What A Difference A Year Makes

What a difference a year makes…

This time last year I was the General Manager of a mid-sized family hotel in Palm Springs, California. I was running a 2 million dollar a year business with 25 employees, reporting directly to the partners who owned it.

I worked 50 to 60 hours a week. I got calls at all hours of the day and night with emergency questions and situations. The stress to meet budget and make my revenue goals was intense; if I wasn’t at the hotel working, I was thinking about the hotel.

I was making some serious money, too. A very nice salary, an apartment on property, a monthly car allowance (can we say non-taxable revenue), and cheap hotel rooms whenever I traveled.

I was miserable.

I never saw my husband and even when we were together I was getting phone calls all the time. The stress to make budgeted revenue in a local economy that was seeing a downward trend in its tourism industry was causing me to stress eat and I was gaining weight like crazy.

My husband had just returned from his second Iraq deployment and there was this big something between us. In trying to split myself between my career and my family, I was doing a really lousy job at both of them.

Fast forward to today…

I work in a small family run hotel in a small desert town. I go in every morning and do their morning paperwork, and then I go over to the bar in the restaurant and sling drinks until 4pm. I work 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. If I work more than 8 hours in a day, I get paid over-time. Every now and then I get a phone call asking me a computer question if the night bartender can’t reach one of the owners, but it’s pretty rare. I actually enjoy my job. I look forward to going to work. I like my co-workers and I really like my bosses.

I’ve never been happier.

If my old friends in Palm Springs could see me now, they would probably laugh at “how far I have fallen”. I’ve had some of the other officer’s wives from the unit where my husband works come into the bar and snub me. God forbid that they would admit to their other snotty friends that they know someone in the service industry. :::shudder::: But I just laugh about it. (okay so the first time it happened I got mad, but now I just laugh)

I make about one fourth of what I used to make, and I do miss my disposable income. I get $15 dollar haircuts, my nails and toes get done at home more often than not, I have given up my weekly massage appointment, and my scrapbook supplies budget is no longer unlimited. Yes, I miss my disposable income; I just don’t miss what came with it.

I have suits in the back of my closet gathering dust as I wear jeans to work. I dyed my hair pink last year, just because I could. I went home to Texas for Christmas this year for the first time in 11 years. My marriage has never been stronger, even as he prepares for yet another 7 month Iraq deployment, I have never been happier in my relationship with him. Hell, even my cat is happier having me at home more often!

The simple life is good. You can have the rat race, I’m perfectly happy at the nice slow pace.

Want a Bloody Mary? I've discovered that I make a great one!