what's cooking?

You want to know what can be both a blessing and a curse? When a significant other gets a new job/schedule/whatever-it can be both of these.




Everyone knows I love my husband and I love spending time with him. But we have got to work something out. Let me explain:




There were rumors wafting through the air in his company. They started right after the owners announced that they were going to retire and hand the reigns over to their son. No problem with that-UNTIL corporate decided that they wanted to gobble up all 15 stores.



I suppose we should have seen this coming, but sometimes it’s just easier to think time will march on to the same “beat of the drum” than admitting there are many other songs to consider.



So it was for my husband and son. They are actually part of the lucky ones. My son was greeted with much love-he seems to be the “face” the company wants to portray. In clear words: young, good-looking, smart and educated with a strong knowledge of the corporate and local business.



Since my husband has been a “company” man for 30 years (except for that 8 year break when we were running an in-home pre-school and day care), they want his expertise-just not in the same position (trainer)that he’s been loving for the last 3 years.



Let’s just say that out of the entire corporate office of 12 people-only the former owner’s son, brother-in-law and my husband still have paychecks coming in. The son was turned into a district manager, the brother-in-law was made a manager of the store closest his home and my husband was given a choice-manager, sales manager or “see you later, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”



My husband hated managing when he had the job. He did it because he is a team player, but it gave him anxiety. The last thing my husband likes to do is be the “bad guy”. So the job of sales manager it will probably be. But before he could do that, they asked him to manage a store when the company fired the prevailing “bad guy”.



Well, between the owners leaving, the choices given and the fact that he had to go back to this job he hated-it got to him, BIG time. So he’s home, on a two week medical leave. It seems his blood pressure meds need time to work and until then, no one who isn’t in the market for a stroke should work with numbers that high.



What medical leave means to him is NOT what it means to me. I may work at home, but I am working and I’ve gotten used to having my own schedule to come and go as I need. His leave just started 3 days ago, but I’ve gotten the impression that he thinks I’m on a respite as well.



Tuesday morning I had a 10 a.m. interview via phone, 3 stories to pound out, a slide show to start putting together and phone calls to make. My husband thought I should be available to first go out to breakfast, run errands with him and then help him make a birthday card for a cousin!



I suggested that maybe he could do a load of towels? Breakfast would have to be a “no” and the errands would be good to do “solo” since I had so much on my proverbial plate.



This worked out well until the birthday card. There I was trying to write up these stories and there he was less than 3 feet away asking me to see the card, reading it out loud to me and then asking me if he spelled all the various “asides” he was putting in correctly!


AAACCCKKKK!


When he does go back to work-he will working weekends again. So that too will take a “tad” of adjustments between us.


My son said, “Well mom, I think you might be getting a preview on how retirement will be for you.”


Fat chance, I doubt-barring a medically induced retirement and therefore disability coming in, I have to worry about something as trivial as retirement coming anytime soon.


In the meantime-anyone out there know the figures on people who work at home and for themselves being able to also go on medical leave for job-related stress?