AAAAAAH

I just had a frightening thought, and completely skipped dinner due to it...
I want to visit Michael before I come home. Which doesn't necessarily mean I'll spend a lot, but just enough for a flight to Biloxi, a hotel room for three days, and a flight from there to Portland...
They pay us with peanuts, anyone who hasn't noticed, there you go. My paycheck for this two weeks was roughly $450... I have spent a good amount of my paychecks so far because going places or buying things is the ONLY kind of release you have. Otherwise, I live thirty seconds away from work, eat with only one wall between me and work, spend my weekends here on location... It gets to you. Truly everyone does. Most people drink and smoke, I don't. I buy snacks and food and a few touristy things. But nonetheless I spend more than truly I need to. But TRULY it's hard to live off EDR stuff and LIVE so close to work. So it is what it is.
A few rough calculations show that if I don't spend a DIME until I leave, I'll have roughly $2500... I want to have SOMETHING to go home with, something to show for the five months I've spent busting my butt day after day.
Now, according to the Alaska Airlines page, which is the airline I used to get out here, it'd be approximately $200 to get straight home from here (of course they're thinking if I book now - it will I'm sure get more expensive as time goes on). But still it's not bad. I wouldn't mind coming home with a little over two thousand dollars, though I'd prefer more for all my work. My concern is that I want to fly from here to Biloxi and then from Biloxi to home - with three days of hotel in between. I haven't been able to look into that part quite yet, the internet here is not complying all the time.
I was talking with one of the servers today, and he pointed out that his paycheck is usually around $1200 EVERY TWO WEEKS. So perhaps I try to move to server? I doubt our F&B queen will let me, she won't let Heather move, won't let any over her BOH go anywhere because of how short staffed we will soon be. So even if I wanted to, I'm pretty much stuck where I am. I told Heather perhaps she could bargain for a raise, if she's so invaluable. But the realisitic/pessimistic side of me says that won't work because Jessica, for all that she IS our F&B manager for the entire Inn, doesn't have QUITE that much power.
So all in all, I suppose, I'm afraid of coming home with nothing to show for six months of working here in the park. I truly don't care about money, and I couldn't care less except that in the world it does mean something and to get where I want to go I do need it... I am thinking how am I going to take my roadtrip I want to take? How am I going to take some business classes? I've been thinking about taking the resturant management courses at Chemeketa... How am I going to start my bloody diner?!
But maybe I'm just looking at this wrong. My job back home has better pay. I can come back if I want - or go to a new location within Xanterra - and apply for a manager position to get more on my checks. I can probably work at CFP for a few winters yet to come seeing as how renewals won't exactly magically go away. I can live at home for a while while I do all this so I don't have to pay room and board (though I might anyway).

I think a lot of what freaks me out is insecurity about the future. As I type I'm also looking into more Xanterra jobs, because even though most of our employees use the term "it's another beautiful day in Hell" and it does suck working here, it's pretty much guaranteed, especially once you've worked for Xanterra once and are in the system. And truly, I am able to get past all that and still enjoy my job and the people I work with. And we all know I don't mind working my butt off. I can't believe, truly, that I'm looking at more Xanterra jobs.

Anyway, I guess it'll all work out somehow, I just don't know quite how yet. Thanks for listening to my ramble!! Money doesn't concern me often, but right now it seems to be a huge concern - for everyone.