Well our company is being the usual fuckwits. They declared on 1st July (last Wed) that we are all back on 100% hours as of...well... then. Helpful for those that have still got kids to look after etc, way to give people notice. Doesn't matter to me as I'm still working just under 50% and slowly increasing.

We also had 2 high up directors resign, effective immediately. That's never a good sign (especially following company-wide voluntary redundances early March) and they're planning 16 more redundancies; those affected will know by the end of this week. Can't help hoping it's me but it won't be and it wouldn't actually be good for me beyond the initial payout of course.

How much would the initial payment be, more or less, if you did get laid off? In monthly wages.

I understand the appeal but like you said depending on how well and how quickly you improve from your condition it may be very hard to find new employment in the short to middle term no?

Oh man, I wish I'd get laid off. That'd be awesome (until it wasn't). My company is still hiring more developers and I've been approached for joining a new devops team. I'm good with it, so long as I still get to code. We'll see what that means in the long term (or if it even happens).

Good question. I think you get 1 weeks pay for every year you've been there so it wouldn't be that great really, 9 weeks for me. Which I could stretch out to last me 4 months worth of bills... then I'd need another job. So really not great now with new stuff being such a struggle.

Gotta be worth checking out Satis. Even if it's shit, it's something else for the ole CV I guess.

Would you get anything if you were? I mean considering the at will employment thing I would imagine they could just tell you to get lost without owing you anything right? And I can't imagine unemployment is going to be princely in the US either.



Yeah, that doesn't sound like such a hot plan right now. I mean you do what you want of course, but I'd try to get myself in better shape first so that it doesn't become even trickier. Looking for jobs is more exhausting than it seems and I'm always surprised at much it can feel like a full time job when it often really isn't.

It's ok, we're past the deadline for people to know they're affected and I've heard nothing so I've got my shitty job for a while yet. Yay!

Unless they fired me for cause, I would get unemployment. If they did say they fired me but it was really just to not pay me, I could file a grievance with the unemployment office and/or take them to court. They probably would just let me collect the unemployment. In Texas that's as high as $450, plus there's currently an up to $600 weekly bonus because of some of the federal covid relief stuff. That's not a crap ton, but more than enough for me to survive off of.

But yea, it's not optimal. I make quite a bit more than that now, plus I'm paying off a car, putting money in a 401k, and in savings. I'd lose the savings and 401k additions. It's better to tough it out and pile up the benjamins. The car will be paid off in December.

Oh ok, so there are some protections in place against firing you. When you say unemployment is 450 you mean per week I hope? This being paid weekly thing seems to only happen in the US and UK afaik, it always seemed a bit strange. But I guess it isn't stranger than being paid monthly really. Just more complicated.

Depends on the job in the UK. I think benefits are all weekly. I was paid weekly when I worked in the shop at the front of a post office from age 14 - 18 but I was also paid cash in hand. In GAME I was paid fortnightly. Both of those jobs I had an hourly wage. When I moved to my office job and got a salary, then it's monthly. The main thing is probably salary vs hourly there, if you're hourly then the amount you're paid can differ greatly if you leave it too long; e.g. a month's wages in GAME over summer would've been about £600 for me whereas a month in December would probably be nearly twice that. Whereas on my salary I just get the same every month anyway so it's probably easier for them to just put in a regular payment on the 28th of every month for x amount.

Pissed off again! Had a cry earlier about it all (which is not me but is yet another lovely frigging side effect of Cushing's, suddenly I'm super emotional over every sodding thing).

31st July I had a catch up with HR and my manager to see how I've done with my 8 weeks phased return. Conclusion: it's gone well. I've been back 4 months now and have just been able to do 20 hours a week. I'm on 37.5 hours usually. I mentioned I had a few days off so would be doing a 4 and 3 day week for the next 2 weeks so HR said let's just stick to the same shifts through August, review at the end and see how you're doing, if you can up the hours etc. She did also mention I'd need to start thinking about if I can go back full time or if I need to go on flexible time (in other words drop my holiday and sick pay down to 20 hours or whatever I choose to do). Which is fair enough. I understand the company needs to know who they're employing for how long because they have certain work loads to plan around etc.

When I had my occupational health therapist call I was given the impression I'd have a review with them again after the 8 weeks. No mention of that so far so guessing I'm not getting that.

