so f*ing angry!!!!!!

Senate Bill 88 and what it could mean to you. mind you, this was passed and enacted in 2000.

what it means to you, if you are in the computer industry and making less than the equivalent of $41/hour, then you are NOT an exempt employee. see, exempt employees are exempt from being paid overtime anytime they work over 40 hours per week. see, most software engineers i know work more than 40 hours/week. but most software engineers i know make more than $41/hour, which is roughly $81,000-85,000 per year, depending on how much time off you get.

see, until june of 2004, i was not an exempt employee, except i never knew that. i never knew that i was entitled to overtime pay. if i play a really conservative game, i would say that i worked, on average, 1 extra hour a day. like i said, it’s a really conservative game i’m playing. for the year 2000, i believe i am owed $14,625. for the year 2001-2004, i am owed $15,234 PER YEAR. this brings me to wages earned, but not paid, over four years of $60,327, IF i only worked one extra hour a day, on average.

i am so, so, SO mad. it’s not like i didn’t know they were underpaying me. but it’s different to know that i actually legally already worked and earned a certain amount, but was robbed of it.

eta: that “$41/hour” rate is adjusted every october 1st, and goes into effect the following january 1st. the new rate starting on january 1, 2004, was $44.63. my estimates above are based on the lower rate. also, if you work over 12 hours in one day, you are supposed to get paid two times your regular rate. there were at least a few times i worked between 16 hours and 20 hours a day. that means that there were days when my day’s pay should have exceeded $1000. haha. i laugh. i laugh bitterly. when i’m worrying about my mom’s health care and paying for my little brother’s college, i will be even more angry than i am now.

email blogging

it’s easier to disguise blogging when you do it via an email interface, so i am taking advantage of blogger’s email blog setting. let’s see if this works.

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life has been pretty good lately. things are going well with seppo. the dog is calming down, slowly but surely. i am developing a skeleton of an idea for the novel, which i have shamefully put off until december. i do have some worries, of course, mainly having to do with finances. i have to get a repair on my car because the half-shaft boot which keeps it protected and free from rain and road grit has cracked. i have to renew my registration, which involves getting smogged. i have to renew my insurance. i have to renew my AAA membership. i have to send my mom some money because of some wood repair and treatment we are doing on the house. i should send my dad some money before Christmas so he has time and money to buy some stuff. i am somewhat worried about the scope of my project and that i’m not fully on top of every detail yet, with time slipping by oh-so-quickly. still, i’m happy overall.

i sometimes wonder if it’s a blessing or a curse that i appear to have no ambition. mostly, i am happy and thankful for who i am, because it lets me lead a fulfilled life. but i sometimes wonder if i shouldn’t be doing more, being more. and i also wonder if that’s just an ego problem.

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eta: it looks like email blogging adds line breaks, so i had to go back and manually delete them. boo.