Bear passed his last exam and he is now a fully licensed nursing home administrator. I really cannot do justice to how awesome this is. 1) Because these tests were insanely hard, with a pass rate of 30%, and Bear passed them both on the first try; and 2) Because this now means that after seven years of marriage we finally have a career and will be making career money.
Of course, this is *our* life we’re talking about, so nothing could go smoothly or as planned the first time around.
Bear got his new salary offer last week and it was 10K LOWER than what we asked for. 20K lower than the industry standard. We are not just being greedy here. Bear’s trainer was shocked at the offer and called it a “slap in the face.”
So there go all our plans of home ownership. 1)Our new salary is too low to buy in this market, and 2) after this kind of treatment we don’t want to stay with the company anyway so who knows where the next job will be. We might stay here in Modesto for awhile, but we might end up moving somewhere different entirely. We have no idea.
Bear’s gotten some offers in Washington and Oregon, but those have been for tiny tiny buildings which wouldn’t pay enough to bother with the move and the risk of trying out a new company. Bear also got an offer for a local building, but after a couple interviews and a visit to the facility, he felt the whole thing was a little shady. Some people would be happy to take anything as long as the money was right, but Bear is not one of those people. After his visit to the building he rattled off a list of major problems with it, including some that could be dangerous to the residents, and so now he wants nothing to do with them.
For the time being we’re just hanging out. It looks like we’ll probably have to put in a year with this company before we’ll be able to get the offers we’ll be happy with. Bear’s working hard and doing so very well I can’t really even describe how awesome without whipping out the pie charts and line graphs. He has turned that building around and is now making tons of money for the company. And he’s working on a deal that could potentially bring the buildings profits up 400%. 400% PEOPLE! See what I mean? AWESOME! It would really really suck to leave this because they are just too darn cheap.
On the other hand, I WANT A FREAKING HOUSE ALREADY. If we do stay out the year, then it looks like we’ll be doing IVF while we live in this crappy apartment. I won’t get my big beautiful house with a big beautiful nursery that is all decorated and nested up. I’ll bring the kid home to a crappy apartment. I keep trying to keep my spirits up by saying that it won’t matter, I’ll just be happy to have the kid. And the kid doesn’t even use the nursery for the first few months anyway. But keeping my spirits up is a serious battle because 1) I feel like it’s dangerous to start counting on the kid even if it does cheer me up about the house – what will I do if the IVF is unsuccessful? and 2)The nursery is always more for the parents than the kid anyway and I want it dangit!
I just realized that that was my third numbered list in one entry. You can tell I’m torn up about it when I kick into OCD listmaking mode to try to control the situation.