COVENANT -- From a wife's perspective

Thanks Hometime. Yes, I've been very quiet as I didn't want to ruin anybody's holiday. Christmas was just another day. No presents or anything like that. Maybe next year.

Redcoat has been off work since December 20th. So it's been 10 days now and still haven't heard anything from the company. We emailed the team coordinator and left her several messages. Finally got through to her on Monday. Redcoat is trying to team up with his roommate from orientation but the man is in Phoenix and having a devil of a time getting over this way. Trying to get it across to the company that each man is "homeless" in that neither one actually "lives" anywhere so it doesn't matter which state they both are from. The other dude spent his holiday in Phoenix at a hotel for lack of anywhere else to go.

Picture sales have been dismal and our finances are in a downward spiral. I am starting a new job on Monday but I don't think it will work out any better than the one I have now. It's still sales in that I'm selling ads to businesses for campground maps. I'm sick of sales that forces me to depend on convincing someone else to give me money so I can earn a living. The only good thing about my new job is that I don't have to pay to stay in the campgrounds.

I've found another career that I wish I had the money to pursue. I've checked with the Department of Labor's website and it's pretty common knowledge that work in the health care field is relatively recession proof. Medical transcriptionists can work from home but the cost of the training is anywhere from $1800 to $4200 and it takes a year to get good at it. If I could hold out long enough to get the training and get a job doing that, then I'd be OK in that I could do transcription work during the day, Air Photo in the evenings and weekends and be able to live.

But that's a pipe dream.

I've posted my resume on hotjobs and monster and applied directly to three companies but so far haven't heard anything.

So the update is that we are waiting to hear from Covenant on when Redcoat can get back out on the road. I'm certain his first check will be totally eaten up by back payments for his benefits so he'll have to work at least a couple of weeks before he'll be able to contribute to our finances again.

In the meantime, I muddle through as best I can. The truck needs tires, the dogs need their shots, and things are just starting to wear out but there's no money to fix anything.

I've had a terrible cold since Saturday so I'm not in the best frame of mind at the moment. Sorry for the gloomy post. Probably should have just kept quiet until I was feeling better.

 

The per diem bites. Redcoat mistakenly signed up for it in orientation and thought he was going to get .17 per mile after training but with the per diem, they pay him .07 per mile and then .08 per mile per diem so he's only been getting .15 per mile which is just a penny more than he was getting during training.

Am going to search for Roadmedic's posts to find out what the deal is with it. I know it has something to do with taxes but cripes, how much less can the company pay these guys????