Employment

My husband works in the field of computers. He's an "Associate Software Engineer" (his fancy title) who does consulting. Basically he is employed by a company, but goes and works for "clients" (customers) on "projects" or "roles." (Liberal use of quote marks for silly industry-specific categorizations). It's kinda like working for Express Personnel, but not. His employer isn't a temp agency, and he does get benefits and all that.

When he first took this job in early 2008, he was under the understanding that he would be working locally. His position was not one that was going to require travel. However, in 2009 the economy was bad enough that after he got done with a project on a long-term local role, he went "on the bench." On the bench is an inactive state of employment - you get your full wages and everything, but it doesn't look good to be on it too long. You're supposed to be looking for other "roles" to fill with your myriad of skills.

It got to the point where they told him the economy was bad, so they had no local roles. However, his skills were in demand in other cities. So late fall, he had to fly to Detroit for a couple of months, then work from home for that client for another month. Now, he's been having to fly to Boston for the last month, and it won't end until mid-June.

It really sucks, honestly.

First, we tend to stay up late. It's really hard for us to get to sleep early enough on Sunday nights that it doesn't affect him when I have to drop him off @ the airport 5 am on Monday. I can always go back to bed, but he's not able to sleep on the plane.

Second, I get lonely. I haven't really made any friends yet (is it just me, or is it harder to make actual friends as an adult?), and I have no family here except for my MIL and GMIL (who live about 40 min away). Even calling people back in WA is tricky because of the time zone difference. I spend a lot of time doing not much in particular - I could be cleaning the apt, but instead you'll find me randomly looking around on the internet. I'm glad we have a cat, or else I'd really go crazy.

Third, it's not like he gets to really explore the city he is in. He usually is put up at a hotel very close to the office, so he can walk or take a short cab ride. By the time he gets off work, he doesn't really have time to go anywhere or do anything. Also, it's kind of like my situation - who wants to DO anything by yourself when you don't have anyone to do it with?

His company gave him an unexpected 6% raise last week, which is awesome. They told him they looked at everyone and decided who deserved it, even with the economy (which was their excuse for not giving him a raise last year for merit). I told him he should be proud of himself, but he's a humble fellow.

Wages here are SO low compared to what I'm used to. I was making $12.50 an hour doing a random office job at a manufacturing plant. Minimum wage in WA is currently $8.55, which is the highest in the country. In MN, it's $7.25. I really think that if we moved to WA, he would be paid a lot more. He hasn't been out of college all that long, so I don't think he realizes that he should be getting paid more, considering he has a bachelor's degree (not even required to apply with this company). He's comfortable there, so I guess that's where he'll stay. Sometimes I think that his meekness will get in the way of him getting ahead career-wise, and that makes me sad.

Also consider that his company is international and that the clients want to use the cheapest labor possible. Yep, that means that the U.S. companies all want their software development stuff done in India or the Phillipines. They say it's too expensive to hire U.S. workers for their U.S. projects. Hmmm, can't see that going too well in the future, especially if that trend continues.