Karate

[pegkerr]

I stopped at the dojo to tell our sensei that the girls would have to stop karate and why. "Let me work something out," he said. "They've worked so hard, and we really want you to continue."

He called me a half hour later with a proposal: if we clean the dojo ten times a month (two or three times a week, which is manageable if Rob and I split that duty between the two of us) and if I take belt test pictures for an additional dojo in the franchise, as well as my own (two Saturday mornings a month) they will entirely waive tuition for the girls.

Hurrah! That eases budgetary woes but the girls can still continue.

I told him that if Rob lands a job in the salary range we're hoping for, then I very likely will come back and start taking lessons again, too.

Comments

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[sundancekid.livejournal.com]

Yay! Glad that's working out. :D

[leiabelle.livejournal.com]

Yay! :D

[ckd]

I'm glad to hear it, and hope that it's only the first in a series of "good news" events for you.

[airemay.livejournal.com]

Wow!! That is absolutely fantastic!!

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

How wonderful! Three cheers for your sensei!!

[ambar.livejournal.com]

Huzzah!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Glad your sensei is so supportive.

Not to be a downer, but will Rob agree to splitting the work - and then follow through? Since it is only until he finds the next better job (fingers crossed!) time and energy shouldn't be an issue, at least.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I expect I'll be doing most of it. You're right; I want Rob to concentrate mostly on finding a better job.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You are going to be working full time. He is going to be job seeking. He can clean the dojo! Expect him to. He's a grown up, and should do what he has agreed to do. Also, the dojo is psychologically empty space, it's not like cleaning up his clutter, which he might have a problem with. I wonder if it would work if you take one of Rob's treats that you have temporarily defined as out of the budget, like beer (always the first thing to go when we're having a money crunch) or chocolate cookies or online gaming or whatever, and say he can have one every time he does the dojo, and only then?

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Then that's still having to parent your spouse. :-/ I'm not sure if that's better or worse than nagging one. Unless of course that's a rule agreed on mutually, and imposed by him on himself, in which case there should be a (small) treat for *anyone* who does a cleaning.

One additional note: during my only experience with being out of work (six months - I got laid off during the dot-com bust and just after 9-11), I *couldn't* jobsearch full time. I mean, there just didn't seem to be enough job-searching-related work in the universe to fill the equivalent of a normal work week. You network, you go online to job sites and potential companies' own websites, you look in the classifieds, you follow any other avenues you know of, you tweak resumes and cover letters for specific positions - for me it was maybe a few hours a day. Maybe it's different for others, I don't know.

I do think you're smart to prepare as if it will take him a while to find a job. Hopefully he'll have one before the old one ends - but if not, you're ready for it, and if he does, your preparations will help bridge the gap until the first pay check. Sometimes it does take a while as with my six months; it wasn't lack of hireability or diligence on my part, just very bad luck in the timing.

[naomikritzer]

Even if a job hunt is a full-time job, Peg also has a full-time job, so it should certainly be possible for Rob to do his share of cleaning the dojo. Besides, it's just cleaning. I have my own clutter issues, and I find it way easier to clean someone else's space than to clean up my own. In a place like a dojo, it's not my stuff and it's not my job to find places for things, just to put things back in their place. It may be physically tiring, boring as hell, and occasionally disgusting, but it's fundamentally very different.

I like the treat idea, but I think it should be a situation where whoever cleans each time gets some previously agreed-on treat. Both so that there is an incentive to do it, and so that if someone does it twice in a row, they get some tangible compensation out of it. Since finances are obviously tight, the treat could be something like an extra evening out (if the imbalance reaches a certain pre-determined level) or an extra day to sleep in or whatever. (Yeah, evenings out are less fun when you have no money to spend, but it's still a night off to go spend time with friends or whatever.) Alternately, each time someone cleans, they could potentially award themselves $N of future money, which gets tracked and which, once the new (better!) job is found and finances are less tight, they get to spend on something frivolous and self-indulgent.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Yes. I certainly didn't mean to imply in my original comment that he shouldn't have to do his fair share. But since all the current dojo cleaning ends up on Peg's shoulders, it would be kind of sucky to commit to more of it and have the same thing happen!!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Yes. I certainly didn't mean to imply in my original comment that he shouldn't have to do his fair share. But since all the current dojo cleaning ends up on Peg's shoulders, it would be kind of sucky to commit to more of it and have the same thing happen!!

[trogon.livejournal.com]

While he's still working and also job-hunting, this is entirely reasonable. If he ends up not finding a new job before his current one ends, not so much.

I just found a new job (starts Monday!) after five months of looking after finishing graduate school. While the situation isn't at all parallel and I wouldn't expect Rob to take nearly so long (my partner and I had moved to a new city *and* I was changing careers, either of which would complicate things on its own), I found that there simply wasn't enough job-hunting to do after the first month to fill nine hours a day, five days a week, let alone the evenings and weekends when you'd be doing the dojo cleaning -- the resume was as polished as it was going to get, the cover letter templates for various types of jobs were done and ready for the company-specific details, and contacts were contacted. So if Rob does get to this stage, he will not only most likely have more time on his hands than you but also will, if he's anything like me, welcome the chance to get out of the house.

[morganmuffle]

That's great, it's nice to hear that they want to work things out for you. I meant to comment on your original post and say even if I'm a bit far away to be much practical help you're all in my thoughts and prayers.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I'm glad they're being so accommodating. *fingers crossed that everything else works out, too* I'm thinking of you!

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I am reading backwards, so I don't entirely know what's going on (did click through to your journal and glance at the previous post, and will get to it in its entirety shortly). But I'm very glad they were willing to work something out.

[aeditimi.livejournal.com]

what a wonderfully generous person to understand how important this is to your girls!

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Excellent! May all the problems have their own unique and satisfying answer.