Thank heaven for small favors

I work for Hertz Rent-a-Car and while it's not the best job ever, it's certainly got it's perks and enough variety to make it enjoyable most days. My boss and I get along quite well as we're compatible in some ways that it's good to be so, and yin-yangy enough in other ways to not always be in lockstep. He values my opinion (I think) and I value his and these are good things.

I was going to transfer to Spokane a few months ago for what was initally a promotion (of sorts) and instead chose not to go when it became a demotion (of sorts).

The Hertz I work for is known as a licencee rather than a corporate office. The guy who owns it owns around 20 of them located in Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Utah and Washington. They are owned under a corporation named Overland West while using the Hertz brand. We have three sizes of cities labeled as A, B, or C cities; A being the larger branches and C being the smaller branches.

In Idaho Falls we are one of the smaller B cities. Spokane is our largest A branch, meaning it is our largest branch, period. Me moving there would have been quite the step up both in terms of volume of work and in prestige.

I was quite disappointed to not go. Only in the last week or so have I accepted it and attempted to move on. It can still rankle, however, when I have a bad day here because I figure that a bad day there would somehow be better.

ANYway, my boss told me yesterday that Overland West is feeling the pinch of the crappy economy and that some layoffs have taken place in our A cities. When I asked about layoffs in our B cities (perhaps even OUR city) he told me I was fine because there are many people who have worked here less time than me, and part-timers (not me) would be first to go anyway. Whew.

How happy would I be to have been in Spokane (with, I presume, the bills of moving and a brand new apartment lease) and get canned? Not much.

So, thank heaven for small favors. I still have my job, it seems safe for the moment, I like most of my co-workers and I like my schedule most of the time. Bully for me.