Out of Touch

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been MIA lately, but that's because I've been cracking the whip and forcing the Inspirado. Mama wants some granite countertops, lol.

Actually, though, this post is about Dave's company. No, I'm not going to name said company. Some of you know us, but most of you don't. Rather than get into a big stink about bad publicity, I'm going to leave the name out.

That said....

Today Dave is at work and while he was browsing the schedule for overtime, one of his supervisors decided to make a snarky remark about "living within our means." Dave being the sweetheart that he is (and no fan of confrontation) let it slide. A few minutes ago, he told me about this remark, and it super pissed me off. I mean irate to the point of wanting to hex someone's balls off!

Who the fuck is this guy to lecture us about living within our means? Has he seen our budget? If he had, he would see the following:

1) Our mortgage and escrow is less than 26% of our gross income. (And no, we don't belong to that group of dummies who got ARMS without understanding that it will, in fact, adjust! We have a 30 year fixed rate at 6 point something percent.)
2) We have NO car payment and our insurance is only $57/month.
3) We spend $250 on groceries/month and $250-275 on gas.
3) Utilities (water, gas, electricity) are less than $200 each month because we keep the thermostat up, only water the lawn in the evenings, and have the water heater set low.
4) Cell Phones and Internet cost another $200 but are necessary for communication and working from home.
5) Student loans (his and mine) eat up $200 of our budget.
6) Feeding Bos and providing meds averages out to 65/month.
7) We have no credit cards, no satellite or cable, rarely (read: once a month) have dinner at a restaurant, and have seen 2 movies since January.
8) Oh, and yes, being the splurge whores that we apparently are, Dave and I do spend $18/month on Netflix.

Now, call me crazy, but I think that's a rather lean budget. Believe me. If I could find a place to squeeze extra money, I would. All of that takes up 3/4 of Dave's net pay. So no, we're not poor, and yeah, we live comfortably, but we definitely need the OT every now and then.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, where does all of our extra income go? If you guessed medical bills, you're right! Yeah. Remember when Dave had to be hospitalized with pancreatitis? We're still paying for that because, yep, his insurance didn't cover most of it.

It's times like this that I see the glaring differences between Dave and me. Had it been me in his position, I would have scathingly pointed out that if Dave's salary tracked with the cost of living and if his company provided full vision and dental benefits or simply BETTER health insurance, a lot of the employees at Dave's company wouldn't have to work two jobs. Hell, some of Dave's colleagues qualify for WIC and Medicaid! Yeah. That's fucking pathetic that these people have one of the most important jobs in society, but they're paid less than the people who push paper in the main offices.

Just to go off on a tangent for a sec: Why is it that we pay the most important jobs (teachers, police, fire, ems, researchers) the very least while people who do absolutely jack squat (athletes come to mind) earn obscene amounts of money? Seriously, when is kicking a football or shooting a three pointer ever going to cure cancer or revive a drowned child or teach your dyslexic child how to read? Priorities! Where the hell are our priorities?!?!

Back to the issue at hand--the rude and obviously out of touch supervisor--I also would have pointed out that the reason Dave picks up OT is to add money to our savings cushion. After buying the house, paying for a wedding, all of the extra medical expenses last year, appliances, and moving costs, we're a little strapped. And no, we're not saving for something stupid like a boat or a pool table or whatever.

Being the selfish and extravagant hacks that we apparently are, Dave and I are saving to start a family. Not so much for the nursery furniture and such, but for the adoption fees, etc. Since I have shriveled prunes for ovaries, conceiving won't be a walk in the park, and, of course, Humana doesn't cover any of the medical interventions I might try. No, I don't mean IVF treatments. I mean simple shit like Clomid. It's ridiculous really that we have to pay $60/month for my insurance, but there isn't a damn thing that I need that they'll pay for! WTF?

Oh, and speaking of the devil, did I mention that our insurance coverage was terminated--on our wedding day? Oh, yeah. Funny thing, though, is that the cost of my coverage has been deducted from Dave's paycheck since June. Hmmm. I wonder where that money went? The really messed up part of this story is that we were mailed new insurance cards in July, but when Dave went to pick up his prescriptions on Labor Day, the CVS pharmacy tech informed us that our insurance had been terminated MONTHS ago! Am I the only person who thinks we should have received a notice? When my dad's insurance was going to kick me off because I had reached the age limit, I got not one, but two notices at 60 days and 30 days. My parents also got duplicate notices. So where were the notices from Humana? Or Dave's HR? Shouldn't THEY have realized our coverage was going to lapse?

Eventually, Dave's HR and Humana worked out the issue, but obviously, they're still passing the blame back and forth. Quite frankly, I don't care who's to blame. I just don't want it to happen again. God forbid I had been in a wreck or Dave had fallen down the stairs! We would have been royally screwed.

Finishing up my little rant, I think that if this supervisor was really concerned with the welfare of his employees that he would make it a priority to champion their needs. Higher salaries, better benefits, a real cost of living study to employ in salary adjustments, etc. Life might be cushy on his supervisor's salary, but the people working in the trenches (and jesus, yes, i still remember the exhaustive, thankless life that is a medic's career) rarely get the compensation that they deserve. There's nothing wrong with a husband wanting to support his wife and dog solely on his salary. I still haven't figured out how the medics with stay-at-home spouses and children make ends meet. I suspect they're the medics who have second jobs.

Anywho. Seeing as we're such horrible spendthrifts, I should probably get back to cranking out tawdry novellas to earn a steady paycheck. Maybe if I'm really lucky I can force a bestselling literary novel out of the Muse. Then Dave can work part-time (since he really loves his job) and spend the rest of his leisurely hours holed up in our bedroom, helping me, ahem, research my latest erotica plotline...