Money In My Pocket

Airport Parking

I will let this be the last of the posts about my trip to my job interview, but I just wanted to take a moment and rant about airport parking fees.  I could not find anyone to drive me to the airport because of academic schedules, so I drove myself.  It is an easy drive from our campus to the local airport and it gave me an opportunity to just sit and think about the interview process that lay ahead, but on the way home in between thinking about how it went, I was also thinking about that huge parking fee I just paid.  I parked in the airport deck for the convenience of being close to the terminal, which I realize cost a bit more, but just a little bit based on the signs I saw for the other parking lots on the way to the airport.  While their prices were just $2 cheaper per day, the away from airport parking lots take forever to get you to the terminal and I just did not want to chance missing my check in window.  Oh well, I guess it was worth it to not have to worry about my car for a few days.

Airport Food

When flying these days it is hard to find an airline that will even give you a drink of water while in the air let alone a little bag of peanuts, so this time when I flew to my job interview I came prepared.  I packed a snack and even lunch because I would miss it altogether while in the air.  I checked ahead on the airline’s website to see if drinks would be served while in flight, because I knew I could not bring water past the TSA screeners.  This allowed me to get through the ordeal of travel and still have all the cash I brought with me intact.  I could not do this on the return trip because I had no way of making a sandwich to travel home with.  It worked out alright, though, because I had a good layover during lunchtime on the trip home so I stopped and ate lunch, and while the food was overpriced, at least I did not have to deal with it on both legs of the flight.  I think this is a plan I will use if I have to fly again in the near future. 

Lunch

After several hours of hard work, my stomach starts to rumble. As any wise person would do, I fill it with some food. For the first several days, I loaded up in the car and drove to a local fast food restaurant. I quickly realized this was detrimental to my health, budget, and work efficiency.

To no one’s surprise, deep fried, highly buttered, cholesterol loaded, pre-fab food will not assist a gold medalist. It also does not help a college student who wants to provide an honest day of work. The luxury of service and convenience of instant food also takes the jingle out of your pocket. As a new employee, I want to work extra hard put any additional work if necessary. Leaving work and finding food is a large distraction and requires more time than a simple PB&J at my workstation.

My solution to this triple facet dilemma: bring in my own lunch. I can cook healthy meals during the evening and consume the left-overs the next day for lunch. I do feel like all my newly married co-workers who also carry in similar meals in their plastic containers. They have the same goal of saving money and trimming weight. In the end, I believe my solution is a win-win-win situation.

First Paycheck

After a couple weeks on the job, I received my first paycheck. The first paycheck is a huge milestone for any job, and I am glad to reach this one. It absolutely killed me that I had to wait till Monday to have access to the monetary value which was printed on the front. Since my direct deposit was not confirmed yet, I had to receive a hard check. Therefore the night deposit was not credited till the Monday work day.

The new money definitely burned a hole in my pocket. I decided to be responsible and reserve enough money for next month’s rent and bills. The rest I decided to play with. So what does a single, male, college student buy? A video game console with online gaming capabilities. Yes, this also provides nightly entertainment and connectivity to my friends back at school.

Beyond expenses, I plan to deposit the remaining checks in my savings account. I also need to repay my parents for the start up costs of moving into a new apartment and what not.

Job Interview

I learned a little while back that I was granted an interview for a job I applied for.  While I am excited about this opportunity, this requires me to miss two days of school at one of the worst times of the semester.  This is a major time for tests, projects and papers to be due, and in the two days I will be gone, I will miss every one of my classes, and in all but one I have a major assignment due during that time.  This means that I have had to take time off of work not only to go to the interview, but also to get all my school work done.  This will put an increased burden on my co-workers and will mean that my next paycheck will be lower than usual.  I suppose that is the price I will have to pay for hopefully getting a permanent job after graduation—an easy trade off when I get to thinking about it.

