We fed Nate his first taste of solid foods (if you can call very liquid-y rice cereal "solid") on March 13, 2010. Of course we caught it all on video.
We tried again today and he was less than impressed. Maybe we'll try something new in a few days. Either that or he prefers to eat on a fuller belly (he had a bottle before the first feeding but today we tried to feed this first).
In other news, we celebrated my birthday on March 2 by having lunch with our good friends Skyler, Melissa, Nick, and Chelsea at IHOP. On Thursday, March 11, we went to our annual between-the-birthdays dinner at the Olive Garden and then spent the evening at Disney on Ice: Worlds of Fantasy. I enjoyed the show very much and was glad we spend the extra ten bucks on the better seats. I went last year and sat in the upper deck and it made a HUGE difference. On David's birthday we ended up going to the Military Ball with Skyler and Melissa (Melissa is in the Army National Guard). It was fun to dress up, even though we didn't stay long because we took Nate and he was getting tired.
Pictures from Disney on Ice: Worlds of Fantasy. Cars, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and Tinkerbell.
Pictures from the Military Ball
I'm still training for the Ogden Marathon Relay for May 15th. I had a minor setback when I sprained my ankle a few weeks ago but David and Nate accompanied me this afternoon when I walked/jogged about 3 miles. I should have jogged more than I did but overall I'm just glad I went. I was supposed to go yesterday too but backed out because of a sore throat.
The thing mostly on my mind is this thing with work. I won't go into the boring details, but basically they changed the commission structures for some products recently but I noticed I was still getting paid the older (less) amount. In checking on these I also found other commissions that were totally missing from my paycheck. I did some math and found just the past two pay periods alone I had been shorted around $200. Needless to say I wrote a very long detailed e-mail to my coach about it and I will continue to follow up, but it really started to bother me and make me think. David has been with the company for over a year (about 14 1/2 months) and I've been with the company for 10 months. During this time we have seen this kind of thing happen a lot but it's never been this much at a time so we always ignored it. The company is constantly adding new products and even went through a period where the T&C (Time & Commission) section was completely revamped so we couldn't even use it. T&C is basically a took that tells us how much we are making. Whenever we have made complaints in the past, at training meetings for example, we've always been told that T&C is incorrect so we shouldn't use it as a basis for our commissions and yet as I'm looking back, all of my paychecks are completely identical to the so-called incorrect T&C numbers. In the past it's been ten dollars here and ten dollars there and so it wasn't a big deal at the time but now looking back, David and I estimate that between the two of us, the company has shorted us close to $2000. WTF?? Also, the few times we have made a stink about missing money, we have had to constantly hound everyone and their mother to get that money. After a month or more it is usually added to our paychecks but the problem isn't solved the this keeps going on. I talked to another employee and she said that she doesn't keep track of every sale because it would drive her insane. She also said she knew someone like us, who did keep track of every call and she had to go through a huge hassle all the time to get money she had earned. This tells me that the company has issues that they are not fixing that are costing the employees thousands of dollars and most employees probably don't even know they're entitled to more than they are receiving because they don't want to bother keeping records and the record the company supposedly keeps (T&C) is inaccurate and the employees know it so they don't pay attention to it. If this problem has been around as long as it probably has, this company has essentially stolen around 2.5 million dollars in the last 10 years. I think that's messed up. I want them to pay me what I earn but I don't think I should have to hassle with them to get it. It should be law for them to have accurate records for employees to view at all times so we can make sure we're being paid fairly. Things change a lot with new products and comission structure changes but these should be taken care of in T&C before the product ever launches or the changes in structure take effect. What is the point of T&C if it's going to be wrong and yet payroll is going to use those numbers? Also, there is one product in particular where they changed the commission structure a while ago (before I started) so agents would be more motivated to offer upsells. They brought the sale commission way down but raised up the upsell commissions. Later on they brought the upsell commissions back down but didn't re-raise the sale commission. This product sells for 229.74 without any upsells and we are supposed to get 1.5% of that for commission. Right now we are getting $0.50 for a 5-pay and $0.85 for a 1-pay. Upsells are all worth less than a dollar as well. Does anyone else see a problem with this? I don't know what to do. Anyone know a good lawyer? I'd love some legal advice on how to get this company to shape up.
They don't have enough teachers for primary (our stake president won't allow any male teachers in primary except ages 8 and up) so they decided to combine the 4 year olds into one class and the 5 year olds into one class. Each class will have 3 teachers which is nice because I only have to teach every 3 weeks, but there are now 21 kids in our class...and about 17 of them are active. AHHHHHH!!
2 comments:
Wish I had more answers about your pay structure. I would just continue to keep documentation of what you're making and possibly get in touch with the Better Business Bureau and see if there is any state government agency.
As for your stake, if they have a shortage and a concern about men teaching Primary, they should call couples. I personally think that is a very knee-jerk reaction to just ban men from teaching Primary. It basically says all men can't be trusted with kids, yet we have no problem putting them as teachers in Young Men. Just sends the wrong message in my opinion.
A lot of stakes (every single one I've been in, to name a small sampling) call couples to primary to avoid this rule. And it is a rule that men can't be in primary classes alone. It's in the Church Handbook of Instruction. You might consider making a suggestion to call couples though. A lot of kids (especially boys) need someone they can associate with their dad, not just their mom. Especially if dad works a lot and mom's the only one they really see.
Post a Comment