Judecorp.

So the HR lady realized that they had made a mistake with the $89 for Jen's insurance and dropped it down to $40something (the difference between the $125 family plan and the $80something employee plus child plan) post-tax. And she made sure I knew about the Queer Tax, which I did. (By the way, the Queer Tax in this case amounts to an extra $117 per paycheck that is added to my taxable income, because that's how much my job pays to insure a dirty, dirty queer.)

The HR lady made a point to let me know that this whole "having to put the same-sex spouse post-tax" was such a pain and made things so /difficult/ and "blah blah, if the rest of the country, blah blah, the IRS says we have to..." and after rolling my eyes over the phone about 60 times I finally managed to say, "Yeah, you should see my taxes." I'm really sorry my unfair tax penalty is difficult for YOU. ;)

But in the continuing saga of the health insurance, today our prescription cards came. With my name and Punk's name on them. ARGH!

I guess I'll be calling HR /again/!! Annoying.

CONGRATULATIONS, KATE AND TRISH!!!

I am so proud of you guys. xoxoxoxo

So my agency, the one I just started working for, just merged with another, bigger agency. Well, technically it hasn't happened yet (July 1), but it's a done deal. Today I had to sit through 2.5 hours of merge/benefits information and fill out all of the same new hire forms I filled out a month ago. Good times, good times.

I was hired under the auspices of getting 15 days PTO this year. That's not so great, considering I was pretty spoiled at my last gig with the four weeks of vacation time, a ridiculous amount of sick time, and something obscene like 13 holidays. So going down to 15 days and 12 holidays was a cut, but hey, doable.

The new agency gives first year employees - wait for it - 10 days of total PTO. And 8 holidays. 10 days of paid time off, whether it is sick or vacation. I have a child. Who gets sick sometimes. And who attends a child care that takes 15 paid holidays. So right there? That's 7 out of 10 days of PTO if I covered all of her holidays. Well, 6 - since one of those days is the day after Thanksgiving and I don't work Fridays. But wait, maybe I do. Because the new place? Wants all salaried employees to work 40 hours. I work 36 (four 9s). So I went into this meeting more than a little surly, which is scaring my Director because she is worried I will leave. And if I leave they are kind of screwed. And honestly? I am considering jobsearching again, even though I don't want to.

The kicker was when they were going over the benefits stuff. I was already surly so it didn't take much. It was a no-brainer to decline the health insurance because even though it is somewhat better coverage, it's something like $135 more per month than what we have now. But I was considering the dental because our dental sucks. And the HR lady read me the spiel about how any benefits I get for Jen count as taxable income blah blah blah because of the stupid Feds and how Jen's portion can't be pre-tax blah blah and I nod and whatever because I already know the suckitude. But then she says that I have to sign this thing that states that I know all of this and she starts to hand it over and I notice that it's a form that was originally written to address domestic partnerships, and is in fact still in use for domestic partnerships of any gender make-up. So one of the things you have to "attest to," on the DP form, is that neither party is married.

I told them I wouldn't sign the form. Because we are married. And she tried to be all nice about it and be like, "I know, but to the Federal government blah blah blah," and I said, "Of course. But I am legally married regardless and I do not feel right about signing a legal form attesting to the fact that I am not married." And she offered to write in something like, 'according to the Federal government,' and at that point I decided that the increased dental benefits weren't really worth signing a shitty form. Because having to file taxes two different ways is ridiculous enough.

I wonder if this has ever come up before. It sure didn't seem like it had. Surprising, for a rather large social service agency.

So part of my job that ISN'T mindless and boring and unskilled is the planning and leading of trainings for university staff people on LGBT issues - mainly student staff but not entirely. I don't always agree that standard "diversity trainings" are terribly helpful and sometimes they do little more than make people feel defensive, so it's kind of nice to have a hand in this sort of thing. And of course we all know I love the adolescents and young adults, so when I get to chat with a bunch of undergraduate workers, it's a good time.

A billion years ago when I was applying to social work school, I had an idea that I wanted to do more macro-level (big scale) work as opposed to micro-level (smaller scale, individual) work. Unlike most of my school peers, I never wanted to be a sit down therapist. Of course I wanted to be a superhero. But whatever. I'd thought about what sort of social work to study and thought that for me it would be better to actually STUDY clinical social work even with little desire to actually PRACTICE a lot of clinical social work. I always reasoned that the sorts of people skills that one could glean through a clinical social work program could be equally as valuable, if not more valuable, in a macro setting. Besides, I could always learn how to write grants in my spare time.

Doing these trainings with my boss have really shown me ways in which my relationship-building and communication skills have really helped with macro-level organizing, larger group facilitation, and more. To be able to look out into a larger crowd of people and make that sort of connection with the individuals as opposed to the greater group is a sort of technique that probably is underutilized in macro work. Anyway, I left that training last night feeling pretty darned good about how things had gone, that instead of some boring old powerpoint presentation on What It Means To Be a Nice Ally to Queers, I had facilitated a discussion about ACTION. And it was nice.

I still feel like I made the right choice in my education, and that's a pretty cool thing as well. (And hey, what can I say? I'm also hoping my boss noticed the energy in the meeting and is, at the very least, pleased that he passed these things onto me. Although a promotion would be nicer!)