During the week, my body had already said "screw this shit" by forming a stress knot in between my shoulder blades on Tuesday night and suffering from a debilitating migraine on Wednesday. Thursday was the culmination of a series of frustrations that finally reached a boiling point.
After a Happy Hour with some co-workers, I took a scenic route home through Minneapolis. I found myself at my usual haunt, following the west river road past the Mill City ruins. I got behind a car with North Dakota plates and had to grit my teeth as he took a deliberate pace along the road, as in deliberately trying to piss me off. As he slowed to watch people taking Senior or engagement photos, I finally let him have it with my horn. He was unmoved. He continued his snail's progress, not gaining any ground on another slow mover ahead of him. Seeing as sound didn't reach him, I decided to see how close I could get to his back bumper before he was encouraged to speed up. He would accept no encouragement.
For those who don't know, the roads on either side of the river are basically two lane residential streets with walking/biking path on one side and a sidewalk on the other. There are sections with hills and switchbacks and the speed limit is 25mph. There are areas for passing, but most of the time there is a double yellow line in the middle of the road.
Having had enough, I gunned my engine, hit my turn signal, raced past both the North Dakota yahoo and the slug ahead of him, making sure my one finger salute was at full staff as I quickly ducked back into the lane in front of an oncoming car. As I looked in my rearview, I could see a line of cars forming behind my nemesis. I remained unsatisfied.
Less than a mile from where I passed the slowpokes, there is a parking lot for riverboat cruises. Feeling unfulfilled with the finger flicking, I needed to see what these idiots looked like. I parked my car and, knowing I had time, ambled up the embankment to the walking/biking path. I only took a couple of steps before seeing another car whip around the lead moron like I did. I was glad to see I wasn't the only one. Sure enough, this was an old couple driving a Mercedes station wagon with the windows down. I shouted something about being a nuisance and then saw the same North Dakota driver following behind. His window was also open. "That fucking goes for you, too!" The look on his face told me he must have thought I was released from a halfway house and now I was shouting at random passersby. There are a few people like that, but another couple miles down the road.
The past week hadn't been the best for me. The "fun" started when the Wifey's car started making an odd noise last Thursday. That became a full-blown issue when the car just stopped working the next day. Fortunately, we were able to get it to a local National Tire & Battery before they closed; and they were able to replace the alternator & battery for about $600 within the hour. That effectively maxed out the credit card I got with NT&B when my car needed brakes and tires a couple month ago. Of course, the Wifey's car also needed new brakes, tires, and a handful of other things to the tune of another $800. We'll have to replace things as we can afford them.
My car had been needing an oil change and new battery for a while, so I brought my car in to NT&B on Saturday. They also said I needed a new belt, which wasn't cheap. That brought the total bill for my car to over $300, which had to come out-of-pocket. That weekend was expensive and frustrating as we added to our total debts and reduced our cash, which I've been tracking and trying to manage.
Add to this the fact the stock market has been taking a dump and I had lost about $2000 in value from my Dirty Dozen portfolio. I'm going to need to borrow from this account again this year, which I've been trying my best not to do.
Of lesser importance is the Red Sox deciding to hit the skids at this time, briefly sharing first place in the division with the Tampa Rays, but leaving little confidence for the fans they can turn this slump around.
So, I had to rely on work to give me some good news. I diligently track daily shipments to see how my distributors are performing to to their individual plans and how my territory is doing overall. Ninety percent is the magic number as that is the level needed to start getting paid a quarterly bonus. My territory started the month close to 80% and was just a little shy of getting to 90% before last Friday. I thought with two good shipping days, I would have two weeks to get to 100%. Those two days didn't come and it took three more days to get over 90%. At this rate, I'll be lucky to get to 97% to plan with a cool month coming to end the quarter. We might get bonuses at 90%, but management starts breathing down your neck if you're not near 100. That's already started before September has even begun.
Not to mention, I believe the state of Texas is being consumed by fire. Both Service offices and Distributors in Houston and Dallas have had pressing, urgent, Emergency needs for parts. I've come to realize that 85-90% of the work we do is trying to prevent scrotums from sticking to the inside of people's legs. I get it; it's uncomfortable and unpleasant and people will scream at anyone who'll listen to get it fixed. I think if you don't have the chops to be a 911 operator, you probably shouldn't work in the HVAC industry in summer.
And that gets us to the Final Straw. My territory did very well for our first quarter (Apr-Jun). I was able to get 95% to plan, which I figured would mean I would get 95% of the quarterly "pot" that's available. Doing some calculations, I figured I could get somewhere between $850-$950 as take home. Instead, the bonus calculation was made be dividing the quarterly sum by 100 to get a dollar per percentage point. Since I made 95% of plan, that is 6 "units" of bonus I'm eligible for (90-91-92-93-94-95). This reduced my gross by $400 and my take home to about half of what I expected.
I know what many people would say, "oh, boo hoo! You're lucky to have a job and one that even gives you a bonus." I don't want to seem ungrateful, but the fact remains there are goals I need to accomplish if I'm going to help G-Bug pursue her life accomplishments along with the things the Wifey and I would like to do in retirement. Those goals seem farther and farther away and harder to reach. This feeling of spinning my wheels is what gets me frustrated. I will probably feel further ahead in a couple years, but I need a plan to get there, and not have the rug taken out from under me after a few steps.
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