What Mom's do best...
Good morning. Before we get into something constructive … I have to take notice of one small thing. I know I had a little gray in my hair, but things seem to be getting out of control. That light hair on my right side past my nose seems to be really, really gray hair. While, I’d seen the little gray hair at the top before, I don’t seem to recall this other being here. And, the other side looks like its turning pretty quickly as well. This getting old isn’t something that should frighten me, right? It’s ok? Maybe I’ll get more mature? Ok, let’s not go that far. But, it is a little scary.
Enough of that. One day you’ll just wake up and I’ll be ANOTHER new person!
I wanted to take another moment to comment on one more thing … There was a lot of response to Tanner talking to us again. That meant a great deal to me. We tried to process more thoughts yesterday; I’ll tell you about how crazy our minds can get in a moment. Well, not real crazy, though maybe a little obsessive. *Sigh* Just happens that way … don’t know how to make it stop, so most often we just play out the hand.
The thoughts had turned between the two older boys. Particularly, because Tanner in his conversation talked about Macadam. I think what has happened is that Macadam is going to be let go of because he isn’t making enough money. I guess there are rules like that because at least where the boys work, they are being given salaries as well as benefits. I told Tanner that I had seen Macadam Easter weekend and that I thought he looked pretty bad. He was really stressed out. There is something about 30 days, but I think after that Macadam will be let go. Tanner seems to be at a very low base pay of about $20,000, but he’s ok, because he’s minimized expenses to be only $10,000 a year, so he’s got an extra $10,000 to play with. I was glad he was able to economize, he also traded his corvette for a more practical SUV. So, that was a good move to. I hate to see him losing so much of what he had had, but he seems much, much happier now that life is calmed itself down. He had had one year where he earned $2,850,000 and that’s pretty far out there, especially for a 22 year old. I hope that he is able to earn amounts that are more “fun,” but for now he says when he makes $1,500 in a day, he can appreciate it more. Gotta love the kid … Yeeks not so much a kid … he’s now a Happy Birthday 24 year old . In the meantime it was a wild ride with the other and an experience he’ll never forget … God bless him!
Macadam is at a $36,000, so that is the marker-point that kept turning around in my head as we drove to work. Because he has a family, he’s going to need getting into something that at least pays that much. I think it breaks down to he’s been getting $17-18 an hour, plus he’s earned up to an extra $6,000 a year on benefits. I thought, ok … let’s work on the first first. We know that Macadam is depressed, because he is telling us so, and he’s seen a doctor who is prescribing depression medication. So, there are three variables. He needs a job relatively fast, he needs to earn at least $36,000, AND very importantly, he has to take down the stress level. Because, I’m a mother … I started thinking how could we help. I didn’t want to see him get down because the reality is that the two older boys went down to the Board, before getting college educations. That’s going to hurt Macadam in the job market.
He held before the trade a position for about a year and a half with UPS as a supervisor, but even there, he was capped because he didn’t have a BA. He also worked in retail at Target as a supervisor … again capped, because no BA. At both of these places he worked very hard, and had odd hours and lots of stress for meeting quotas and management and co-workers weren’t always good to be dealing with. SOOOO, being a protective mother I though … hmm, I think Sr. still needs someone, maybe he can come work at our place!
Ok, ok …not sure what you’re all thinking here, but we’re asking you to play out our imagination. We’re going to step over the difficulty of a son accepting low rung in the social service field taking care of others on the poor side of town could mean as much as playing with the big boys downtown with only the goal to “make money,” but maybe that’s the point … what fun could it be only trying to make money?? Maybe its time he take a break and did something more meaningful to himself and others. The one thing we’re very sure of is if he took a job at the center, he would be loved every day by the people he was helping to take care of. That’s a great reduction in stress.
Then we had to think what he could do at our center that would make the job nice enough to hold him in consideration he probably would make any more than $20-22,000, which was going to be very tricky to convey to the sister, because our friend said regular DSPs were making less than $20,000. I think our bottom line was that he would need $22,000, because he’d probably lose a couple thousand on taxes if not insurance and we wanted him to at least break even at 20,000. That would put him at about a $13 hour. To make up for this loss of $17-18 per hour (keeping in mind no BA), we had in mind that whatever position we could develop for him, he could make the balance of his earnings through the same kind of work our sweetie does in officiating sports. Our friend says that they especially need volleyball reps and that went pretty much all year, although our friend has officiated basketball, football, and baseball. And, we’re pretty sure Macadam knows about all these sports as well. He’d still have to study and take the test, but Macadam has a good memory and a great interest in sports. AHA, see the drift here … Now we’re talking TWO part-time jobs and both are more relaxing. He loves his sports.
