In keeping with the rebel spirit that has been 2010, I now have three essential negotiations going on at the same time.
Since July I've been in negotiations with my husband on where to live and when we live together again. He doesn't want to move, I couldn't live where we were any more so now I have my little cottage but we live apart during the week. Recently I asked him what his plan was and he wants to wait until the spring to see how the real estate market is before putting the house on the market. Our realtor told us if we didn't get it on the market by September to wait until March, but the choice to wait was made by inaction, which is highly disappointing.
My trainer has finally started a dialogue with the property owner to see what kind of deal we can work out in order for me to keep Missy, I'm hoping they will agree to a half lease. In my mind this is a perfect solution, she will get ridden more consistently during the week, I will keep my current schedule of riding on the weekends and my expenses will be cut in half. The trick is finding someone acceptable to all of us, which may take some time, but at least there is some movement happening.
Two weeks ago I had a huge argument with my manager, something that's happened about every six to eight weeks since I started working for her in June 2009. This one ended in an ultimatum: she said I had one week to tell her whether I thought this was "going to work or not", because she wasn't going to change. After three days I scheduled a meeting with her and called her bluff. For the first time in my life, I quit a job without having another one lined up. I had just had it, I dreaded coming to work every day, I had the title and responsibilities of a manager but no authority, and I had to report literally everything I did to her in real time. That was on a Friday, on Monday she came back with the promise of a severance package if I would agree to stay for three more months. I told her I would have to know what the offer was before I could agree to anything, and I hadn't planned on staying that long so it better be worth my while. Obviously after she got over being pissed off from our argument she realized how much she needs me in order to complete the project we've been working on for the last six months on time. It took a week for her to come back with the numbers, which she told me on Friday. It's a decent offer, more than what I was expecting. I would love to just walk away and leave them in the lurch but that isn't very reasonable or responsible. At this point I really have no choice, I will take their offer knowing that I can still leave at any time if I find another job before the end of January. I'm also going to make it clear to her, her boss and HR that if she continues to maintain the hostile work environment that has been the norm, I WILL leave and I WILL get the severance package as well. This New Donna can be quite formidable.
Aubrey is doing fine, she seems none the worse for her adventure last weekend, if she remembers it at all. I had to bathe her three times, the last with Gojo grease hand cleaner, to get her head clean.
