Fun Monday: Would you like some ‘whine’ with your cheese?

I’m hosting Fun Monday yet again. I woke up the other night with the perfect topic, and didn’t write it down. I can’t remember what it was. Go figure.  So, onto today’s topic: Your biggest gripe of the year. Anything goes.

Some people have a content life, some people prefer not to complain, but eventually… everyone everywhere has a gripe. Whether it’s taxes or parking tickets or salesmen, there is usually something that really annoys a person. My biggest annoyance this year hasn’t been having a 2 year old. It hasn’t been living far from my family, it hasn’t been living far from my friends, although all of this is true, that’s not it.

The biggest gripe of my year is that my husband hasn’t gotten a promotion yet. I know what you’re thinking. Really, that’s it? Some people don’t even have jobs, okay a lot of people don’t, and THAT’S your biggest gripe? Yes. It truly is. Why? Well, we’re not young. We waited to start a family. My husband had been in the military, and had about 10 years of computer experience before getting his current job. Not only that, but he had a year specifically of doing what he currently does (software).  When he got the job offer, he was thrilled, it was about 20% more than we were making then and about 2.5 hours closer to family.  We jumped at it with both feet (2 of them pregnant ones). He didn’t think to ask for a better ‘position’ upon hiring, although apparently other people did, and got it. Now he’s worked there for 2 years, plus the 1 year at the other place, which puts him WELL beyond the requirements for a promotion. He’s older and more experienced than other people who have gotten recent promotions. In other words, they are 23 with no family and no other experience other than 2.5 years with the company. Most of them didn’t have summer jobs or WORK with computers at all until college. My husband had been taking computers apart before they were even born pretty much. They have apartments and sit around playing video games and whatever after work. They have zero responsibilities after work….

But the BIGGEST issue I have? Is that these other people … well they don’t seem to do much. They got the nod because they had about 6 months more time specifically with the company than my husband (my husband has more experience overall, but not with the company). My husband? Whom I love dearly and miss while he is gone? Now is responsible for 4 of 6 parts of their department, more or less. AND now they want him to try and create a bid for a new process that he will take on as his responsibility. These other people? No. They work on one small thing. Yet they get bumped and he stays at the same salary.

You know we have a new house, right? And our heating bills are astronomical. We’ve been slowly paying off the credit card debt incurred to ‘finish’ the upstairs of our house, while my hubby of course has added a tv (that was 10 years in coming, so I guess I can’t complain-I did say he could have it when we moved into our new house and he waited 8 months) — and several thousand more $$ in insulation and other parts. We traded cars to make it easier to pay for all of this. We don’t go out to eat, we rarely see movies or do ANYTHING. We haven’t even really traveled to see family all that much. It is better right now to shell out the money to pay down the credit cards. Yet my husband works more hours, is responsible for more projects, and gets more ‘atta boys’ than anyone else, but they don’t give him the $$ to back it up.

I think that sucks.

Go ahead and call me selfish or whatever, but I still think it sucks. I know his boss is/was behind him 100%. He even had special projects he was working on, for his boss’s boss’s boss. Just him. Special. No one else gets this kind of thing. AND…when they started lending people out to other departments that needed help, he heard through the grapevine that no one wanted to lend him out, they said, no we can spare someone else, let’s keep him here. So what is up people? Show him the promotion.  You make him stay late on Fridays (you know how irking that is for a stay at home mom, right?) when he goes in at 5 am every day already, you say you don’t want him to be loaned out, you swamp him with work and let other people skate by, you ask him to do special things and new things, and yet you don’t pony up the number or the $ to bump him up? You are wrong and I loathe you a little bit, whoever random decision makers you are. Loathe. I love that my husband has a job, I love that he loves his job, I just wish he got the credit he truly deserves for as much as he has put into it this year.That’s the worst of 2010.

Now mind you, I don’t know exactly what my husband does, and I can’t know, it’s on the top secret level, but he tells me the truth. Hopefully I haven’t gotten anything wrong in the telling of the story. Hopefully, he isn’t mad that I post this in the first place. He deserves a promotion. In fact, he probably should be ready for level 3 right now, and not be stuck at 1, but I have so much faith and belief in him, and it’s so frustrating for me to hear yet another item added to his list and no real compensation for it. Why is it so bad? Because it’s happened to me, too. I had a boss who couldn’t live without me, and then got another job about 2 months later. It would have meant about $8000 more for me a year and he begged for the person not to take me away. It would have helped me exponentially in other attempts at future job and education prospects. Seriously, I would have had a ton of opportunities open up to me. Do you see why my husband being kept at a lower level might irk me more than anything?

What about you? If you want to play along, sign up on the linky below. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to comment and everyone can read along! I’ll have a more happy topic next week, I promise!