Bwana wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 4:30 am
Today I got the bucket truck unstuck.
I set up a retirement account for my receptionist. She's been working for me for 27 years and will have been with me for 31 by the time I shut it down. Will keep adding to it on an annual basis.
Came home and washed the bucket truck. It had between two and three years of grime, twigs, leaves, and whatnot from sitting unused in DC. And it had a bunch of muck on the undercarriage from the weekend adventure.
How things change in a flash!
The receptionist, not the bucket truck. Over the course of the pandemic I have shut down 5 times. The first time was due to not knowing WTF was going on or what to do about it. That cost me a week of work. Employees all got paid regular wages. Two part time assistants, my full time receptionist, and yours truly. Yes, I paid myself in spite of the fact that no income was generated. meh.
That lasted about a week. One part time assistant has two little ones and daycare dried up. The other one had obligations outside of work. I wanted to hold the job open or the one that went on unemployment so we carried on part time. Three days per week, about 6 hours per day. For appointments. Other duties kept me at the office longer as well as the receptionist. She was there an average of 24 hours per week. She got paid full wages.
Four partial or full shutdowns would occur over the course of the summer and fall. Two were due to the one part time assistant having potential exposures. She would get two weeks off. Receptionist and I would muddle through seeing fewer appointments, income mostly off flea and tick prevention as well as heartworm prevention along with the occasional office visit. Then my receptionist and her family took a day trip to an auction some farm shit put on by the Amish community an hour north of us. She and one daughter wore masks. Husband, other daughter, and her boyfriend did not. Likewise for the vast majority of the crowd and no social distancing.
Two week shutdown. I paid her full wages. Early this month, someone at her husband's work did something stupid and came to work. Exposed her husband to her presence on a Friday. Tested positive the next day (Saturday). Husband learns of the exposure Monday evening. Another fucking shut down. I'll fault myself for being too goddam nice for my own good and for not drafting a written policy regarding COVID and exposures outside of work. On the Monday in question I had a conversation with my receptionist that didn't go well. She couldn't comprehend why I was so bothered at the prospect of the 8th and 9th week getting torpedoed when we were only working part time. So I drafted an addendum to the employee guidelines. I enumerated expectations at work, namely check your temp before arriving, check your oxygen level on arrival, I've got the equipment, so it may as well get put to good use. If you have a suspect contact, send me a text or give me a call. Don't fucking come to work and tell me in person goddamit! Oh, and if you have a non-work related exposure do not expect to get 2 weeks pay for sitting at home, or as the case may be, not really quarantining.
Yes, I was advised that she wasn't going to stay away from her husband over the course of his quarantine and it was none of my business what she did on her time. That occurred during our conversation over the phone Monday evening.
The following friday I get a text with happy faces and the likes asking if she can have the rest of her fucking Christmas bonus. Fuck me! I'm drowning here and you want a bonus and a paycheck.
She subsequently read my addendum and didn't agree with it at all. Thought it was unfair and quit. I only found out when I came in Saturday and got her note scrawled on the addendum. She subsequently told the Office of Unemployment that I'd requested her resignation and filed for unemployment.
For those unfamiliar with US unemployment benefits, an employer pays unemployment insurance to the state and the fed. The rate is determined by how much has been collected by your former employees. Up to the assistant I'd never had a claim. So mine is nominal.
I have no idea how the assistant's claim will be handled but I do know that my receptionist's claim was going to cost me. The employee doesn't get their full pay, they get a portion of it. The employer's unemployment insurance payment goes up. Until the state is reimbursed for the full amount the employee collects.
Yeah, fuck that.
I received the notice the Saturday a week after she quit. I had until Monday, as in one work day, to respond or she'd collect and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Good thing I checked the mail at the office that day. I composed a letter, giving my side of the story and faxed it. At least I tried to fax it. We've had tons of rain in the week previous and it fucks with the land lines. There wasn't an email address offered. So I went to Staples, an office supply store and paid to have it faxed. Long distance charges of course as the office I needed to send it to is across the state line. Out of doubt, I also mailed it Monday. I wasn't certain I'd get the opportunity to go to the post office and send it with tracking and the mail service around here has a habit of losing shit. That and I've had dumb fucks in offices "not receive" faxes in the past. So I paid to send the damn thing Priority.
Oh, and as far as the thread title, what have I done today? Today I called appointments for tomorrow, cancelled the ones I knew I'd need an assistant to hold for things like blood draws. I've got three cats coming in for Rabies vaccines. Wooohoooo, that'll pay some bills. I had to borrow $6000 USD to pay bills for this month and realized I still have a $6000 insurance bill due the beginning of January.
Oh, my other assistant? She is attempting to get into vet school and a job offer that she really needed to take cropped up. She left a week before my receptionist quit. Meanwhile, my receptionist had set up an account with a company that collects resumes. She didn't leave the fucking password to the account. When I went through the lost password procedure I ended up being able to access the account but I couldn't access the resumes that had been piling up. I was getting email alerts for them, but no ability to look at them or respond.
The good news? Light is at the end of the tunnel. I've got two new hires coming in the first Monday of January. The bad news, I'm going to have to train both of them. What I've discovered is that my receptionist had a rather screwy method of coding for procedures. The nomenclature on our tracking sheets doesn't match the coding in the computer. All of that will have to change. AND, I have to do inventory and I cannot locate the proper reports for it in the 'puter. No telling how she's got that linked. I'll have to do that by hand next week.
What really puts all of the above into perspective is the phone call I got from my sister today. She fucking tested positive for COVID-19. She's been plagued with breast cancer a couple of times and has some health issues. Her sense of taste is gone and she's got a raspy voice. Last week, or maybe the one before, it's all been a blur, one of my brothers had his entire family test positive. Four generations. All symptomatic but only two requiring admission to the hospital. His wife first. She stayed in for about 4 days. Released with an oxygen generator. Her mother went in the day my brother picked up his wife. He had to turn around and take her to the hospital that evening. She died about 24 hours later.
I'll be so fucking glad when this shit is over.
