likely try to go in no matter how awful they are feeling, and no matter how many dirty looks they might get every time they cough or sneeze.  

It's hard to say what the answer is to this problem.  Mandated paid sick leave is a start, but it's hard to know how much is adequate to keep people at home when that's where they really need to be.  But I'm hoping the pandemic will make people start asking these questions, if not for the sake of the people who feel forced to go to work no matter what, then for the sake of everyone else.  If there is anything we should have learned, it's that the person coughing, sneezing, or whatever else through the workday may be spreading more than a few a crummy days and an inconvenience.

A Lot Of Birds In The Bush

 I'll start with the happy news/milestones portion of this post first.  In late July, I received my certificate of clinical competence (CCC) in speech-language pathology from the American Speech and Hearing Association!  This certificate is a culmination of completing my master's degree, passing a national Praxis exam, and completing a clinical fellowship year.  It is also a requirement for many jobs in the field. It was a long process, fraught with uncertainty, and I was relieved to be done.

I have been on the job market since the school year ended in June. I decided not to renew my contract with the local school district for a number of reasons.  In a nutshell, I felt like I was getting all the stress of working in the schools (high caseloads, etc.) without certain benefits like timely contract renewals, paid time off, and a solid retirement plan.  Also, I had decided in grad school that I really wanted to work with adults.  Graduating into the pandemic as I did, I wasn't able to be too choosy about my first jobs. And it turned out that I did enjoy working with children. But I wanted to see if I could work with adults, and I definitely didn't want to decide my first year out of grad school that a contract position with poor benefits was the best I could do.

I didn't get much interest from employers until I received my CCC, but once I did, I've received more attention from employers than I ever have in my life.  This includes jobs in which I would be working primarily or exclusively with adults. But, moving this interest from a bird in the bush to a bird in the hand has proven challenging. To be fair, I received one offer which I turned down due to a combination of a long commute and their HR rep being shady. But other than that, I have lots of potential opportunities in various stages, from trying to schedule initial phone calls to waiting to hear back from interviews. There are a couple of instances in which in theory I might still hear back, but really I think I'm being ghosted. 

It all makes for an emotional roller coaster, as well as a lot of time spent on things that likely won't pan out.  Interviews take time and energy even when they don't result in an offer.  It has led to a lot of introspection about what I really want.  At first, I was applying exclusively to jobs in which I would work with adults, but I've been wondering lately how much I really want to deal with (low pay, bad commute, odd schedule, etc.) to achieve that.  And if I put in my time at less-than-choice positions, would it even eventually translate to a better job working with adults?  Would a comfortable, stable pediatric position better?  There is part of me that wants to work toward goals I set for myself, but another part of me that just wants to settle on a job and get into a routine that involves earning income again.  An interesting additional twist to all this is that I am in the middle of a multi-step interview process for a job unrelated to speech-language pathology.  No guarantees of course, but it raises the potential question of whether I would be willing to abandon a field I put so much work into if the opportunity arose.

I keep telling myself that there are at least opportunities for speech-language pathologist, and my current level of engagement with potential employers is in stark contrast to what happened when I was looking for work after a layoff several years ago.  So, I feel like I'll be working again eventually one way or another.  I hope to write about my bird in the hand soon.

Balcony Garden 2021

 

Behold, this summer's balcony garden!  Our balcony gardening was fairly limited last year.  We were pretty late in acquiring any plants at all because we were dutifully staying at home except for essential outings.  Then, by the time we did decide to buy plants, moving was looking like a distinct possibility, so I didn't want to go too overboard.  I bought a few herb plants and moved them with us last summer.

I definitely wanted to do some balcony gardening this year. We currently have basil, cherry tomatoes, parsley, and my faithful mint plant.  One wrinkle of balcony gardening in our new home is that our plants get less sunlight than they did in our old place, mainly because we have a solid brick wall on our balcony here, as opposed to rails that let the light through.  I basically learn all of my gardening lessons the hard way, but may do some things differently next summer in light (haha) of our gardening circumstances.

Basil:  I'll grow this again next year.  Summer is basically incomplete for me without copious quantities of pesto.  It took some experimenting to help the basil plants get sunlight, but one of them has done extremely well with the planter raised off the ground, closer to the light.

Cherry tomatoes:  I really love the idea of cherry tomatoes and plan to keep trying.  This year has actually been reasonably successful.  The plants have a lot of brown leaves, but they are producing tomatoes.  Pollinators seem to be able to find our balcony, so I've stopped resorting to toothbrush pollination.  Unfortunately, other critters have been able to find the balcony, too, and sometimes take bites out of the tomatoes while they are still on the plant.  It seems to matter little whether the tomatoes are actually ripe or not.  I'm guessing squirrels are the perpetrators, although I did once see a chipmunk scuttling across the brick wall.

However...I think the cherry tomatoes would benefit from much more light than our balcony offers.  Our plants grew very tall very quickly, which I suppose could be a characteristic of their variety, but I suspect may have to do with them trying to reach more sunlight. The result of this is unwieldy tomato plants that spill over the balcony wall and sometimes appear to be fighting with the shrubbery behind the balcony.  I will try growing cherry tomatoes next year, but may try to find a variety that is more shade-tolerant.

Parsley:  This was a disappointingly underperforming plant this year, no doubt in part because it was visited by a parsley-eating caterpillar.  I'll probably try planting another herb in its place next year.

Mint:  How can I complain, when it keeps coming back year after year?  As long as this mint wants to survive, it has a planter with me.

I'm thinking of adding some shade-tolerant plants next year. I've read that leafy greens are generally okay in the shade, so I'm thinking of trying kale, particularly since I eat a lot of it anyway.  Short of a true crisis, it's hard to imagine what would make me want to move at this point, so I think I'll have plenty of time to figure out gardening on this particular balcony.