Estoy Nueces

As usual, I am waiting until Mark clears out of the house to get serious about what I need to get done. He has to be at an early morning meeting. I have to go to my NEW JOB. Well, the job I've been doing from home, but now get to do some in their offices. Hopefully, there will be more hours involved and it will develop quickly into a FULL TIME JOB. I really really want it too for so many reasons. I hope I remember why I wanted a full time job when it is all said and done. I don't want to get into a rut.

I want a full time job because it is steady income primarily. I will know basically how much that next check is going to be and (unlike M&M) I will be certain when I'm going to get it. Probably I'll have direct deposit and it will go directly into the bank AND there will be taxes taken out of it so I don't have to think about that year-round either. I will enjoy having a place to get up and GO for work.... I'll get into the reasons I don't want to work at home in a bit. I will enjoy co-workers and outside stimulation. I will thoroughly appreciate and enjoy INSURANCE. I don't believe it should be an employer's job to get your insurance and I hate that you lose your insurance when you lose your job, but that's the way it is for now and until it changes, I want my employer to help me get my insurance. I will enjoy weekends so much more if there is a job and money to be made waiting on Monday. I hope I get some good money eventually from this job (Man, my definition of good money has changed so much!).

I also want this job for the opposite, negative reason. I want to be able to quit M&M gracefully. I can't quit and not have her income unless I have a full-time job. Working for her, most people think I DO have a full-time job so no one else is offering or thinking that I need a job at all. But at 20 hours a week, I am truly only scraping by and that is only with all these other things I do, too. So mainly, I'm not making enough money to thrive or grow or get ahead, only barely get by. But also, I am so tired of worrying over her business for her when she doesn't seem to worry over her business herself. In six months she has gone to Paris, a Mexican cruise, New York, Florida, and now London tomorrow. Yet she knows she is broke. She has a house in Illinois that costs her $30000 just to HAVE it (with utilities, grass mowing, taxes, a loan against it, etc.) and yet she just lets it sit there while she waits for the one buyer that put in an offer to sell their house. She gets business from a client like the Gonzales people and just lets them be ignored and have to work to get in touch with her or meet and acts like they are too small potatoes to want their $3000. She has put me in the hot seat of telling a musician that they WILL be paid when I truly can't promise that. All of that is the really tangible stuff that has been bothering me today. There is so much more that just bugs me all the time. Her lack of planning ahead and everything being a crisis. Deposits not being paid and waved off like they don't matter. I notify a client of deposits to be paid and they get mad and she waves it off like it will all take care of itself. She doesn't care about bands and venues and clients getting what they really want or need, but she is so charming and fun to be with, everyone gives her a break. She skates through life on charm and looks.

I had a big talk with Mark's boss Friday about some other people in our industry that are crooks, out and out crooks, according to him. People that steal money from artists or venues in order to fatten their wallet. She is NOT like that and I will vouch for that. She is not malicious and has no intention of hurting anyone. She isn't even uncaring most of the time, she is just oblivious and assumes it will all work out. I worry a lot about her tax situation. She waves that off that she just has to show the IRS that ALL of this income was paid back out in business expenses and there is no worry, but I am sure that the IRS is going to notice she has had employees that she never paid any SS taxes on. They are going to notice that everything she pays for she counts as a business expense. And the fines. Even if there were no other issue and no other additional tax, she has a huge amount of fines weighing on her already. How can you wave off $35000 in fines as if it is no big deal when you turn around and are woeful because you HAVE NO INCOME this year.

I am proud of myself that I have found new jobs for myself this year. I not only went to work for her, I went back to work for Dr. S. I found the new MT job and could do it again if I needed it. I found the jobs at DMX (well, they found me, but they knew me). I am grateful that I know more people now than I did the previous times I was laid off. That was one thing my job was good for... connecting me to many new people. And working for Steve.... I need to do his voice work for him because he is always going to be in my corner and I'll move to Gainesville and work for him if I have to. This 18 months has been stressful, but MUCH less stressful than the last layoff (mainly because of Mark's income, I have to say) and I am grateful that I have had M&M work to do. But it is not the work I like to do, I can see, and I don't like the negotiation and the back and forth with bookers and bands and all the dickering that goes on. And although I like some of the detail work and the paperwork associated, I never have gotten a really good handle on keeping track of it all. And the crises everyday is not my thing. I don't mind a crisis every few weeks, but I like a job that I can DO and know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow, too.

Mark needs to leave! I need to get ready!