Oh lordy. That title sounds so melodramatic. And no, I haven't been fired.
But here's the thing. I go back to Uni in March.
I'm on... well, the equivilent of Welfare, I guess, for students.
Were I to earn $0, I would get $440 a fortnight from my 'Youth allowance'. I can also earn up to $236 (all in a fortnight) (so, so arbritary) and still get $440.
Then, the more I earn at work, the less I earn through Centrelink.
Which is ok, I could work a little bit and earn a little bit, and get about $600 a fortnight. Right?
WRONG
Ok..
So that was like, super ominous.
The problem comes from the fact that I have a few shares (ie: quite a number, as investments my mum & grandparents have been putting away for me since I was born), and a money gift from my grandparents that subsequently earns me interest- about $100 a FT. Plus the shares, they figure I'm "earning" about $200 a FT from those things.
Which then means, every dollar I earn, cuts my Centrelink by 50c to the dollar.
Well, Em, what the hell does that mean? (I hear you ask). I asked myself the same thing for the last 10 or so months. It's a brilliant system when the people using it can't even figure it out.
Basically, last year, I worked 5 hours a week- 10 hours a fortnight, thinking I'd be sneaky and earn $235 a FT from work,. adn get my full Centrelink. I've now worked out that if I do this, I will earn $100 less from Centrelink.
So effectively, I earn half of what I work. I'm working for half my wage. I don't know if that makes sense. But if we forget that the $100 comes out of my Centrelink and just think that it is deducted from my pay, I work 10 hours, and earn $100. That's like, $10 an hour. Which is stupid. And shit.
Pardon my language.
I scoured the internet looking for some sort of awesome picture to put here, like, an unemployment joke, or something, but nothing came to hand. So here's something random instead. I don't know what it is yet because I haven't found it- I'm still searching. Ok scrap that, google fails today. Continuing on.
So I think, maybe I can work twice as much! If I work like, 16 hours a FT, I'd earn about $350, which means my Centrelink would be cut by about $180.... which then means I'm still working for a grand total of $10 an hour (all approximate, of course). And really, I think I'm worth more than that. PLUS, studying a Masters degree, I don't really have time for a heap of work.
I know it's a bit late for a cut, but I feel like this is going to be a long 'un.
I spoke with my TL this morning, hoping that maybe I could just work during Uni holidays every 3 or 4 months, or whatever they are... but it's too far apart apparently. Which I suppose is fair... I have trouble sometimes catching up when I'm away for a week and have to catch up on everything I've missed. So, it seems like, as of March, I shall be out of a job, and officially a "student". Not that I wasn't before, but now when someone asks I can't say: "Oh, I study. AND I work in a call center".
In Feb, I will have been with this company for 3 years. 3 years! Before that, I wouldn't have held a job for 6 months. It's a pretty strange feeling. A strange feeling that I won't get paid while I go on holidays. It'll be nice, though, not having to worry about it. Not racing to get from Uni to work, and then home. It takes me just under an hour one way to get in/out of work... so that's 2 hours I used to waste for a 5 hour shift. Which is insane.
It's also hard, the pay cut. Not that I was earning that much more, and Nic will be paying me some money to help out, and will be picking up the slack since he got a new & better paying job... but... put it this way, at the moment I'm earning about $1,700 a FT while I'm working full time. So even if I didn't quit, even if I just dropped back to my 5 hours, it'd still be a huge cut from what I'm getting now. Which is fair, I'm doing 38 hours a week now, so of course it's going to be less but it's still like O.O omfg.
And the holidays will kinda suck. Badcore.
Because I'll just be home, probably not studying (not for the break between semester 1 & 2 anyway)... and not working. Cos who is going to hire me for just 2 weeks? Nobody. Although, maybe I should go visit my Dad. Yeah, I might do that. It's not like I'd have to get time off work, or miss out on precious work money, ha ha.
And all that being said, there's also tutoring.
I need to put up notices that I can tutor. A collegue from Uni is tutoring two primary school boys, she helps them with her math homework (and she's as hopeless with math as I am) and says it's ok. I should be able to tutor. I'm a grown person.
A grown person with knowledge of things.
This is my kind of maths.
But I worry that I will be unable to a) articulate that knowledge into something meaningful or comprehensible for small people, or b) not be shown up by said small people in their Knowledge Of Things, or c) actually HELP, and therefore be ripping off parents who are paying me. To Help.
Now I've forgotten where I was because I got too busy looking at pictures of dogs in hotdog costumes, and people who photoshopped their dogs to look super fat, and some guy is flicking & clicking his stupid lighter again and again. I hate repititive noises.
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