Things I miss about my old job.

[notalwaysright]

I worked at my family's roofing company. It was kind of a home office, though a completely detached building which was almost entirely office/supply room. I do need more space away from my family (seeing them every day got old fast) and also need a career so I had to move and go back to school. But I do miss specific things.

-We had an espresso maker. I made awesome drinks. I MISS FREE MOCHAS. Free eggnog mochas. And vanilla lattes. We were within driving distance of a Business Costco. If anyone hasn't heard of these, they are amazing. You must have a business membership, and they don't have nonsense like seasonal, or clothes, or hot food. They sold syrups for drinks at a great price.

-If we had a slow week, I'd be called off. But I was salary, so it didn't matter. Yeah, when it was busy I worked longer, and ran errands, but the call off days were like tiny vacations.

-I didn't have to take as much crap. I'd just transfer it to one of the guys, and they'd take care of it. *sigh* If we didn't want a job, the boss turned it down. Just "I'm sorry, we are booked solid and will not be able to bid this job." They did that with the wackado who had multiple cameras set up to monitor the roofers. How did we know about the cameras? A local contractor called and warned us. Yeah, it was a small town.

It wasn't a perfect job, and was pretty much dead end, but it was a laid back few years.

[Kittish]

You can get a nice stove top espresso pot for about $20. If you don't care about foam on your coffee drinks, it's a great way to go. Easy to use, easy to clean.

I miss getting paid to play with pretty flowers for most of the day. Kind of sucked doing funeral arrangements, especially since everyone wanted huge, elaborate funeral wreaths for next to nothing. But being told (repeatedly!) 'just make it pretty.' and with a decent budget made up for that.

I also miss (sort of) getting to travel all over the place. I got to see most of the continental United States and a fair chunk of southern Canada as a truck driver. Probably wouldn't have gotten to otherwise.

[Gilhelmi]

Umm, OK I can understand having home security cameras watching the outside doors and the garage. I can even understand a "nanny cam" (though, I probably would not use one without cause).

But watching contractors on the roof, that is just excessive. This coming from a man whose motto is below.

[Tama]

Could be he'd been sued before but he could have explained if that were the case.

[notalwaysright]

Kittish: I do enjoy steamed milk/foam in my coffee. The texture is different, I can tell the difference. I have trouble getting coffee from Starbucks now because I made my drinks different and I refuse to spend 10 minutes ordering a drink.

And the guys are totally used to being watched. We get jobs from people who see that we're professionals. But this was different. There's actually more story, which we got from the general contractor who was threatening to quit. He'd examine all the blueprints, which specify materials, and demand different ones. Ones that would cost way more. But he wanted the price to be the same. He'd say the ones in the blueprints weren't up to code... They were, but then the contractor would have to provide proof. Again, that's all well and good, but it was taking forever because they had to stop all the time to show the customer that they actually knew what they were doing. And he didn't want to pay more, even though he was holding them up. So basically he was a pain in the butt and we didn't really need the money.