Today, 12th August, the day I return after my few days off, I find that HR emailed me a written confirmation of the call we'd had. They emailed me last Friday, the first day I was off, as they knew. In this they've said that the review on 28th August will be when I have to either go part time or full time, effective immediately. Part of my decision, as I agreed with HR, is supposed to be based on my follow up with my doctor as it could be my hormones have gone iffy (the pituitary pretty much controls your entire system so having half of it removed can severely fuck you up, and can mess about after a period of time if not right away). I'm seeing them on the morning of the 28th August. Hardly time for me to see what they say and put any possible medication into action. So in 16 days I either need to force myself to get up 4 hours earlier than I currently am able to or take a pay cut. Stress-inducing for anyone, especially with the announcement we're now in recession as of today (and the prior many redundancies and higher ups leaving in the last few months... never confidence inspiring in a company that they're doing well). In someone who can now have a life threatening adrenal crisis if stressed? Yeah thanks for that people!

I do make enough on the money I'm on now to put some aside for savings still so it could be much worse and as I say, I get that they need to know. It just pisses me off how two-faced they are, being all "oh we'll support you" when speaking then the instant it's down to writing an email they just go 100% business only. If they were straight with me I'd be fine with it all. Bastards.

On the plus side, I had a rant on my support group's FB page. I mentioned I'm looking at getting into games journalism just to top up funds. Someone on there is writing a bunch of books, she's already published 3, has 4 & 5 ready to go and is starting a new series. She's really badly off wage-wise, worse than me, so she can't afford a proper proof reader. I've agreed to do book 4 for free as I've never done it before and it helps us both out. If she's happy with my work she'll pay me to do the future ones and either way it's some experience on my CV.

I'm really sorry to hear that Pev. Hope you can still work something out with HR to get a bit of a reprieve on making that decision, because that really doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Should be obvious that your decision to go full time or take a permanent reduction in hours (and wages) would be almost entirely dependent on how you are progressing! What are they even thinking. So ridiculous. That side hustle sounds promising though! Hey, you never know that it might end up growing into something more.

My own work situation hasn't changed much. Most of my colleagues are off this month so I'm definitely not taking any leave but maybe September or October. The good news is that I have so much leave left that all of September through December I can be off at least one week a month haha. Not too shabby!

Cheers Ox. On the up side, the group I complained in mentioned circadian dosing. Basically in a healthy person, one of cortisols functions is to wake you up so we have a high peak of it naturally early morning to get us going, then it slowly drops, peaking again slightly around noon and dropping to virtually nothing overnight. I've been taking my replacements at 8am and 2pm. The replacements only last about 4 - 6 hours so I've been going around 13 hours without any cortisol and when I take my morning dose, instead of getting a huge boost it's just filling in the debt that my body has been wanting. I've switched to taking the same amount over all but spaced out over 5 different doses. First day I did it I stayed awake all morning! This morning I stayed awake an hour then needed a 2 hour nap but it's still an improvement. So we'll try that out over the next 2 months and see what happens. In the mean time I'm getting in touch with a charity over here that deals with this kind of thing and looking at joining a union too in case they can stop work forcing me into this. I mean it took me 8 weeks to go from 15 hours to 20 hours, suddenly they want me to almost double them overnight?!

A week every month eh? Sounds good! One year I'd saved up a load of holiday and throughout Nov and Dec didn't work any Weds, made the weeks fly by

Sorry about any confusion... the unemployment benefits are paid by the state (via taxes on employers) on a weekly basis. You're typically expected to make so many documented attempts to get a new job, blah blah, though I hear all that's pretty much unnecessary now due to covid and the high unemployment rate. So, yea, $450 every week. That extra $600/week expired, I believe, because our government is dysfunctional.

As for regular jobs, some jobs pay as often as every week, but they tend to be the lower-wage hourly jobs. This is good for people that struggle to manage their money or make ends meet. Far more normal is either every 2 weeks (typically on a Friday), or twice a month on the 1st and the 15th. The every 2 weeks is kinda nice because you usually get paid twice a month, but occasionally you'll end up with 3 in a month, so it's kind free money. :p I get paid on the 1st and 15th at my current job.

Sorry to hear about that Pev. Hope it turns out ok.

Here's a garden update. I actually took these pictures 12 days ago... so yea. Things have progressed some since then. I did decide to remove some images of things that had died in the 105F (40.5C) Texas heat. Random order because posting these is time consuming. :p

Wow Satis, you've got so many different things! I love it. I haven't dabbled with much as we only have a balcony but we've been successful with tomatoes, strawberries, lettuces and peas over the years. You're going to be supplying the neighbourhood soon