Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yup, it's official. I am hired. I start training a bit tomorrow. How the kennel works, how to run the lab equipment. Shouldn't be too hard cause we've covered lab machines in school. I'm sure these will be more high tech but, essentially the same. Ugh, crud, I'm so excited to pay off my debt and not be living on such an impossibly tight budget. I am however giving up any days off likely. I have Friday-Sat right now. And Saturday's is usually when I do dog competitions and club meetings and stuff. Oh well, I wasn't able to afford that stuff anymore anyways. Once I'm settled if a big event comes up I could ask for it off. I still have Sunday mornings to do skijoring.

Oh ya, I'm getting around 10-15hrs at $10.30/hr. This is ontop of the 5hrs I already work at the pet supply store at $11/hr. So there will be a big increase in income. Gona celebrate my first big pay by getting everyone some yummy treats!

Now if only I could find just 1 job! Pay of my 1700$ in credit card debt, pay back my parents for my emergency plane tickets home, and start saving to replace all my clothes, and all the household stuff I left behind when I moved home.

@Vanilla Ha, of course I will! The best part about being a tech assistant (which is technically my position since I'm not a certified tech yet) is that I don't actually deal with clients xd I will eventually be doing some tech duties, like taking blood, but only when the client is not around since they could get upset. That's like...all of the fun stuff without the stress of educating the owners.

@Aki they want you to pay them back for that? If my brother or parents had such a traumatic event occur I would get them home and not give a damn about the expense. And my debt before the summer was...about 2100. Now after working for 10 weeks full time and making over 4000 dollars, my debt is at $790. It's really frustrating to think about. The first thousand went to my car, the second to my dog, the rest to visa, my brother and father (still not done paying back my dad for the mountain bike I bought a year ago, and I was suppose to pay him back before xmas 2010) and then even though I had basically paid off my visa, I had more car expenses, more vet bills. And for the past month I've been back down to 5hrs a week instead of 45. Had I not gotten this job, there is no way I would have survived. I would have had to give up driving entirely and get a bus pass which is really stupid cause I'm spending 50 bucks a month to insure the car so I should use it! Yeah I could cancel the insurance but then if I'm driving someplace when the buses have stopped running or taking cowboy someplace, I need to be insured.

It's a lil overwhelming to think I'll be in school or at work every single day. But I figure it's temporary. I'll use this time to pay off debt and save up money. I get a month off in December, and then my school schedule changes so I'll tell them my availability has changed and give myself a day off to ski.

Illinois. Minimum here is $8.25, which is a jump from $5.15 when I started the workforce in 1998, but it hasn't changed much. Cost of living in southern Illinois where I live isn't too high, but still just barely getting by haha. I'd kill for a job at even $10! I applied to Brookfield Zoo which starts their zookeepers at $24/hr. Haven't heard back though D:

Congrats! Lucky girl! 4laugh