American and Continental joined Delta today in dropping agency commissions. The others won't be far behind. Starting in April I'm taking a 20% pay cut and going to four days a week, as is one other agent in our five person company. A third already only worked twice a week, the fourth is the manager, and the fifth is the owner. The receptionist will still work full time, as will the manager and owner. If business picks up they'll give us back the extra days. It's an excellent compromise under the circumstances, even though it means after finally making it to three full weeks of vacation I'll now only get twelve days based on my new hours. Bah.
It's true that I wanted to cut back my hours at work. I thought it would be next year. We aren't going to be seriously affected by the change financially; after all, we can still pay our mortgage and bills and eat out once in a while, we won't have to darn our socks or take in lodgers. But I am personally very much affected in that my discretionary funds will be halved. The income that disappears once this new schedule takes place is my play fund, what my mother used to call mad money.
I cancelled my Weight Watchers subscription. When my gym membership expires in May I won't renew. I threw away the card advising me my Architectural Digest membership is due now and the last copy has been mailed. Starting tomorrow I will no longer spend whatever I feel like on lunch. I have to go back on a budget. It's not a huge hardship, it's just what I have to do. I imagine I won't like it much at first. But hey, I'm still employed...for now.
And I have already saved up for my vacation, so that's all right. My plans are coming together excellently well. Here's where I'm having Sunday brunch:
-
"The new Neue Galerie is a pocket-size museum devoted to early modernist German and Austrian art. It aims to fill a niche. And somewhere along the way, someone had the bright idea of letting the art dictate the food, which, in its own way, fills another niche. In a small room to the right of the entrance, Kurt Gutenbrunner, the chef and owner of Walls, has created a Viennese cafe, named after the collector Serge Sabarsky, whose works help form the basis of the museum's collection. It is deliberately humble, with homey, robust Austro-Hungarian dishes, a few Austrian wines and lots of Viennese desserts.
"Although the premises, an opulent Beaux-Arts mansion on Fifth Avenue, suggest robber-baron luxury, the atmosphere is casual. The cafe really is meant to be a cafe. There are newspapers on wooden racks for reading at the marble-topped tables, with their black bentwood chairs designed by Adolph Loos. The wine comes in little carafes, and the wine glasses are squat tumblers not too different from toothbrush glasses. It's all very heimisch und gemtlich."
From "Diner's Journal," The Times, quotation courtesy Moshe Feder. I think this sounds just faboo. I am not a huge fan of modern art by any means, but this is just the right period. I love Kandinsky, I love furniture design of the 30's, and who does not love Viennese desserts? Although I rush to assure you I am still planning on watching what I eat even though technically I am no longer on Weight Watchers. I will be doing so much walking in New York I think I can afford a linzertorte and coffee mit schlag. At least for one day.
And when I get back I'll embrace my new life as a 32 hour a week employee. It'll all work out.
The Index
Next Incarnation