The way we calculated is that our friend said he could earn $50 for a couple hours work for each set of games. So, if he worked a game every night, and a couple over the weekend, he could earn another $17,000. Bringing him up to $39,000 a year, which is in the right price range. Or, $18.75 per hour.
I suppose he could officiate full time, but we figure that would be pretty boring, plus, plus, whatever else … Mom still wants her son to work with her! There are still the hours to be accounted for, but then that’s the beauty. If Macadam worked at the center, he could work from 7:30-2:30, be to his game by 3:30-4:00 and home by 6 pm. That wouldn’t stress out the system too much. AND, much like our friend, it would give him the chance to step out of the house for a little over the weekend, and he could choose each season more or less hours to accommodate the family time needs opposed to budget needs. It would still be a long day for him, but the clients at the center are usually easy to work with and they would start him as an official doing little kids games. LOW stress!
Ok, ok … so far the plan was working out in our minds. If Macadam was going to do anything for fun, it would be sports and I know he has the what it takes to call a good game. He is confident in what he can do and he was a great team supporter playing volleyball throughout high school. YAYYYY!!!
Next, part of the plan was working out a job that he would like to take and Sr. would like to hire him for … and of course, followed along my line of thinking for staff and program development. What I came up with was the job of a “Goal Coach.” We worked out the schedule right down to the minute.
7:30-8:15 Personal goals w/clients – 20 clients x 45 minutes per month
8:15-9:00 Personal goals w/clients – 20 clients x 45 minute per month
9:00-9:30 Recording and planning
9:30-11:30 Large Groups (there are 5 at the center) – 1 group x 2 hours per week
11:30-12:00 Lunch
12:00-12:30 Small Groups (5 people at a time) – 25 clients x 30 minutes per week
12:30-1:00 Small Groups (5 people at a time) – 25 clients x 30 minutes per week
1:00-1:30 Personal goals w/clients – 10 clients x 15 minutes per week
1:30-2:30 Recording and planning
See wallah! Each of the clients has 3 personal goals and by being with the clients each 45-60 minutes a month, he could regulate the goal process and during the off weeks the DSPs could continue their work, but doing it this way they’d be relieved of about 8+ hours each month of needing to directly supervise goals. Plus because he would take large groups 5 x 8 hours per month that would relieve more DSP stress. He would do things primarily large sports activities. During small groups he would spend 30 minutes a week with individuals x 5 and that time could be teaching socialization skills through small games and computer. People would need to learn getting along and following the rules. So, basically each client per month in either personal, small group, or large group x 50 people would each spend 10.75-11 hours with Macadam working directly on goal orientated tasks. I’d say that was definitely worth while to Sr. and the program.
So, next was figuring out if it would fly. I called Macadam first. I told him that Tanner was talking to me and had said that Macadam would probably be let go. Then I told him what I had in mind with a job prospect if he was interested. I only spent 2 minutes telling him basically about a Goal Coach position I was developing and the officiating. I then asked him if he was interested. He has one other job prospect, but Tanner didn’t think so much of it, but he said he would definitely consider the positions. Then we went to Sr. Tess, sat down and discussed the situation with her. She wouldn’t make any promises, but she said she would think it over. She kept the paper that I’d drawn out, but said something about waiting to see how this month played out, because she was going to need to give people raises. We walked out thinking YES! We’re in the door!
We looked over the chart for a little bit thinking what the value of this change would mean to the center and how things flowed. I could perceive Macadam making notes as he went along, explaining 1) what he did to progress the goals, 2) accomplishments made, and 3) what needed to be progressed next. I’m not sure yet how that document would be processed. A copy could go back to each of the DSPs and in so doing give Macadam a sort of leadership role over the tasks, because he would also be noting a large group and small group set of notes. The basic thing is though, he would be moving and we would be tracking progress. Maybe a set of each to go back to the Q’s. While I know that it is important the other Q get information on her clients, and be able to make suggestions, I would want to hold the key position, particularly, in that he would be using as his goal base the set of goal documents that I would be creating for all the clients through the Individual Performance Analysis reports. Then, of course, Macadam would be part of each of the staffings as a staff contributor.
