Lots of work. The new job is the challenge I thought it would be.
I went back to the old one one Saturday in May, and again yesterday, because the hapless person they hired to replace me isn't really up to the task of figuring out what he's supposed to do. Now it's true that he wasn't there for me to train during my notice period, and that's neither my fault nor his. But it's also true that I scrupulously documented lots and lots of procedures, and they're very clear, so that a person with decent lab experience ought to be OK.
I spent a little over four hours on that Saturday back in June, and because I was invited to invoice them and the things I found that they were having trouble with were stupid no-brainers (not on the new guy's part, he had only started the Friday before) I did invoice them. Just $50/hour, which is ridiculously low, but what the heck.
Have not been paid, which doesn't surprise me - one of the reasons I wanted to leave was that they were not paying vendors.
The new person asked me to come in last weekend and help him and I declined. He emailed me this week - please - said he'd pay me out of his pocket. Well, I'm a sucker so I told him I'd give him a 50% discount off my usual rate, and went in. Of course, when I got there he told me that the boss had told him not to pay me, they'd pay me, so that's probably more unpaid weekend work. They now owe me $465. I am holding my breath, y'all.
Also found out that they are paying him through that families back to work thing, where the gov't places a person in a job and then pays his salary. I don't know how that could work, since he is a replacement for me and they were paying me. Did they say they had laid me off? Don't feel right about my tax dollars going to keep a business from having to pay necessary personnel their paycheck.
Other than that, I am just really tired. Will try to get back to blogging, maybe about some happy stuff.
I will say this:
When I was a kid, we had World Book Encyclopedia. My parents still have that set. I particularly loved the "B" encyclopedia - it was the Bird Book and I studied those color plates of various birds until I had them memorized. Seriously, I can call them up in my mind's eye.
R and I were returning home from somewhere the other day. It was twilight and rainy, he was driving, and I was looking out the window. We passed a spot where water was running over a shallow thing into a ditch, and there were fisher birds taking advantage of that spot to get their dinner. Storks, herons, egrets ... and then I said STOP! GO BACK!
R did, and we got out of the car to go and look. Here's what I saw:
Here's a closeup:
This is a roseate spoonbill, and it was, like, my very favorite bird in that whole encyclopedia. I remember being a little bitty girl and studying the picture of that bird, and wishing I could see one. Well, there it is.
