Soon

this old laptop will no longer be at my disposal. Sad, but-----

I have a new job!

I am now the copy secretary for my high school. I've been a Special Ed teacher assistant for 26 years, a job I've loved (some of the time, especially the last 4 or 5) and hated (a good bit of the time). It's fairly low paying, but I get good benefits and a retirement pension. A tiny one, but still. But after working for 26 years, I'm making more than I ever thought I would, considering that I didn't finish college and didn't work until my kids were both in school.

The secretary pay scale is higher and has more steps (I'm hoping that I'll go in the middle of the steps, as that will pay me what I earned as an assistant; actually, I'm hoping that I'll go in higher than that, but either way, there will be many more steps; as an assistant, I'm on the next to last step), and I won't have to deal with the constant changes that the government throws at Special Ed, or the constant paperwork, or the "oh my God this has to be done right NOW and figure out how to do it" that my previous job entailed.

The downside is that I won't be working (or rather, sharing an office, talking, joking, laughing, having fun, and being treated with real respect) with Mary, my boss for the last 7 or 8 years. She's wonderful, compassionate, understanding, and lots of fun. She's the one who's made sure that I had my own laptop for the last 6 years (two of them; she makes sure we have what we need, so every three years, we got new ones) and could take it anywhere I wanted to take it, even when the tech department bitched that I shouldn't remove it from the school. Hellooooo, laptop, moveable, work from any location??? There have been so many times when I took a day off or was sick and Mary needed a file I had. She's fed me, bought me gifts, and been a real friend, listening when needed and I've done the same for her. I feel so comfortable with her.

I think I'll love the new job; it'll be hectic at times, but I'll know what I'm doing day after day after day into eternity, and I need that at this point in my life. My mind is just plain shot. I can't remember anything, and Special Ed requires so much attention to detail. I just don't feel capable of that any more.

Since the new copiers do pretty much all of the work, all I have to do is learn how to tell them what I want from them. Maybe this will work out.