Loyalty

I need to get this all down on paper - so here goes ....

I moved to your average city in Kansas 6 months after I met DH on a blind date on New Years Eve.  I knew that this relationship was going places, so after much discussion with DH & prayer, he liked the town he was currently in, so I would just find a job there.  So I sent out resumes to all the Cabinet places in town (I was in luck, there were about 7-8).  No one really was hiring, but I did follow up on calls to all the people I sent resumes to.  I had interviews at two places.  One was a small Mom & Pop Cabinet Showroom, where they sold Cabinets, Countertops, etc.  The other was at a Builder Supply store (and a pretty crappy one at that).   When I was offered the job at the Mom & Pop Showroom, I accepted & was excited about working there.  They even drove their delivery truck up the 3 hours to where I currently lived to help me make the move, helped pack & drove my furniture back.

I have learned a lot these last 7-1/2 years (it will be 8 years in June).  I've had a great teacher in the "Pop" that owned the shop & have (mostly) enjoyed all the customers & am very confident that I am a great Kitchen & Bath Designer.  I'm not trying to toot my own horn & look down my nose at others, but I think I do a thorough, complete, efficient, proficient job.  It is not award certified, I'm sure, but I do have a lot of happy customers as a result.

As we were growing the business, M (the "Pop") was the lead designer & his wife, L (the "Mom"), was the book keeper & helped with customers.  M's health wasn't great, as he's had heart trouble, foot trouble, back trouble ... you name it.  I quickly learned the ropes and became the "go-to" person in the company for getting answers to questions, designing, quoting, ordering, project management & all customer relations.  By the end of my second year, I was working til 7 or 8 (sometimes even 9) at night on quoting & designing, just to keep up with quotes, while M & L went home at 5-6 pm.  DH & I ate out all the time as I didn't feel like cooking when I got home, so we ended up weighing more than ever.  It didn't do wonders for our marriage, as we never seemed to see each other.

After about a year or more of this, I was getting burnt out & feeling overwhelmed.  M & L began to look for another designer to come on board to help me out.  We hired a young designer from the same college in Nebraska that I went to, who soon moved to our town with family (including two young children).  In the last 4 years, she has been a big help & blessing, as well as a great friend.  She grew up 1/2 hour north of where I grew up, so we have the same background & current weekend travel schedule when it comes to family.  I really like her & we have got along great.  

Over the years, we've always had troubles with getting a good Installer to be on-staff or reliable to install our products.  For a few years, we had a great guy who was easy to get along with.  Then he and his wife went through a divorce & he was never the same.  He ended up throwing a few people in our company under the bus in front of customers & that just wasn't right.  M, the owner, wanted someone that he could have run the company so he could retire for health reasons.  So he found this next guy ... This next guy was hired (he is a cousin of M, the owner), but he just recently is giving his two weeks.  This guy never put in more effort than it took to get the job done.  He didn't want to work nights or weekends or organize anything in the warehouse in regard to being efficient.  I was primarily "in charge" while he got the big bucks.  He was intolerable for us until ... the owner hired his son, J!  

J has been a shop teacher the last 15 years & installed Cabinets & Tops for his dad prior to that.  J also coaches football, wrestling & track at a small-town high school about 20 minutes away.  What that means is that J leaves about 3 pm everyday to go coach the sport of the season, while "making up" his hours at another time.  I do not believe he makes up the hours.  I have not ever seen him in on weekends when he wasn't pressured into getting a job done because he procrastinated too long.  While J has been great about organization, he does it when HE wants to, not when it should be done in regard to customer jobs.  He put off building or installing Customer projects while he spent 2 weeks organizing the warehouse.  That should be done on his OFF-time, not during business hours.  J also is a pretty big know-it-all, as he is always giving his opinion of how things should be done (which is fine if I ask for it, but it is not fine in front of customers to talk over them to "do things this way").  He also wants to do things his way in the Showroom, instead of asking how things have been done, what works best & then deciding that if his way is better (or worse), adapting accordingly.  I have been a very knowledgeable source of information as I've been at the company the last 7-1/2 years practically running our day-to-day & install schedule, but he doesn't ask me anything.  He wants to re-invent the wheel, but I don't know why he wants to, other than to "prove it can be done."  I know what works & what hasn't, but it makes no difference.  

J had thrown me under the bus a few weeks ago, saying that a customer delivery error was my fault (it probably was, and if you know me, I would readily own up to that myself), when he could have just said, "I'm sorry that this was messed up."  The customer was a repeat builder who is very nice & I have a great relationship with him.  Instead, he said, "It is not MY fault.  It is AIHPT's fault.  SHE wrote the ticket wrong."  Also, as we are trying to come up with branding jingles for the business (this has NEVER been done!), there was an idea about a line that I thought I'd dreamt up & it sounded good.  When talking with the man who will actually put together the jingle, my friend the other designer, said that I had thought it up.  To which I replied, "oh, it is a blend of all our ideas, I just put it down on paper."  To which J said, "I came up with that."  Seriously!?!??   

