Provisioning

A few months ago, I wrote about a new job opportunity.  A lot has transpired since the original posting, so consider this the 4-month check-in.

 

My former job was that of a sales manager.  From a compensation (this is the in vogue euphemism for the amount of money that one is paid, particularly when exorbitant sums are being discussed—it’s all relative, but my sums were much more meager) standpoint, sales management is on a sliding scale.  In my two years on the job, I’ve made more (year 1) and I’ve made less (year 2).  Because of the… fluidity in take home pay, I like to look at the 2yr average when doing any sort of analysis.

 

The base salary of my new position is much less than my previous 2yr average.  I do have a potential bonus at the end of the year that would take me up to the level of my 2yr average, but it is based on criteria that are 99% out of my conscious and tangible control.  The potential bonus wouldn’t pay out until November anyway, so that doesn’t really help with normal Menendez operating expenses.

 

I really felt like I was supposed to take this new position.  So, I did.   But the salary did not leave room for things that we think are important, such as maxing out our Roth IRAs and maxing out Brixton and Isaac’s 529c college funds.

 

We also didn’t have room for pretty much anything that would be considered ‘fun’.  No eating out, drinking, vacations, etc., without dipping into savings.  In fact, we were still negative every month even after cutting out anything extraneous.

 

From day 1, we prayed that God would continue to provide for us and take care of us like he always had.  I really believed that he would, so I was confident that things would go well for us.

 

Since Dec 1 when I started the new gig, we were able to refinance our rental house to a savings of about $400/month with just a 12 month ROI.  We were able to get BB&T to modify the mortgage on our primary home—a loan modification is basically a free refi that saves us another $400/mo (this was nothing short of miraculous.)  I was also able to negotiate our bill with Comcast and save another $20/mo.  This is minor, but it represented a win.

 

Finally, there was, uh, what’s the positive equivalent of an ‘insult to injury’, ‘to boot’?  Regardless, on April 1^st, I received a no fools email from my boss telling me that he was giving me a raise!  It was a relatively small raise, but I wasn’t expecting anything after 4 months on the job.  After I read that email, I felt like God, through the universe, was smiling at me.

 

In addition to the financials, did I mention that I get to work from home and that 75% of my work can be done at night or whenever I want?  So, my day is generally flexible to help out with the kids, run an errand, or meet with a friend.

 

#blessed

 

The moral here is to not be afraid to take risks, particularly ones that you feel God is calling you toward.

 

 

On Facebook on Facebook (and Twitter too)

On Saturday, I took Isaac (He is 9 months old, but for whatever reason Brixton tells everyone that he is 3.  She knows that she is 2 and will correctly tell people she is 2 and can count to 2010 30, so I’m not sure what that’s about.) to the Starbucks uptown.  (I live in midtown.  Midtown is the only part of Tallahassee described as such, so when I say ‘uptown’, what I really mean is that we went to the Starbucks north of I-10.  Ever since I began living in Midtown, I’ve enjoyed pretending that I live in a city.  This summer they are even opening a Whole Foods just up the street!  I will be excited to walk there and continue my chimera of the city life.  But in all seriousness, living in midtown Tallahassee is pretty rad.  It’s not lavish bourgeoisie–at least not for me–but more like Brooklyn.)

Isaac needed an activity and Jennifer (lately, known as Mama) needed to have only 1 child at home. I’m the one that needed a coffee which then encouraged Jennifer to request a ‘specialty coffee’ as well. (Honestly, I actually like the ‘specialty coffees’ as well, so I’m not casting stones here. Usually, I would have supported the local coffee shop in midtown.  I don’t really know why I went uptown.  To lengthen the activity, perhaps?  But as a shareholder of Starbucks, I don’t really think I went wrong.)

Anyway, Starbucks was slammed, and as I was waiting in line to get my coffee, I saw a friend of mine (He actually started out as my friends dad, but I’m getting older.) It was nice to see him, and we chatted a bit. In the interest of full disclosure, it’s important to note that I am ‘friends’ with this gentleman on Facebook as well as ‘friends’ with his son and his daughter.  Please feel free to stop reading at this point if you feel you’ve heard this one before.

As I was saying, it was nice to see him and he asked me about fatherhood etc.  I asked him how things were going with him, and that’s when, as Big Earl might say, things started to get a little bit weird.

He started to tell me about everything that was going on with his family–which is a very normal activity to partake in with someone that you haven’t seen in awhile.  But with nearly everything he was telling me, I was like, “Oh yeah, I saw that on Facebook.”  It feels like I said that 10 times getting mumblier and mumblier…

I thought about this exchange later on and, to be honest, I was very embarrassed.  The fact that I saw pictures of his grandkids and knew that his son had recently been married kind of dampened the effect that those types of recapitulations would normally have on a conversation.  It was as if the real face-to-face conversation had become the simulacrum and my cyberstalking on Facebook the Real.

This is troubling on a number of levels.

