I honestly was not quite sure what to post today. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and came to some hard conclusions. There will hopefully be some big changes coming up in the next few months, and that will also help me with my blogs in a round about way. Let me explain how I plan to move forward and I will stop standing still.
The hard conclusion
Working in a hotel has been great. However, lately we have been struggling. Nobody’s fault. People don’t have a lot of money and Steinbach isn’t a tourist hot spot. There are some weekends coming that look more hopeful with business, but a weekend here and there won’t cut it. I need more hours, as my night shifts are not cutting it. During the nights, if I don’t do hotel work, I don’t get paid the whole shift. Some people think this is stupid, but it makes sense to me. I wouldn’t want my boss to pay me for sleeping, or watching TV or YouTube. That’s a waste of her money. My words, not hers. I also don’t like working shifts tied to night shifts, so that limits how many scheduled hours I have.
What Does That Mean?
This means I am not working full time hours, thus, I’m not getting paid full time. Why do you think I’m living in the hotel? Some of my night shifts go towards my “rent” at the hotel. Let me quickly explain. Three night shifts a week, if all I do is the night audit and be available for guests, I don’t get paid, as those hours go towards my rent. If I do work beyond that, I get paid for that. Now, let’s say I do an extra night shift (we have now trained another night shift staff, so I no longer have to do five, but only three) and I do the bare minimum, I get paid for two hours. If I do more work, I get paid those hours, plus the two hours. Night shifts are the hardest shifts to be motivated though.
Let’s Get to The Conclusion
Now, we look at all that, and throw in a mountain of debt, and I’m sure you see the problem. Low paychecks mean that debt is not going down, which means I am in no position to go looking for a place to rent. You see my dilemma? So, I could just live at the hotel forever, or, I can stop standing still in my life and take steps to helping me move forward.
The plan to stop standing still
After talking with others and praying about it, I have made a difficult decision. I will be applying to other places as a second job. Now, I say second job because I’m not ready to leave the hotel. Plus, as long as I live here, I have to work those three nights. The hope is to find a second job that will compliment my hours here and prevent burnout. My hope is to find a job where I work during the day Monday to Friday. But what about your night shifts? I will still work night shifts during the week. The three nights I work are typically slower, so I should be able to sleep after doing the night audit. And if I can get a job that has a more set schedule, it’s easy for me to schedule my hotel hours around that.
Preventing Burnout
Now, if I get a Monday to Friday job, it will be easy to prevent burnout. I can give myself a shift or two at the hotel to ensure that I still get a paycheck here. The other job would serve as the higher paycheck. An absolutely perfect situation would be if the pay weeks were opposite to each other so I got money every week, but that’s not a necessity. If I notice that I still have more energy, I’ll look into doing more hours at the hotel. But if I feel like I’m burning out, I’ll pull back. Whatever the case, the hope is that I’ll be able to make much more of a dent in my debt than I am now.
What about the blogs?
This is the beauty of it. Let’s say I get a job, Monday to Friday, 9-5. I can now set a more routine schedule, which means I can be more consistent with the blogs. Instead of being burnt out trying to work crazy hours, I’ll have a nice schedule. I can then make a writing schedule each week. That would be huge! That would be divided between blogging and working on my novel. Another benefit of a second job, I can save up money to publish my first book. Wish me luck you guys.
Stop standing still
So, why did I title this Stop Standing Still? Because this has been on my mind for quite a while, but instead of doing anything with it, I “stood still”. Instead of trying to improve my situation, I just hoped it would get better. I would pray for things to get better. God will open the doors, but it’s up to me to walk through them. This means I have to stop standing still and start taking steps towards improving my situation. I don’t know how long it will take to find a job, but I won’t find one if I don’t try. Hopefully it doesn’t take too long and I can get things moving in the right direction. Well, as I always say, anything can happen if I try.