As you all know, we had a major snow storm come through the Mid-West the last few days.  The owners are pretty hard-core about working no matter the weather, but we stayed actually home from work on Thursday, as it was still snowing & we didn't know how much it would accumulate.  Oh ... and also ... guess who wasn't around for the snow (and its removal)?  J (the son) wasn't there because he is a wrestling coach & they left Wednesday at 3 pm (2 days ahead of schedule) to head to their state tourney.  So he hasn't been at work or even working off-site since Wednesday at 3 pm.  As a result, there's no one to blow the snow off the parking lot so we can actually drive in without getting stranded or scoop the sidewalks at work (I do NOT consider snow removal a part of my job, especially if they want quotes done.  Pick a horse, people!).  J also wasn't there last weekend when we had our local Home Show and we had to work 3-9 on Friday & 9-8 on Saturday.  Now by "we", I mean that the only two people that worked were myself & the other designer.  All day.  And we have young children.  J was at a wrestling thingy and couldn't be there.  But he did come in at the end of us tearing things down.  And he is going to purchase this company in June.  Nice of him, huh?  

Back to the snow.  So .... I get a text from the other designer last night saying that the owners have called off work today because of the drifts, there is no one to remove snow, etc.  Then at 12:45 pm today, M calls me and says, "L is mad that there is no one at the Showroom & we are going to get behind on Quotes.  We need to get in there this afternoon & get to work"  I'm blown away.  Huh?  Where did this come from?  Luke is in the other room taking a nap, I'm showered, but not dressed or any makeup on, I'm doing Laundry, etc.  And I need to drop it all to go into work ... now??!!??  I explain to him that I hadn't heard anything from him ABOUT working today & this is kind of short notice, as I told day care that Luke wasn't coming in today, but I guess we can get ready and get out there.  Then M calls me back & says not to worry about coming in today, L will stay at the store, but I & the other designer need to come into work tomorrow & make up our hours & get Quotes done.  ... But ... we HAVE been getting Quotes done.  We both took home projects to work on during the snow storm & I personally have been working on those during Luke's nap times & late at night when I could have been goofing off.  I know I've put at least 1-1/2 days in so far.  But one thing's for sure, if L's mad, then no one's happy.  M is the head of the company, but L is the neck that turns the head, if you know what I mean. 

About 3-4 years ago, M & L decided that they wanted to work more part time than they had been doing for the last 5-10 years, so they came in every other day or so.  Then it drizzled down to every 2 days, then every 3 days.  Now, we see L maybe once a week, if that, for a few hours to do her bookkeeping.  M hasn't been in the Showroom much since his son J started in June.  The problem with that is that when we made the most as a company, we had M, L, me, the other designer & an installer, all working in the showroom full time.  Now, we have me, the other designer & their son J (when he is not at his sports events), but we are expected to still work & perform the same output as when we had 5 people.  Ummm, I'm bad at math, but even I will tell you that it ain't going to work.  All the owners (and future owner-to-be, J) want the income, but they don't want to be there - or replace themselves with another valuable employee.

It is frustrating when you give a company your all, and then it starts to go downhill.  In June, when the son J is taking over, J wants to hire his BIL to come work for us.  Problem is ... his BIL works for J's uncle (M's brother) at the small shop that builds our Custom Cabinets (you got this all straight?!?).  If J takes his BIL from his uncle, he is taking a major part of that company away.  What BIL does is most of the same things that I do ... design, quote, sell & manage jobs, but also he can build Cabinets too.  What I'm worried about is that J & BIL will be out doing their own thing, on their own time, while myself & the other designer will have to try and keep them on schedule.  Have you tried to manage a man who is 10 or 20 years older into doing what you, a younger person (and a woman to boot) wants to have done?  It is like herding cats.  J is pretty headstrong & has BIL wrapped around his little finger.  In our handbook, it states to "not hire family," yet that is all we've been doing!  Only myself & the other designer haven't been related to the owner & his family.  Family business = Family drama.

I guess I give you the background I do to tell you this:  I am considering applying to a Kitchen & Bath Showroom back in my home town.  Since Luke was born, it has been on my heart more to eventually move back closer to home so that Luke could see his grandparents more & we have babysitters (!!) with the aunts & uncles and then when other cousins come along, he will have some playmates.  As I was thinking today (due to all of my work developments, as well as DH not liking his job) while watching Luke & doing laundry, I thought of the perfect rental house that we could move into if we moved back to my hometown soon.  My sister & BIL bought my grandma's house (who died in November) and are fixing it up for a rental house.  They hope to have it rented shortly - maybe by March.  It would be close to home (same town as my entire family) and close to my in-laws (they come to my hometown to shop, as their town is so small).  

