The Month's End

Spring semester: day forty-eight

I've learned in my years as a student and professor that if it's not one thing, it's another. I almost want to get that tattooed somewhere on my body, like across my chest or down my forearm or something. It's less of a motto than it is a reality or certainty most of the time.

Let me explain.

On the Wednesday before a payday, as I've mentioned before, the electronic pay stub goes online for all of the university's employees, classified and unclassified. We can log in and look at it, and see what we're going to get paid two days later when it deposits. We get automated emails to tell us this, and tell us that it's online. So, yesterday, I checked my school email to see that email and remembered "hey, I get paid on Friday, woohoo!" So I logged in to look at my pay stub -- which I don't normally do because generally, my pay is the same every time -- but with the way my payroll was screwed up earlier this semester and this time, with the first of my health/dental/vision insurance charges coming out of my account for the first time, I wanted to see what my paycheck would be like for the rest of the semester.

Because everything was calculated and recalculated when my payroll was redone a month ago, my net pay every check now is $700 before taxes. Once taxes are taken out, it's something like $600 -- a little more, a little less, no biggie. I knew my insurance would cut into that a bit further.

My take-home pay on this pay stub was...a little over $300. What?

I looked down the list of deductions and found that the insurance had mistakenly begun taking out double-coverage for the summer months, which they weren't supposed to do (I specifically asked them not to do that, as there's a 95% certainty that I won't be returning for the fall) as my employment contract for the semester ends at the end of May.

Look, I'd love to have full coverage over the summer, but I'm already really strapped for cash as it is -- I can't have an extra $150 or so taken out of each of my checks from now until the end of May, or I'm not going to have enough money to pay my bills. I got the most basic plan I could simply because I wanted to avoid the Obamacare tax penalty for not having any insurance by the end-of-this-month cutoff date. Again, I never go to the doctor unless I'm bleeding out, missing a limb, or otherwise near death. As none of those scenarios tend to occur, well...

Anyway.

I immediately shot an email off to the payroll/benefits lady who was in charge of implementing my changes and the like when all of these issues popped up before, and she replied -- quite quickly -- with an apology, telling me that she hadn't been told that I hadn't requested summer coverage, and did the work to issue the refund for that to me on my 4/11 check (thankfully, not through a paper check again, but on my normal pay schedule). She then confirmed this with the HR benefits guy, who emailed us both to say that yes, he'd made a mistake in putting through my paperwork and that he'd fixed it on his end as well, and he gave me a rundown of all of the bi-weekly charges I'd have taken out of my checks. The insurance costs me roughly $195 or so per month, a little less than $100 out of each check. That's...do-able, I suppose, for the moment. The dental and vision coverage is stupid cheap, like $3 and $4-something, respectively, each check. Everything else is the basic health insurance plan/prescription coverage, which is $89 per check. That's really not bad, to be honest with you. If I need that coverage for something sometime in the next two months, at least I have it.

Anyway, so that was fixed quickly, and my checks for the rest of the semester should return to somewhat normal with that normal coverage taken out. I'm guessing each check from this point forward will be smaller than the ones I've had before, yes, but not as small as this week's check (obviously). The refund amount is more than $100 that'll be stuck back onto my 4/11 check.

As I told Daisy, as well as her mother, I'm really glad I have those tax refunds coming to me soon, especially when some (or most) of them will go into helping Daisy to pay the rent/deposit on whatever place she finds for us in the next month or so. Obviously, I have enough money to pay my bills and rent right now, so having a smaller check for tomorrow's payday is inconvenient, yes, but it doesn't throw me into financial ruin; I've been doing everything I can to save money and pay off my credit cards and other bills as soon as I get them, and haven't spent any extra money on anything but my necessities and groceries for me and the cats. I'll pay the rent tomorrow and include the new updated information form the landlord asked for as well, though in another two or three months, that information will be outdated anyway when I eventually leave this place.

As for leaving this place? I'm pretty sure, again, with about 95% certainty, that I'll not return to the university in the fall and my tenure as a professor in the Department of English will end in May. The Director, as I talked to him Tuesday about the fraternity bill thing and the flyer, didn't bring up anything new about the position I was supposed to be offered there if the funding was available, which tells me that he didn't know anything else about it (we've talked about it at length for a good two years or so now; he'd tell me if he had any news, believe me). So yes, my focus from this point forward has to turn to new positions and jobs in the Omaha area, something that I'll be diving into with great vigor once more this weekend -- I'll be applying for several more positions at different colleges, universities, and companies up there. Daisy gave me a referral for a training position within her company, a position where I'd be teaching the new recruits the ins-and-outs of the business systems there. I have the knowledge, degrees, and experience required to do it, the trainers operate on rotating schedules that would leave me with a good amount of free time and downtime, and they get paid really well. Well enough to where I'd be able to buy a new(er) car and we'd never have to worry about our household bills, I'll put it that way. And, apparently, they need new trainers and more of them. So, I'm going to use her referral and apply for that this weekend, as well as some other jobs in the area that I've saved and set aside for when I have the hour or so apiece to go through their application processes. University jobs, especially teaching positions, have excruciatingly long application processes most of the time.

Meanwhile, Daisy herself has applied for a supervisor position within her own company, which comes with a much larger salary for what she already essentially does now. She's also applied for various other good, higher-paying positions around the city that she has a good shot at getting at least a callback or interview for.

This morning I just have workshops in my 102 class, and then I return home for my weekend. I don't have to do any shopping (as normally on Thursdays, I do) because I did that on Monday, so really I just get to come home, eat, and go back to bed if I want. I didn't sleep that well last night, and because it's been warm-ish, muggy, and rainy for the past two days, my weather allergies are really bothering me today. Aside from minor student stuff and lesson planning over the course of the weekend, there's not a whole lot else I have to do. I have to pay the rent, and I should probably vacuum the house again and run the dishwasher, but that's about it. I'd like to switch out my wardrobes (which I mentioned before) to be able to go through my stuff and switch over to more spring/summer clothing while picking/filtering out stuff to donate to charity as well, but that heavily depends on the weather forecast for the next week or two. I should also try to box up some more stuff around the house so that it's less to pack up when I do the bulk of my packing and cleaning of this place in preparation to move out, but that's going to depend on how much time I have.

On that note, I'm off to class.