Work, It's What's For Dinner

So I really shouldn't be writing this right now, but I am anyway. Why shouldn't I be writing? Well work is smack in the middle of ShowWest and it's FRIDAY. Last year, on this day, I worked a haunting shift from 9 in the morning until 12 midnight. Why? Because that's show west.

In the economic model that governments are so fond of displaying there are the Big Wigs who own the corporations and do nothing. Then there are the big wigs (note the lack of capital letters) who work for the Big Wigs to do nothing. Then there are the Executives who work for the big wigs, the first group in our chain that actually does things. Executives are usually under appreciated. Then there are Managers who work for the Executives, their sole purpose seems to be relaying bad news to the Peons. Peons are the most basic worker unit. They get the crappy jobs that no one else wants to do, for less pay then the Big Wigs spend when they go to Wal-mart, assuming they know what a Wal-mart is.

If you're guessing that I'm an Executive, you'd be wrong. Though I am under appreciated. If you guess that I'm a Manager and the sole bearer of bad news, you'd be wrong. Though I am always used to pass along bad news. If you're guessing that I'm a Peon, you're also wrong.

My job has no official title, though when the deign to refer to me as anything it's always Administrative Assistant. This is something of mis-nomer, and I'm going to tell you why.

In addition to my general responsibility (sending faxes and emails for my boss, making copies or scans for my boss, making phone calls for my boss, answering the phone and screening my bosses calls) I am also responsible for handling the print server. Not only the print server, but the three large format print machines that our office runs. In addition to that, I am responsible for the Plot Cutter, that cuts signs out of vinyls too.

Not only am I responsible for the hardware (and the software related to running the print server) I'm also responsible to fix every computer in the office - and those that belong to my co-workers that they use OUTSIDE of the office. Why? I'm not really sure. But apparently that's in my job description.

This is the part where I get a really excited look on my face and jump out at you and shout, "BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!" because it's not. I'm also responsible for printing signs for...my bosses church, and my bosses classroom. At no charge. And laying out and graphically designing the art that runs on ALL the aforementioned machines. Sounds like a lot? It is.

At least, it was before January 31st.

However, the powers that be (Big Wigs, capital letters) decided that I wasn't busy enough, and our Warehouse Manager Forklift/Truck Driver was to lazy, so they fired him and "promoted me" into the Warehouse, with a 50 cent raise.

I guess that should show you how much they value my highly technical skills.

...and I HAVE highly technical skills. I rolled out a combined inventory tacking network address book, that also happens to store all our marquee data and handle invoicing. I wrote it all in a fancy PHP/SQL scripting language and loaded it onto a local computer with Apache, thereby giving everyone in the office access to it.

And I did it all for $10 USD.

I used to think I was getting paid good, but this week when I laid out my new resume on a resume building website I also was browsing the selection of jobs for a dedicated PHP/SQL programmer. Do you know what they get paid? $35-58 USD an hour.

But here I am raving about my job, and you know nothing about me.

I'm twenty three years old and I'm stuck in a dead in job. I also live at home. That's the bad news. The good news is I'm happily married with my first born (a son) on the way, and a side business that maybe will develop into something that will one day make me money. Maybe. One day. (As you can see, I'm also a pessimist)

I'm very excited about the impending birth of my child, and more so that he's a son. I always saw myself having a little girl, in fact, so did my wife. It's no small irony that we ended up having a boy for our first, but after some time to adjust to the idea I think we're actually MORE excited about having a boy.

Some of that, I think, is related to the "unknown". We had pictured ourselves having a girl for so long, that now that we're having a boy, we have almost no idea what to expect, and I for one, am enjoying that.

I'm also enjoying the Kaiser classes on childbirth and delivery we've been taken. They're very informative, and so far the teachers that we've had have all been exceptionally good. I'm very satisfied that I know as much as I possible can about what to expect for the labor and delivery.

Now, if only they had decent parenting classes as well...