Labor Day = Work Day?

I still can't get my hands around the fact that it is Labor Day, it's my day off, and yet I have to get some work done today if I want to have a peaceful week. Grr. I know, only a week or so ago I was griping about being bored. It's not that I mind having this work, but I just wish that I could have gotten it done during the week. I had asked people to fax me stuff days before they did, when I had nothing to do, but of course, they waited (one guy in particular) until I was super-busy with field claims. Grr. So, after I finish this blog and down some tea, I'm going to work for a little while, but just a little while! I want to hit the gym for legs (well, want is not the proper word), P wants to take me to Blockbuster for a new toy, and I'd like to get another good block of stitching in. I don't think I'll have any new WIP pictures to show for today. That's what you get when you work on a lot of different projects and don't just settle down with one, but since I've got some done on a couple right now, it means that I'll have a lot of WIP pictures later in the week. I also have GOT to buy that Orlando plane ticket today. I've even decided what times and days I want to go...I just need to DO IT! I am the ultimate procrastinator!

I watched The Godfather Part II last night with P. It was fantastic. I thought it was better than the first one, no question. But my one big question: what joy in life can a mob boss have? And P mentioned to me that he thinks that the life of a politician is very similar. It makes me wonder why anyone would go into that type of work. I did get four hours put onto Egyptian Sampler while I watched it, so that's a good thing. We have Secret Window left to watch too. We are really getting our money's worth out of Blockbuster and this new unlimited rentals deal. It's awesome. But since I'm going to the store quite a bit without P, we have devised a little set of rules for me to follow. It's a very serious situation!! (I'm going to embarrass him a bit here since I know he reads my blog.)

Blockbuster Rules

1) Once we decide on two movies, don't deviate unless one of the movies is checked out. (This rule came about when I decided the other day to rent Radio instead of The Godfather Part II because I thought P wouldn't mind, when in reality he was really looking forward to seeing it!)
2) Never EVER rent a VHS tape...this is the one exception to Rule #1. If the movie in question is only available in VHS, rent something else. (This rule came about when I rented The Godfather Part II on VHS because the DVD was out, and I heard about it all night last night.)

I'm sure we'll come up with other rules as we go along...I'll keep you updated. *laughing*

Monday Madness deals with...work! Perfect.

1. Please tell us a little bit about your job (or your classes). I think most of you have gotten a pretty good idea of what my crazy job entails, but I'll describe it again for you. I'm a property insurance adjuster for a major fire insurance carrier and I am on our intermediate team, which means that I handle claims with damage between $35,000-$100,000. It's referred to as the 'fire team' since there usually isn't much in this area that happens to houses that is more devastating than a fire. Basically, when a fire assignment comes in for me, it is my job to determine if we owe the claim (and most of the time we do unless we can prove the person set the fire intentionally) and then to determine how much we owe, which involves me writing the estimate for the building damages for the contractor to work from, inventorying the contents that were lost and paying the policyholder the right amount for them, and getting them into a hotel or furnished apartment for the duration of time that they are going to be out, usually anywhere between 60 days and six months.
2. Do you enjoy your job? Absolutely! I love it!
3. What would make your job more satisfying for you? What would make my job more satisfying is if I had an assistant to help me do the busy work so I could handle more fires in the field. I don't care for writing contents estimates because I have to price everything on the internet and it's a lot of not-so-fun surfing time. It'd be great if I had someone to help me do that.
4. Name one thing you don't like about your job. The temperature conditions. About 90% of the time, the electricity or heating/air conditioning system is burned or knocked out at my houses, so I'm either working for a day or two in a hotter-than-Hades house with humidity, no ventilation, and odors that are more foul than you can possibly imagine, OR in a frigid environment that is damp from the water from the fire department and it's so cold that I can't feel my fingers and my pens freeze up. I still haven't decided for sure if it's worse working a fire in the summer or the winter, but I think I pretty much decided after a house this summer that had a dead turtle in the kitchen that summers are much worse because of the odors and the insects.
5. Do you feel you are compensated adequately for what you do? Yes. Sometimes I still can't believe my company pays me as much as they do for this job. Although, after me describing the turtle house above (and some of you have seen the pictures!), you're probably thinking I'm not! While my job is dirty and smelly and I'm overworked and dealing with people that are at about their most stressed out point in life, it sure beats sitting in an office all day every day and every claim is different with different people, different houses, different contents, different circumstances, and it's a chance to really help people. There's nothing like getting to a fire scene and the whole family is distraught and in tears, and by the time you leave, they are laughing and joking, and knowing that you are responsible for lifting them up and making them feel better. I just love it. I wish everyone were as lucky as I am to have a job that they love and a job that they are really good at.
6. Any thoughts on Social Security and health benefits? Not really, other than that I have them and I'm glad that I do.
7. What are your thoughts on the current minimum wage? I didn't even know what it was until now. I had to go look it up. $5.15 an hour!? It was $4.25 when I was working minimum wage jobs. Yikes. That sure isn't very much. I guess my thoughts are...we need to raise it considering the cost of living in this country!
8. What kind of advice do you (or would you) give your children regarding their future and their career choices? Stay in school and GO TO COLLEGE, even if you don't know what you want to do right now. If there's one lesson that P and I have learned since we've been together, it's how many more job opportunities that are open to me since I have a degree than are to him with just job experience. Even though I didn't do very well in college, I still graduated and that's what counts. To my knowledge, no prospective employer has requested my transcript to see my grades. I think my present employer called UNC just to verify that I graduated, and that was it.
9. What is your 'dream job'? I always really wanted to be a magazine editor and do layout, headlines, copy editing, etcetera. People always really sticks in my mind.
10. At what age will you be (or were you) able to retire? I honestly have no idea, but I know it's a long way off. P and I will have a better idea of that in about ten or fifteen years.

The Stitching Blogger's QOTW!

How do you explain cross stitch to non-cross stitching people? Do they get it or do they say “Oh, right.. you do knitting then (or sewing, or needlepoint)"? I'm really lazy. Most of the time I don't even bother to explain the difference between needlepoint and cross-stitch. I'll usually just say, "I'm stitching a design with cotton thread onto fabric from a pattern" and leave it at that...and if they think it's needlepoint, I don't bother to correct them unless we're sitting around with nothing to talk about, and then I will. I do correct them if they think it's knitting. The only things that knitting and cross-stitch have in common are the needle and thread, and that's it!

And...the Daily Dirt! First, I must preface this by saying that I think that hate is a VERY strong word and I wouldn't describe how I feel about any of these things as hate. I would describe it better as "dislike" or "not prefer".

1. What vegetable do you hate eating? Brussels sprouts are just downright NASTY.
2. Which music artist do you hate the most? Why? I'm not a big Marilyn Manson fan.
3. What book do you hate? Beowulf.
4. What type of clothing do you hate? Miniskirts. They in my mind are pointless. You can't bend over or do anything in them without flashing the world!
5. Do you agree with "you don't hate a person, you just hate what they've done (to you)"? No, I think it's possible to really truly dislike someone and just not want to be around them no matter what. That can be true regardless of what that person has or has not done to you. You could just dislike that person as a human being.

While I was sitting here, one of my people from last week (I inspected his roof on Thursday) called my cell phone and then called my work phone. HELLO! It's LABOR DAY! I may be working, but you don't know that! Grr. And I guess I better get to it if I want to enjoy what's left of my three-day weekend. Same to all of you!