As part of my continued efforts to make up for the loss of Accolan’s disability income, I have taken a second job.  I had orientation today at my local Walmart and begin cashier training next week.  For now, it looks like I’ll be getting around 26 hours a week, though I’m hoping for more as time goes on (especially as we enter the holiday season).  As it looks right now though, I’ll be working 40 hours a week at job #1, 26 hours a week at job #2, and up to 8 hours a week at “job” #3 where I can add another $50-140 a week when I can (for as long as it lasts).

My primary job is working with me in that they are letting my hours be a little more fluid than they would otherwise be to accommodate my need for a second job.  Now granted, while some of this is (as shocking as it may be) out of loyalty to me and the work I’ve done for them in the past decade, I know that most of it is because I’m a hard little worker bee.

In spite of this, more than 4 months later, they are still trying to find a way to justify cutting my hourly pay rate.  But, I’m hoping to escape it, just like I did over a year ago, and have been really keeping my nose to the grindstone.  The problem is in the fact that my pay rate is based on a chart that looks at how many successful “sales” we make on average for every 4 hours worked.  It takes nothing else into account – not length of service, not being cross-trained in other tasks, nothing else matters but your number.  To make matters worse, the reimbursement rates haven’t been changed to take into account inflation, or even how the nature of the job changed after the Do Not Call list.  I’ve been making the same hourly rate for 6 years – every year I have to work a little harder to hold onto it – every year it buys a little less.

While I am worried about my ability to juggle it all, especially when fatigue is already an issue for me, I am choosing to look at this as an opportunity as opposed to a burden and hoping that I’ve been led to a Path that will help lead me to my dreams after 10 years with my finger on the pause button.  I am choosing to believe that it will all be okay.  I am choosing to believe that, in the end, it will all be worth it.

Blessings

Jia

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