Over-scheduling

At my on-campus job, several of us work and take shifts based on our academic schedules, just like almost every on-campus job here.  This semester there has been a problem, though.  It usually works out where everyone’s schedules just mesh well and no one has to take on too many shifts, but this year, there are only two of us who can work on Monday and Wednesday mornings.  Everyone else has class scheduled somewhere from 8-12, which means that I have to take a Monday or Wednesday morning shift at least once a week.  This is usually fine because I can just get my hours out of the way before Friday, which leaves me a long weekend when it comes to work.  Recently, though, it has been a bit of a hassle.  A couple of my professors have office hours at these times and we have papers and tests coming up, so I want to meet with them, but I cannot because I have to work.  The two of us have talked and shared our concerns for not having that valuable time, and are now working together to ensure that each of us can get the things done academically that we need to, but still work too.  We are now splitting shifts and working more some weeks than others so that each of us can get everything done without stressing too much about it. 

Retreat

Each year, an organization I am in attends a yearly retreat with all members to participate in the proverbial group bonding, leadership training, etc.  This past weekend our retreat was held about two hours from campus.  Normally I would ride the bus with everyone, but this time I had to make a hard decision.  I have been overwhelmed with the amount of out-of-class work assigned by my professors recently, and after talking with the group sponsor, I elected to stay for only one day of the retreat.  This meant that I could have more time to work on homework and assignments, but it also meant that I would have to drive myself and pay for my own gas.  While I am glad I had a little more time to devote to my course work, it was an expense I was not planning on and therefore did not budget for it.  Sure it would have been easy just to skip the whole thing, but we were all counting on everyone to be there, at least for some amount of time, so I had to make the sacrifice.

Co-op Scholarships

 A large concern of mine before I started co-oping was the abolishment of my scholarships. Thank the man upstairs; I am able to maintain my scholarship status with all of the monetary sources. The school still views me as a full time student and will allow me to defer my scholarship funds towards the semesters that I will be back in school.

           

My company, like many other companies, encourages continued education and will even provide assistance for tuition. I must pay for it beforehand and the company will reimburse me once they see I have earned a C or better in the course. The company views the tuition as an investment to a more informed employee. Also this would keep me more focused while away in an area that I know very few people. My school and company also recommend the addition of a hobby while co-oping. Just like a hobby, a course or two would fill the void of dead time after work. I did not want to over load myself during my first semester of co-oping, but I will most likely study at least one course during my next co-op rotation.

 

Benefits

When looking at a potential job offer, one considers many items like pay, location, working hours, job description, and benefits. With my new co-op offer I was extended many of the same things that a full time hire would be offered. For obvious reasons, my offer was not as extensive as a graduate’s would have been, but the company still enticed me with a small portion of benefits.

While I could not participate in a full benefits package, I was given the opportunity to partake in the company’s health insurance plan. Until I talked to another co-op in my same company, I did not realize I was automatically enrolled. He said this caused a problem when he required medical care, because he did not sign off of his parent’s plan. Both companies insisted the other company should pay for his medical expenses. His recommendations were to remain on my parent’s plan since I am technically a full time student. From my understanding, I will be covered by my parents plan until graduation. At that point, I will require personal health insurance. So I decided to cancel the company’s plan which I could enroll in at a later point if need be.

My conversations with co-workers have enlightened me with the many different benefits that a company can offer their employees. The biggest advice that I have learned is to request as much as possible before accepting the job, because it is harder to be awarded extra benefits when hired. Each has told me stories about their 401k’s, per diem, health insurance, saving plans, company vehicle, signing bonus, and relocation packages. I am very appreciative of their wise words and consider them greatly before I accept a permanent position.

 

Treat finding a job like two classes

My friend told me the other day to treat my job search like I would treat two classes worth of work.  Though this was just his way of illustrating how important it should be for to me to find a job where I can gain a permanent paycheck and hopefully job satisfaction as well, it really hit home.  I have been so concentrated throughout my college career thus far on academic and extracurricular work I have neglected to spend large amounts of time each week trying to find a job for when I graduate.  He even suggested that it should come before my academics because while I will be done with school in May, I will be working for the rest of my life until retirement.  I understood his logic, especially in light of the economy and major job cuts, but I am not quite sure if I want to put my academics on the backburner.  I will try to free up more time to work on getting a job, but my last semester is pretty difficult so I don’t know how effective I will be at this pursuit—sad to say because of how important it is.