Long day. Many things (left out)...

Blogging takes precedence over work tonight.

I didn't get fired.

Instead, I suppose the gist of it is summarized in one sentence:

"You're easily replaced."

I don't know if blogging about it would be in bad form, especially since I'm still fairly upset by it all, but we did it over lunch and at one point, I just remember finishing hearing something that made me completely lose my appetite before even taking a single bite and I sat there in disbelief for a few minutes while she ate. And then she said, "Eat. Your food will get cold."

It was a strange thing. I really want to write all of it, but like I said, bad form.

All I can say is yes, employees should appreciate the benefits they're given. Yes. But employers need to appreciate employees also. Telling an employee she's replaceable every chance you get probably doesn't accomplish what you intend for it to accomplish, unless it is your goal to lower morale incredibly.

And while working at home is great, it is a fairly reasonable expectation that in the not-too-distant future, many employers will save office costs by having virtual employees. Having an expensive office, in all its unproductive glory, just isn't worthwhile anymore. And that being the case, working from home does not replace health insurance, vacation allotment nor an annual salary increase as far as benefits go.

I asked for more vacation. In my head, that means two to four percent more than the four percent I get right now, which is the minimum required of employers by law. Considering the average wage increase to cover cost of living for this year will be around two point six percent, so they say, and that many employers offer new employees three weeks in order to stay competitive with other employers, it was not unreasonable for me, after a year and a half of employment, to suggest a vacation extension to cover this amount. "If I give you six percent after only one year of employment, it will set a precedent I don't want to set for future employees." She went on to explain, "I already give you more than the required statutory holidays. I'm supposed to calculate it based on your earnings and I don't. I give you the full four hours for each day." And she explained that she knows some hard-ass employers with virtual assistants who work under far worse conditions than I do.

But at the end of the day, is it really about being slightly better off than the lowest of the low? Is that who I am to compare myself to?

Or am I to compare myself to the contractors in the same industry who bring home more than a hundred dollars an hour? (And that's a conservative number.)

She gave me till next week to figure out if I'm content with the status quo or if I want to maybe become a contractor for her. That way, she said, she won't have to pay the crazy high unemployment fees associated with my salary.

I went outside earlier after a short chat with SIL A ended when my guy went to sleep (he ended up staying awake though for some reason), and I shoveled for a bit (my neighbors probably hate me because it was after eleven) and when my body was sweaty and finished, I threw Boo (my shovely protector) into the house and sat on the porch for a bit in my corduroy snowpants and my favorite woolly Burton sweater.

And it was peaceful.

I was so hot though. A fresh centimeter of snow had fallen on top of the ice from the last mixed storm, and I gently laid my hand on it. The snow stuck to me and quickly melted. I did it again and before it melted, crunched the small layer of snow between my palms. It immediately reminded me of the Christmas in 1999 when I swore I would roll in the snow when I got home from Ireland- and I actually did. I snowjobbed myself unhindered.

I pressed my hand into the fresh snow again and crunched the snow between my palms again. My body still steaming hot and the instantaneous cold of the snow felt horrible and beautiful at the same time. I looked up at the low level orangey clouds passing by silently.

It was so peaceful.

And then it occurred to me. After all this time, I thought that having a boy who wasn't a Christian was making it harder for me to find time with God, but it wasn't him at all. It was this job. And when I started to think about the job situation again, I could feel this familiar feeling creep back in and I realized that with this job comes a sort of feeling of darkness. You know that feeling when you say something terrible that you believe to be the truth about somebody behind their back and then you find out it wasn't true? You know? And they don't even know you said it, but just knowing that you put this sort of toxic negativity into the world eats you up. And you just feel this ashamed icky feeling. You know what I mean? That's the closest thing I can think of to how it felt when the job things crept back in during that peaceful moment. That looming I'd been talking about for months in regards to this job just became more tangible, more explicit and more unnecessary.

At the end of the lunch, it had basically been decided that if I needed to take time off for surgery or radiation, I'd give her as much warning as I could, and her reaction was to somehow impose on me that I should give her at least four months' notice and even that isn't much time, she said. So I can't have more vacation because she gives me the minimum that the Normes du Travail established, but the Normes du Travail established two weeks notice of departure is not applicable from my end...? Granted, I'm not the type to screw somebody, but... I'm also not the type to be ok with this sort of, for lack of a less dramatic word, injustice.

I need to find something that I can stick to. I need something I'm passionate about. Something I believe in.

I want something that stirs my heart like snowboarding did.

Speaking of snowboarding, reading the story today about the skier, Sarah Burke, who died after a fall upon landing a jump (so I read, I think) some time last week, I couldn't help but feel lucky as the way the fall was described sounded similar to the way I fell nearly eleven years ago, except my head slammed against the hill a few times as I kept flipping back up into the air after each impact. So many skiers and snowboarders die for milder hits than I endured. I'm lucky to be alive, you know?

"Sarah was a person who I think in many ways was larger than life and lived life to the fullest," said Canadian Freestyle CEO Peter Judge in that article above.

That's kind of what I aspire to be- hence the name of this blog, even.

Am I doing it now? I don't know.

And at the same time, it made me realize that had I not bailed miserably eleven years ago, it still would have ended this way anyway- or worse. Yet the way it did end, I have Boo, Jemma, my guy and Littles (in order of appearance).

That's not such a bad outcome.

I just have to figure out the career part...

[I paused earlier while looking for that article to draw this which is an exactly drawn copy of this picture myself (not me) took and to see Boo stomp at a sleeping Littles, trying to get her to move so he could get up on his sofa. She woke up all frazzled and wtf-y and he got up and lay down, slapping her in the face with his tail. Hehe. Poor Littles.]

[I also spent about two hours reading up on how to start your own company here in Quebec. Recently there were protests at Revenu Quebec denouncing how many services they offer in English. I, for one, am fricken grateful for their more than adequate translation of their website. Yey for making things far, far easier to understand for us anglos. :)]

Ok, I'm going to sleep.