I was a little excited about that thought, texted DH about it, then thought that - ok, we need to have income, we just can't pick up and move.  So I said a prayer & asked God if he thought this was a good idea for our family, to let me know what to do.  A little while later, I was curious about what jobs might be available, so I opened up our laptop while Luke was playing & started searching for jobs for DH close to my hometown.  He is a designer/drafter, so I searched for that.  Lo and behold, there was an ad in today's paper for a "multi-tasker" in one of the local Kitchen Showrooms.  I thought that I would maybe talk to DH about this when he got home & see what he thought.  Then a few minutes later, I saw a more thorough job description for another job on Monster dot com in my hometown.  That was even more up my alley.  I began to get a little more excited!  This was God, showing me a new direction, right?!??

PROS to Moving:

 - Being close to family (both immediate & in-laws) & friends

 - Being able to save money / time / mental health / Luke's sanity on traveling once a month for 2 or 2-1/2 straight days and never seeing everyone enough / splitting the time equally

 - Initially renting, but in the end, getting a smaller house (& payment) so DH can stay home with Luke & work on expanding his side business & income (JBTC - you'll love this!!!  :-D)

 - Being close to a Runza again (LOL - it is yummy fast food (like beer rocks) & I used to work there)

 - Being back in a good traditional Catholic parish

 - Maybe our next adoption happens in NE?

CONS to Moving:

- Leaving my job (they just bought me a new computer at work)

- Leaving my house

- Leaving Luke's birth family (we would still come down to visit 3-4 x per year.  I plan on staying in touch 110%.  Also, we are currently FBook friends with his birthmom & birthmom's boyfriend)

- Being close to family  :-)  (sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder)

- Moving & packing

- All the unsettled, new things a new job brings

- Finding a new adoption agency

- Being away from the NaPro doc that led me to PPVI (but if we adopt, it doesn't matter much, other than I do have her as our family doc & like her a lot) 

I was excited about the whole new job / moving home for awhile, until I thought about leaving the company I've worked for & also our home.  The wonderful thing about the owners M&L is that they have been very generous to me over the years (they are not bad people, despite the bad things I've written here, rather they are very nice & pleasant most of the time).  When remodeling our home, we haven't paid for a single cabinet, countertop or shower that we've installed, and we've remodeled our entire house (I have worked a bunch of overtime for years that wasn't paid for, as I was salary, so DH says I worked for it.  I was always taught by my dad to work & perform as if you owned the company).  When I had Luke, I did get paid maternity leave for 6 weeks (which my friend, the other designer, says they grumbled about me taking so much time off while I was gone, as you cannot have 1 designer doing 2 people's work), but for our next child, I will get unpaid maternity leave, as they said "they can't afford it" (which is odd, as L still earns full salary + profits comparable to what I make for doing a few hours worth of work each week - yes, I know, perks of being an owner).  However, in August, they removed my 401K benefit & their contribution to it because it "cost too much", and then said, "oh, we'll give you a bonus to compensate for our missing contribution," which hasn't happened yet.

They also haven't kept their promises very well on promotion.  I've been told I was going to be a Vice President of the company (which doesn't mean very much when there are only 3-4 people), but still ... why say something & then never follow through ... just don't say anything to me at all!  I've been told since October that we are going to see how well the company performs (get our 3rd quarter stats on Profit & Loss) & get final year-end info on how well we did for 2012, but we have yet to see any information about that (they do share stuff with us on performance, who our biggest clients are, etc), but there is no "big game plan" for what to do to improve the company (like, how about we do "x" and "y" for sales improvement).  The owners are just absent most of the time, so they don't see what goes on & what needs to happen.  And with their son J being in it half-heartedly (it seems), I don't think it will get better.  There are also no employee reviews or compensation package available.  Just salary, which is 40 hours + working Saturdays (9-4) as needed, so some weeks, that is  47 hours with no day off the following week.  You just work extra.  No health insurance.  No 401K.  No paid maternity (the other gal is mad, as she wants to try and have another child).  

I'm torn on my loyalty for the company vs. what's good for my family (which I feel is moving home), feeling like I'm jumping ship (if I quit, the other designer will soon follow, as she also wants to leave too for the above reasons, but BIL will come on board, so they're not totally screwed), afraid of disappointing the owners & having them mad at me after all they've done for me, sad for missing my repeat builder customers & knowing that I do my job well, hating that I would go from "top dog" down to "low dog" again, afraid / sad of leaving the life & city I've known for the last 7-1/2 years, leaving my beautiful house (yes, there IS always another), hating to pack & move & say goodbye ... it is just ... I HATE change!  I'm also a people pleaser, a pessimist & a worry-wart (lets play the "worst case scenario" game - or the "I have a plan for "x,y,z" game.  DH hates both).  Granted, I have YET TO APPLY, but my mind is racing & I can't sleep.  If you have any prayers or advice on how to make a decision like this, I'd welcome them both.