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Oh, I had plenty of doubt. I quit right after my pay raise went into effect; I got exactly one paycheck at my elevated salary before leaving. I doubt I will ever see that pay rate again in my career, though I'm not saying it's impossible. A couple things I have wondered about since I left...first, I wonder if the area I worked in is still running the way it was set up when I left. I mentioned before that the main reason I left was my job switched from a physical one to a REALLY physical one, with two people expected to do the work that four had been doing. AND the job was always supposed to be a temporary one; the company spent $2 million on robots that were supposed to take the place of both the first shift AND second shift manual line, but by the time I left, the robots had been in place three years and had never consistently done the job right. When I was there, the robots went down usually several times a week, and there wasn't a day they didn't produce multiple faulty products that we on the manual line would fix the next day.

Shortly after I hired on, the building I worked in ran three shifts. First shift was fully staffed, second shift was around 10 people and only worked at certain stations and third shift was employing about a half dozen people and only worked in two areas. Right before I left, they'd gotten down to just two people on third shift and then moved one of them to first shift and one to another building altogether, eliminating third shift in our building entirely. Over the last year, I've had the chance to drive by my former workplace a dozen times or so; the last 6-7 times past, I noticed there were no cars in the parking lot during second shift hours so I have to deduce they've eliminated second shift as well. Building one (where they made parts) has always run three shifts but buildings 2 and 3 (where units are assembled) have always shifted between running three shifts, two shifts or just one shift. When I hired on, they were just restarting a second shift in building three; I was the first hired to work that shift. Anyways, I've wondered what would've happened had I continued to work there. When they first started the LEAN process in November of 2022 (which was basically just a way to get the same amount of work done with half the workers), upper management insisted nobody would lose their job. I couldn't understand how anyone could believe that--they're literally taking away jobs by restructuring the various processes--and sure enough, 19 people across the three buildings were laid off just a short time before I quit. I've wondered...would I have been moved to another building? Asked to work first shift, which, had I had to do so in my building, I would've said NO, because a) most of the people on first shift had been together for years and were clique-ish, b) I strongly disagreed with how management on first shift ran things and c) I worked first shift there for a month while I trained and no way did I want to get up every day at 5:00 AM to be at work at 6:00 AM. I'm barely human at 6:00 AM, let alone a functioning human <g>.

I will look into that.

Oh, she did. One thing that rankles me is hearing financial advisors telling people they HAVE to start saving for the future. Don't get me wrong--I think it's a fine idea. But not everybody has enough disposable income to do so. Somebody making $80K/year? Yeah, they should be contributing to at least a 401K, if not investing other places. Somebody making $25K/year, with a family to support? That entire paycheck is gone the second it hits the bank. I've spent years working with people who live paycheck to paycheck and while I've definitely seen some bad spending decisions (you shouldn't get something out of the vending machine EVERY day, for example), mostly these co-workers were struggling just to pay rent or pay their mortgage or pay their car loan off. I feel sometimes the folks making more than a living wage don't always consider where that money to be saved is supposed to come from.

Anyways...a STNA is a State Trained Nursing Assistant and is a step down from CNA. In Ohio, they're usually making around $25K to start off and work their way up to around $35K. I could guess approximately how much Granny was making at our former workplace based on MY salary...at best, going back to being an STNA would be a lateral shift financially and possibly a downward move depending on the nursing home she was working at and is now back at.