Among others, Baudrillard (He wrote, without question, the single most intellectually challenging–at least from a strict comprehension standpoint–thing I’ve ever read in “Simulations”.  It would take me 30 minutes to read a single page.  And I’ll never forget when my hipster before there was hipster professor, Roger Beebe–I enjoyed his class hence the shout-out–walked into our class on Monday morning after assigning that book to read over the weekend and said, “Uh, I didn’t remember that book being as difficult as it was…”  For some reason, that comment amuses me greatly.) has previously written about this kind of thing, but it never hit me like it did the other day.

Pretty much the main thing I’ve always liked about Facebook is the ability it gives me to ‘keep up’ (Cyberstalking sounds so unabashedly nefarious, doesn’t it?) with people I rarely, if ever, see. (And truth be told, I would barely even know them at this point–if I ever really did.  Facebook!)

And my family can compliment me on my kids.  That’s the real winner.  (Vicariously, I…  Seriously though, I do know that everyone has the most wonderful, beautiful, intelligent children in their own minds; but since this is my mind, Facebook serves to enable this self-fulfilling prophecy.)

But in effect, at least the other day at Starbucks, Facebook had rendered my brief run-in, catch-up on how things are going conversation incredibly impotent.  Obviously, this is my fault for not digging deeper into how he felt about his new daughter-in-law, the wedding food, the weather, ass opposed to focusing in on the the fact that I was already aware of the event, the What.  However, I’m not sure that a brief run-in with, loosely, an acquaintance is the time for a deep dive.

That brings us to a bit of a paradox.

I suppose this is yet another example of …

(I really enjoyed “The Mezzanine”.  So vicariously, I… Sorry about that.)

The Little B Speaks!!

I’ve been going to a bible study for the last couple of months.  We have been going through the book of Exodus.  There is a story in Exodus 16 about manna.  Basically, the Israelites are led out of Egypt by Charlton Heston–I mean Moses.  They are wandering around the desert and get hungry. They ask God (or despairingly complain, depending on your reading) for something to eat and He gives them the manna.  Manna basically means “what is it?”.  This is a famous story.

Table that for a moment.

I have daughter named, Brixton.  She just turned 2.  She is fun.  She is also quite interesting.     For example, when we tuck her into bed at night, we say our prayers as part of the bedtime ritual. She likes to thank God for things like saws, and fire trucks, and jumping.  It’s quite wonderful. However, in the midst of praising God for the joy she experienced while watching the garbage truck earlier in the day, she often starts naming random people that we know.  More often then not, she did not see these people during the day.  She randomly names them.

Our friends, the Canadians, came over for dinner recently.  We were telling them how Brixton had wanted to pray for them the other day. We had assumed that this was simply her being “cute”. The Canadians, however, were floored.  They explained that they were doing some serious remodeling and it was behind schedule and had become an extreme point of stress and contention in their lives.

It was interesting that, randomly, Brixton decided to pray for some people who needed it.

Table that.

Brixton has been talking for awhile now.  Obviously, her vocabulary has increased exponentially over the last year or so and the way she says some words has morphed and evolved (or degraded!) as well.  She has invented exactly 1 word in her life.  She uses it often and in a very consistent manner.

The word she says is manna.  

It’s almost like she isn’t sure how to pronounce it.  (This makes sense as it is not a word that gets a lot of play around our house.)  She might say: mon-ya, or man-A, or manna.  But she always says it to mean “I don’t know” or “what is it”.

For example:

I might say, “Hey Brixton, who is this in the picture?”

She will look at it and then say, “Manna.”

Or she might hold up a piece of aged white cheddar flavored puffed rice and corn (Pirate’s Booty anyone?) and ask “Manna?” while pointing to it.

She has been using this word for over a year and I didn’t put it together until about 2 weeks ago. I am positive she did not learn this word by hearing us use it–which is the way she has learned every other word.

This is quite the coincidence.

Very small children are connected to the Real in a way that gets lost as we age.

 

We need to find it again.

 

 

 

Stepping back

This week marks the first week of my new job.  I still work for the same company, but I took a position with the corporate team as opposed to the field–where I’ve worked in various capacities for the last 6 years.  I’m told that this is a promotion and I’m constantly being congratulated and given pats on the back.

But, at best, I’m going to make virtually the same amount of money as I did this past year as a sales manager and I am DEFINITELY going to make less than I did 2 years ago when we had a really blockbuster kind of year.

The decision to make the switch was a difficult one.  How can a job with a pay cut–which is essentially what happened–be a promotion?  It was certainly difficult to sell my wife on this one, that’s for sure.

But then I started thinking nonlinearly.  (Got some time?)

It’s obvious that we are trained to think in a straightforward linear fashion.  Step 1, then 2, finally 3, and your done.  But Reality is often not like that.  If the point of life is the journey, then a meandering journey is equally as important and meaningful as one that is straight ahead.

Anyway, I’m thinking of a ladder going up with various landings along the way.  Once you’re on the ladder, we are tempted to keep climbing rungs from landing to landing.

I’m hoping by hopping off the ladder and walking around for a bit… I may find an elevator.