Even a Manic-Depressive has His Up Days

I know that I'm supposed to be all doom and gloom, but even a manic-depressive has his up days. This is one of my better days. In fact, it's been nothing short of incredibly good. My personal experience with corporate America has always been less than pleasant, so I've come to expect the worse and I've rarely been disappointed.

This year started off with me losing my job of eight years. I've always worked hard and had never been fired or laid-off. Until April 3, the longest that I had been unemployed in the past 15 years was 4 days. Financially it wasn't too bad because I never carried more debt than was in my bank account. Between my food storage and gardening, there was never any doubt about being able to put food on the table. I don't have a problem buying used and haggling about prices is fun, so I was OK money wise. The problem was emotional. Why me and those fucking bastards were two very common thoughts.

As the saying goes, " living well is the best revenge", and this is very true. I ended up getting a contract engineering job one state over. It paid enough to make having and apartment and driving 850 miles every weekend worthwhile. Still I am 425 miles from my wife and son and only get to see them on the weekend. Sucks, but a man does what he has to in order to take care of his family.

Well, today I got a permanent offer from the company I was working for. I went into the meeting to review my offer expecting to get a low offer. I mean they were paying me "X" with no benefits, so I assumed that I would get a lower number with benefits and at best it wold balance out. Imagine my surprise when the offers was significantly larger. When I say significantly larger, I mean somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% more than I was making.

I signed the offer before they could change their mind.

R.E.A.L. happy