Happy birthday, vw!

Robin, how stress-making! Countrywide bought our mortgage (our lender told us they tend to sell them), and yeah, as Cash said, they've been very easy to deal with.

Eek, Robin, that sounds stressy!

So meara, have you been looking at jobs in Australia?

Heh. It was discussed, one of our former coworkers is Australian, and now back there...a friend of mine just moved to Melbourne (from Christchurch) a few months ago...don't y'all get sabbatical after some number of years, too?

Honestly, though, 24 (at my last company) was plenty. I've been doing fine on 18. But 15, especially split up, just sounds too tough.

Now to figure out how to say "I like you and your company, but call me back when you've figured out what you really want from this position, or have a different position. And more vacation time. And cubes with higher walls."

Heh. It was discussed, one of our former coworkers is Australian, and now back there...a friend of mine just moved to Melbourne (from Christchurch) a few months ago...don't y'all get sabbatical after some number of years, too?

After ten years you get 2 months' fully paid long service leave. By which I mean I get long service leave, as I've now been at this company for 12 years. (My time in America counts.)

I just goggled myself - i am an actress from Australia. and my DH is cricket player from the same country...

makes the idea that we have alternate lives quite possible ...

Beth, that makes me want to make a joke about a bit in the recent Harry Potter book.

vw, that is a fabulous picture. Great smile!

Robin that's really freaky!

The place I'm temping at (and want to get that permenent job) has personal and sick leave, that's accrued based on factors like -- pay grade, job classification, and how long you've worked here. Well, I think sick is the same for everybody and it's personal that changes. Sick rolls over until whenever you leave and there's no cap on how much sick you can have. Personal rolls over, but there's a cap and after that cap you have to use your extra time by the end of the calendar year or lose it -- we're already getting reminders to have people use up time if they are close so there's not a mad dash at the end of the year.

This doesn't include the paid holidays (Labor Day, Christmas, etc) and after 2 years everyone gets special leave that can used when you get really sick or for maternity leave, say you have surgery and need to be out for 2 weeks, even if you had 2 weeks of sick you wouldn't have to use it because this leave would kick in.

I have Kashi GoLean Crunch! I've never ate it afore!

Having to take off for maternity here is kind of freaky. We are WAY less than 50 employees, so we aren't covered under FMLA. What I might do is see if Boss will let me work from home. The program we use can be set up so I can log in from anywhere. So maybe that will be an option.

AIMEE! Morning!

Aimee, are you pregnant? or are you talking theoretically? eta: I'm now guessing no, having re-read your post, but in my defense, Im looking for someone to join me - because yes, I'm pregnant again. So far, this one seems to be sticking.