You raise me high!

If you have been around me the last few days you probably have not been enjoying life! I have been a bear and rightly so. I got an email from work on Monday that put me in the dumps. Let me give some background...

November 2008: I get an email from some person I don't know welcoming me to the new company telling me to sign the info and work handbook and send it back. What? A few emails later I find out that my work just merged and that it was "going to be a good thing." We would be getting benefits and everyone would be up for review in January for a raise.

That was a very stressful thing for me. You would not have wanted to be around me those few days either. I don't handle change very well. My anxiety goes through the roof.

January 2009: I get an email from work with our new pay rates. This is what I read (in a nutshell as the real email is confidential):

You are getting a pay cut.

Um what?

I send an email back inquiring why. I waited ALL day for a response! I was even nice in the email. I was so mad I could not even work (it was my day off, but I had planned on working anyway). That is how dysfunctional I get. I could not stop wondering why; if I was just doing really bad work or if they were just trying to get rid of old employees so they could bring in their own. I was furious. I IM'd my supervisor and she could not tell me anything. She didn't know either. I get an email later that day and it was addressed to all the employees that says this (in a nutshell again):

In order for us to provide everyone the benefits, we are cutting pay across the board to help pay for them....

Now just let that digest for a minute...after I let it digest I turned into a Bonnie that not many of you know. And I sent an email that says this (in no nutshell at all. Please forgive me now for ruining your perfect image of me):

I have never heard of such a thing. That should be an added bonus and not something taken away from us. I will not be taking advantage of the insurance and would rather have my previous rate besides looking forward to rate increases that were supposedly supposed to happen. I was told that I would be up for a raise in January. I would ask you to reconsider my rate change due to my not taking insurance and I would still like to see the raise I am due for.

I was told just this week that it is easier to be mean when you are not doing it face to face and I am here to say that yes it is. If I had been face to face or even on the phone it might have been something more like this:

I do bow to you oh holy one. Whatever you want to do to me, you may...

I felt like a sinner pushing the send button on that email. I was so sure that I was not going to have a job after all that that I actually tested for another company yesterday. But I didn't care. I was MAD! Well I never heard anything back from work and was not counting on it until today. I got an email just a bit ago and this is what it said:

Bonnie, I did get you approved for the raise you were promised. I have attached the revised letter for you. Hope this works better for you.

And it does, very much so thank you...(this is where I might have sent that oh-holy-one-I-bow-to-you email).

Can't decide if I am more excited about the raise or the fact that I AM VICTORIOUS! I won't even think about how I could be the ruin of the company because now they will not be able to afford to pay their employees and give them benefits too. Ok, I am done. I will take all your congrats in the form of comments.

P. S. I am considering doing seminars on getting raises out of hopeless situations. Tell me what you think...

P.S.S. Danessa tell Dave to be ready. I have been schooling Rob, it is about time...