sticking it to THE MAN

is the suspense killing you? probably not, but nonetheless, the reason for our move.

quite oft we ("we" meaning "us", the blogging community) fail to share the intricacies of our family life on the blogosphere. even if we say we are, we aren't really. because even if we're sharing some fine detail of our day, in truth, we know we aren't divulging too much. e.g. admitting you pick your nose, don't brush your teeth, your child pooed/peed in public, etc., these things that we type are things we've thought about and deemed worth sharing and not too damaging to our reputation, or considered TMI, boring reading, yada yada yada.

well, in the unblogged life of the jorgensen family, case has been working a minimum of 50 hours a week since january. minimum. (it's usually more like 55-60) not including the 3 hr. per day drive time. so he's gone from home about 70 hours per week (work time + drive time + 4 hrs. of elevator schooling one night a week). again, just a reminder ... we're talking minimum here. 

"why, stefani ... that's crazy talk!" you may be uttering to yourself.

we agree. so today, casey quit. yep, he quit. the final straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was last week. for those of you who read our blog (thank you, by the way) you may remember the incredibly sick casey that kept mysteriously vomitting over a period of two-and-a-half weeks, ran a 103 degree fever WITH tylenol, slept 3 days straight, lost 20 lbs. in three weeks, and was finally diagnosed with some weird bacteria growing in his gut, or salmonella. (we don't know which would be worse, quite frankly, so we don't know which diagnosis we would rather claim.) that happened last wednesday - the diagnosis, i mean. our Dr. said "sleep, drink, stay in bed until 24 hrs. after the fever breaks, no work until monday." so wednesday while case was sleeping i emailed his boss and relayed the news and explained he would be back at work monday.

thursday morning, the next day, his boss calls him asking him to drive into town to deliver some elevator parts that had arrived at our house the day before, and put in "just a few hours" installing said parts. excuse me. did he miss something?? case couldn't stand up without puking. i was irate. livid. (insert any number of words for 'extremely angry' here.) so the family piled in the car and drove the parts to town ... cause Kam Hwy. is only one way these days, you know. then that afternoon while case was in his sleeping stupor, i emailed his boss again, a bit more testy this time. i said that he had taken advantage of casey's willingness to do anything requested of him (case is just too nice - which i think is a good thing) and said he (the boss) had displayed a total lack of regard for case's health and well-being, and then reiterated that he would not be returning to work until monday. 

so he shot back a nasty email (think toddler with a blackberry ... got it?) saying my bad attitude was going to ruin casey's future and apparently casey and i weren't communicating well because casey knows how important it was to get those parts to the jobsite ... blah blah blah ... he said he was 'taking care of case and our family' and 'casey is a wonderful employee, but everybody is replaceable'. i responded explaining my intention wasn't to ruffle his pretty little feathers, i just expected  and demanded a little respect for casey and his health. he wrote back reiterating something about my bad attitude and how he was offended that i would suggest that he had taken advantage of case ... you get the picture.

well, he didn't. he called case friday night bragging about how he had "laid it into [his] wife"... hello?! bad move mr. boss. then proceeded to ask case to come in and work saturday. 

*please pause and digest what you just read. seriously folks. he wasn't getting it.*

*did you digest it? imagine it happening to your little family? got the emotions all stirring and bubbling? good. read on.*

so today case called up his boss and said "i'm done". his boss asked him to stay. he said no. he asked him to stay until a certain job was completed. he said no. he called him back twice and left messages. case said no. he left his uniforms and company vehicle at the jobsite and came home (well, got a ride home, seeing as he had no mode of vehicular transport)

so, we're free! no more panic in the gut when the phone rings at 11 o'clock at night with a "problem that needs fixing", no more sending case off to work monday morning and not seeing him again until wednesday night (only happened like a dozen times, but that's a dozen times too many), no more lost saturdays (our only day to spend time as a family doing non-church stuff). no more persecution from "the man" (i just wanted to say "the man" )

*sigh*   life never tasted so good. 

oh, so you might be thinking, "i missed the part that explains why they changed their blog." well, because the boss reads it. and i wanted to blog about the whole experience. (quite the conflict of interests, eh?) and more importantly, because we're a little scared of mr. boss. he knows some scary people and we just don't want scary people reading our blog.  

so when you see case, give him a pat on the back. it was a crazy stressful week (last 7 months) for him and i'm so proud of him. this has been a long time coming.

oh, and case starts his new job tomorrow. (just didn't want you lovely folks to be worried.)