New job

Gad. I almost got forcibly retired a month ago. Previous employer been having trouble all year about keeping me billable. Multiple hiccups caused me to be on overhead almost five months.

At my skill/experience level, that's expensive for them, so in October I went on unpaid LOA. That's a gamble by everyone that work is going to show up. My suspicion was not, so I didn't wait around much.


Now don't get me wrong, here...it's not that I *wanted* to get a job again. I'd have rather retired officially, but I can't quite afford that yet (recall that a move is occurring) until I sell the old house--once that's done I can retire when I feel like it.

New job is forcing a 25% pay cut on me, tho. That stings a bit. Again, once the old house is sold, that won't matter too much. But still...

That said--new job is properly interesting. Have a software AND hardware problem to solve. And multiple installations eventually, altho not too many. [Later: weird prime contractor goings on--this is dead.]

And its a really different tech area than I've done before, which means new learning and challenges.

[Update: it's a tiny business, maybe 10 employees. Luckily, a couple of them are fans of ethnic foods, as I am, so there's a small crew for lunch daily. That hasn't happened in >8 years. Yay!]

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While I was on LOA I started building the barn. Regrettably that's Plan C. Plan A was someone else builds a metal building. Plan B was someone else builds a wood building. Plan C was I built the wood building because I can't afford to pay anyone else; of course in the end that means I can say "I built it". It also means that if it falls down "I built that". So I've been getting a crash course in construction on this. Mistakes so far are minor, other than the weird need for after-the-fact anchor bolts into the concrete foundation. You really want to do that when its poured. Now I have to drill for them. If I had to do it over again, I'd go with cinder block walls, pay an expert to do that.

[Update: the walls went up in Nov. The roof trusses went up after xmas. The metal roofing went up a few days later. I am not the monkey I used to be for climbing on that stuff. Not quite done as of Jan 1, but not too much left. Eventually I'll put solar panels on it, probably 3kW.]

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Much later: turned out this job was really a bad idea. 11 months after I started it, and not quite six months after it ended, I *STILL* do not have a W2 for 2016. I am not sure if that equals stupid incompetence, criminal incompetence, or both, but it's damn sure incompetence. Some of the payroll taxes weren't even paid to the IRS. That's borderline criminal incompetence.

And there were never any paystubs I could fake/create a W2 from. So I have no info about withholding.

I may be having to sue them here shortly.