The beauty of it is that we’d be making forward progress as a conjoined center process. He would be the glue that holds our now incongruous parts together. The other factor would be if the Q Assistant would keep making the Qnotes, so we’d start to have real consistency over the process. Cool, cool … now just have to be patient, bide my time and hope that everything fall in place. There are a huge ton of variables that I won’t have anything to do with. Sr. asked a question if he could instead be a DSP. My thought was ACK! Don’t stick him in that no man’s land of counting beads! But, instead we just left a note saying that Macadam was pretty smart and it be a shame to lose him in tedious tasks, when he could do so much as far as a motivational leader.
So, that was that.
Well, not quite. Because our Mom mode was on, we didn’t leave it there. We thought, you know this whole situation started because the older two boys haven’t had enough education. And, without that education, they were always going to be stuck, because they’d never be given the opportunity to crawl past middle management. I really, really didn’t want Macadam to be stuck all his life filling shelves with product, or sorting boxes on a conveyor line. I wanted something for them that would make a difference. BUT, just to leave him in this position would be no good either. He needed a means to improve himself, as well as Tanner, which meant going back to school. I decided it was time to take another look at what Capella had to offer toward BA degrees. Wooo HOOO. We figured it would be tougher on Macadam than Tanner, because Tanner would be working fewer hours. His older brother had to make almost twice as much money. Tanner still spends a lot of times with his games. BUT, Capella has a nice program, especially for Business Administration. They would still have to put in the time … 186 credits divided by 36 credits (6 per quarter), which meant a little over ouch … think we just calculated wrong … maybe 7-8 years. BUT, the thing is that in that amount time … by the time they reached 32-33 years old, they would have a degree and a lot more experience. Macadam would still be young enough to go into any business he chose. He’d have a good 5 year work resume and it would be in Goal-setting and goal-making. That has to be a plus in any manager’s books. PLUS, the thing was since they were in such a routine of going to school, they might stick around for an MBA, which put them back in the higher echelon I think they both would belong. In that train they would each need to go a couple of years longer. Wouldn’t be too bad off being 35 with an MBA. Very doable! They’d have to both buy into that kind of structuring of their life. I think they would both enjoy the courses … for the BA they’d still take 2 ½ years to get done the gen ed. Classes, but it is in keeping in line with a regular college. I think though that there are more courses for business than seems to be in a normal school, though maybe I’m wrong.
They would also have to deal with the money portion. It would cost them 7-8,000 per year to do this. While it would be nice to think the Grandmother would contribute something like she had said she would do before, I think she gave at least macadam $10,000 instead, which was the money he used to put down on his first condo. So, they might both be out of her financial graces and have to take a substantial student loan. If, they carried all the way through MBA, it would represent about $70,000. BUT, that’s for about 10 years of study. Is it worth it? I’m not sure … There father and I paid on the 10 year plan. The boys would need to pay $72,800 minimum for both degrees each, which would be 7,280 per year divided by 12 months … that’s $600 a month. Pretty steep, but if you had an MBA you might be making enough to afford that and by the time they were 45, they would be paid up. Hmm, a lot to think about. BUT, it is a good life to think about! I haven’t felt so much hope in a very long time.
There is one more aspect … although I think Tanner could learn to adapt playing computer games AND going to school. It would mean that Macadam would be leaving the house at 6:30 and getting back about 6:30. He would have to put in about 12-15 additional hours toward school. The question would be … would his families lifestyle permit this. I know it is to all their advantage to have the program no farther away than his computer room. He supported his wife as she completed her BA degree. AND, I know this is something Macadam has always wanted and that he and Tanner have even talked about going back to school together. I don’t know … but I think … it sure would be neat!
WOOO HOOOO!!! This is what Mom’s do best!
posted by Ann Marie @ 4/27/2006 06:33:00 AM
Comments: 4
