A long time's commin'

The state of Utah has decided to make a major change affecting thousands of workers. Starting this month, many of the state building will be shut down on Fridays for various reasons. As a result, those employed at these various building will not be able to work that day. That sounds great doesn't it? It would be wonderful to have a three-day weekend every week! Well, it does until you really look into the issue.

Granted, I can see where the idea is coming from. You close the buildings for an extra day and you won't have to heat/cool them as much. The employees will only have to commute four days a week instead of five which means less cars on the road, and people can just continue working and get more done during the day. But will it really work that way? I, for one, do not think it will. I think this change will actually only save the government money while it will cost everyone else a lot more in time and money. Let me explain...

The majority of people do not initially realize there are still 40 working hours in the week which means ten hour days four days a week (I don't know about you, but sometimes eight is a stretch). If you happen to commute to work like I do, you suddenly have a whole different set of problems. I have been going to work early enough to get off of work early enough to miss rush hour. Even so, I still sit in the car for 30-50 minutes. Now, I will be getting off work along with everyone else which means I will probably be in the car for an hour and 15-30 minutes.

Now at this point, let me rant about something else for a second. I have a wife and two young children. One of my daughters is only three weeks old and needs a lot of attention (not that my two-year-old doesn't). They also need as much time as possible with Daddy. Unfortunately, Daddy will have to be working all day for four days out of the week which means he may be home in time for dinner and to kiss them goodnight. Now I know there are a lot of people in this situation, or worse, but a major reason I came to work for the government is the flexibility for my schedule. I actually enjoy the time I have with my family and I would really, really like to see them every day. Okay, back to the other ranting.

In sitting in the car for that much longer, I will be burning more gas and congesting the freeway even more during the peak hours. That doesn't save fuel or help the environment at all. Now that's just me. Luckily I do not ride the bus to work as this has a whole other issue. I work with a guy that sits on the bus everyday for a little more than three hours. That probably won't change much unless, like so many others, his bus will not fit his schedule and he will have to start driving himself to work. We're kinda working the other way from how the government saw this aren't we? Now you may say, "it can't really be like that, can it?" Yes, it can. In fact, the last bus for one specific route is at 5:30 which will be very hard to catch if you work until 6:00. There seem to be a lot of problems that will affect anyone who has to get to the building they work in.

Once you get to work however, the problems do not really end. For those using daycare, I hope you can find a place open long enough for you to fit your work schedule. For those who leave kids home alone after school, I hope they can be trusted. Maybe kids can be trusted to stay out of trouble after school. I know I would have a hard time not knowing what they have been up to.

I didn't really want to make this into a huge complaint session, but I have one more quick one and then I'll be done. I love being able to earn time off and spend it with my family. I love not having to worry about not being paid because I am not at work. And I love finally not having to work holidays because for the past few year, I have worked almost every one. Here is the problem with the up-coming change. Although I am being forced to work ten hour days, if a holiday falls on one of those days, I only get eight hours paid for. That means if I don't want to make up an hour on my other already long days, I have to take personal leave time. If the holiday falls on a Friday, I can bank eight hours to use later, but that rarely happens as so many holidays are on Mondays or other days. It doesn't really seem fair, but I guess that's what make the world go round huh? Oh well, thanks for letting me go off about my problems.

Ta...duh?

So we decided to join the world and start up this nice little way to tell everyone everything they don't care about and some things they just might. It may have come sooner, but we haven't had Internet access at home until today. Also, we actually have something to talk about because we have a new addition to our family. You probably already know that last week we had our second little girl named Sadie. She came 11 days late on June 9th at 9 lbs 8 oz.

Katelyn has been handling the change fairly well. She loves to kiss the baby and point out how much she sleeps. Aside from that she basically ignores Sadie, but is excited to be a big sister.


As for Anjanette and I, I think things are going well. Anjanette does most of the hard stuff, and I really admire how hard she works. We have had some wonderful help this first week and a half and want to thank our parents for the support. We hope all will continue to go well and will try to keep you, our wonderful family and friends who care enough about us to read this, more informed on the most and least important things in our lives.

Anyway, here we are! (I just wish I knew what to write...)