Fa-la-la-la.....ah,forget it.

In order to maintain the blogger status quo (that is, using a blog primarily to display negative emotional frustrations), I would like to take a moment of your life to talk about poor, poor pitiful....me.

We have a health insurance policy at the studio that is designed around an individual HSA (health savings account). There are monthly payments made into my individual account by the employer that can be used towards medical bills, prescriptions...pretty much any medical purpose large or small. My employer has failed - for over two months now - to make the required deposits. This was discovered some time ago, and brought to the attention of the appropriate managers. The grapevine has provided various explanations for this over the last few weeks, but today I got the real answer.

The boss didn't think anyone would notice.

What? Yes.

We're experiencing some financial issues right now, so one of the steps to "stop the bleeding" is to go ahead and cut benefits. Okay, I'm a big boy, let's talk about that, or let me know at least. It's like that movie Office Space...this one person figured "hey, the problem will just kind of solve itself here. Win-win!" Lame. I'm pissed. I was already upset that it was being forgotten, then to find that it was purposefully secretly withheld...totally l-a-m-e. Unprofessional.

Let's add to that, shall we? Employees at my company receive a little under a dozen paid days off each year, and that's it. No "personal" or "vacation" or "sick" time off, just paid days. Not a big deal, because we typically get a couple of weeks off at the end of the year for Christmas time. That time off has shrunk over the last couple of years, but it was still always a decent justification for the minimal paid time. Well, you probably already guessed where this is going....yes, that's going away. Initially they said "Christmas Day, that's it." Christmas Day is a Tuesday, and so I guess we come in for one day on Monday, but even that went crazy when they said "well, it'll probably only be a half day." Are you seriously telling everyone to come in on a Monday, work for 4 hours and then go home for a day? Seems it would be a little unproductive. All of this is not a big deal except 1) a lot of people already made their Christmas travel plans under the old rules and 2) they're already screwing us one way during Christmas this year, and this isn't a nice second hit to take. I usually use the extra time to do year-end wrap up stuff for TradeWind Productions...guess not this year. Ahhhhhhhhh.....it's just lame to start cutting benefits, WITHOUT prior notice, during Christmas of all times, and acting like it's no big deal.

I'm just about ready to move on...this company got a good chunk of my post-college life already, so maybe it's time to find a new challenge.

That's the end of that, so now I'll move on.

Hey, UGA is in the Sugar Bowl!!! Woooo!!! Seriously, if you told me after our 2nd loss to Tennessee (the first was South Carolina) that we'd be playing in a big New Year's Day bowl, I would have told your mama you were spreading lies. It's a nice end to a pretty good year of UGA football. Would the national championship game have been better? Of course. Could we have beaten Ohio State? I certainly think so. Does LSU deserve to be there playing in that game? Just as much as anyone with 2 losses, I suppose (Oklahoma and Virginia Tech chief among those, along with UGA). But I will side with Mark Richt here...if the voters in the polls weren't happy with UGA being next in line with their previous votes, why didn't they vote someone else ahead of them then? Obviously, Georgia was penalized for not playing in or winning their conference, and I'd agree that should be a component. However, the BCS rules committee has twice voted down a chance to make that a prerequisite, so.....how does UGA fall from 4 to 5 just because of that, not even considering a #2 spot that they would have "mathematically" been bumped to after this weekend?

Still, UGA made good in what was looking like a bad season at first, so kudos to all of the players and coaches. The lesson they learned is a valuable one....don't lose as many games, and people won't be second guessing you so much. Win your conference, and you can legitimately contend for that national championship game. Steve Spurrier is laughing his 6-loss butt off up in Columbia right now for beating UGA in September.

In other news....Christmas is fun, really fun. Especially the kitschy music on the radio stations around town. Decorations are pretty much complete here at the Jolly house, might just grab one more strand for the trees out front, but that's about it.

Getting the nursery ready, first step was cleaning and painting the walls. Next we'll be getting the furniture in from Babies R Us, and then we'll have some semblance of a nursery as we get the various wall hangings and such put up.

I'll be back soon...more posts would be the norm in a perfect world, eh?