Creepers and Scams
Day 17 | $24,666 paid | $66,051 till freedom
The last thing I should be doing right now is writing a blog--I'm neck-deep in stuff to do, so much so that the girl I've been seeing for the past three weeks who I'm really into told me she doesn't like being a "weekend friend." Little does she know that if the landscaping business does what it's supposed to do, it'll be difficult to see her even on the weekends. Sadness... I tried to explain to her that my friends have invited me out every night this week, but I've turned them down every single time. She didn't text back. I'm hoping to get out this weekend, but also not hoping to get out because that will mean that we don't have any customers for the new xeriscaping biz. Catch-22.
Anyway, I'm writing tonight despite my limited bandwidth because I just had to share this. I joined modelmayhem.com because of the slightly ajar door I mentioned yesterday. I figure this site might help me get some spokesmodeling and/or trade show gigs, which actually pay fairly well. I've heard terrible things about this site, but whatever--it's worth a shot. Here's the first message I got after joining that corroborates what I've heard:
Ok, thanks for the heads-up. But did that prepare me for the message I got later today? Helllll nooooo....Gladiators, anyone?
PASS! But let's marinate on that for two seconds, can we? A free trip to San Diego and $2k ...that's 10 weekends of pedi-cabbing for a day of work. Okay,.
I did get a possibly legitimate message, though...might follow up on it.
And I was pleasantly shocked to see that the feature film was not actually a porn of any sort.
Promotion
Bad news--the hiring manager went back to HR and a 6% raise is all I'm going to see. He went back and forth with them, but couldn't budge the offer--he walked me through the reasons, but basically what it boiled down is that my new salary puts me in the middle of my pack of peers who have been in this pay grade that I'm just now entering for much longer than I have. In other words, I didn't just squeak into the new pay grade near the bottom, but more like in the middle, which means I was at the top of my old pay grade and explains why the % increase is not significant. The reasoning sounded fine, and I was planning on accepting anyway--I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't leaving money on the table.
I start ramping up in the job immediately while still doing my former job since my backfill has not yet been identified. My already-busy life just got busier. And with a 6% raise instead of 10%, the delta to my goal now stands at $10.9k.