My dear hubb is having a hard time right now.  He is stressing out about his current job situation and really starting to put pressure on himself.  At least, for today.

His current job pays him *okay* but not for what he does.  He’s a computer guy who does a little bit of everything.  His boss still sees him as a sales guy, but he does so much more than that.  He fixes computer issues, maintains client communication, has working knowledge of computer networks, has working knowledge on a variety of different software, he is proficient on both the Mac and the PC.  In short, he is a sales manager, a service guy, a network engineer and all of the above.  He has been in the industry for 12+ years and has never stopped learning.

He is a huge asset to the company he works for, but unfortunately, the company does not like to pay out or reimburse him.  For instance, he goes on both sales and service calls and only gets a set mileage amount per month.  However, his phone expenses are also taken out of his mileage expense check.  He uses the phone primarily for business purposes.

His last raise was October of ‘06 and that was after 8 years of no raise or compensation.  The company offers medical benefits but because they are so small, we couldn’t afford to have the family included on as it would cost us half his paycheck just for medical insurance every month.  There’s no 401k plan to speak of.  No bonuses and basically nowhere to advance.

To say he feels *stuck* in his position is at this point an understatement.  Our state is in the worst financial situation ever and so jobs are hard to come by.  Even low-wage employment is hard to come by here.

He wants to quit his job on one hand because it offers very little in terms of the future and on the other hand, he has been with the company for 12+ years so the comfort level is the most enticing thing that keeps him there.  He is the “go to” guy.

The company made a mistake in stockholders awhile ago.  One of the owners was found to have been embezzling company profits for years and years.  As a result, it was hard to kick him to the curb as they had to not only pay him off for his investment (even though he stole from them), they also had to pay his attorney fees, which were atrocious.

The employees have been “paying” for that mistake ever since.  Now that the rotten boss is all paid up, the other stockholders want to continue to roll in the green without compensating the employees who have all worked so hard to keep the company afloat for years.  It’s a pretty crappy situation.

The sad part is, his boss knows that he is loyal to a fault and uses that to take advantage of his good nature.

It’s frustrating because hubb doesn’t feel like he is doing all that he can to keep us going financially.  He feels like he should be doing better.  I know that he is working his hardest.  There is nothing else out here where we live.

So, we’re considering a move out of state.  Both of us feel that this state is a sinking ship because all of the eggs have been placed in one shaky economic basket.

I feel so frustrated for him.  Especially because I know that he deserves something better.  Not that he is entitled to it by default, but just because he works so darn hard and is so darn talented and good at what he does.