Change Is Scary
My exit plan from this job is in place. May is my last full month of rent payment for this apartment, so about mid-month I'll be putting in my 2 weeks. Between June 1st and 15th I'll be moving in to a room over at Randy's. And I just found out today that the next CDL courses at BCIT (Burlington County Institute of Technology) start May 2nd & June 13th. Since these classes are from 8:25-3, I'll settle for the June date.
To get my CDL (more precisely, to get it from BCIT, which Don can't recommend highly enough) I'll need a NJ driver's liscense and a physical exam.
This makes me uneasy on some levels. For one, I loathe the thought of moving back to NJ, mostly because my car insurance goes up. Hopefully I'll be able to keep my account with GEICO (they're allowed in the state now) and not have to change insurance companies every 2-3 years.
Car insurance is a sore spot with me, because most of my life I was a Jersey resident and without fail I had to get a new insurance company every couple of years...clean record or no. Let's face it, anyone who sells car insurance in New Jersey knows they have you over a barrel and aren't afraid to exploit that fact. My record is spotless and has been for years, I just don't want the hassle.
The physical causes me concern for other reasons. I'll want to go while I'm employed at my current job, because I have health care. So does this get back to my employer somehow, and how do I handle it if it does?
Changing residency causes me a whole lot of concern. I've got the address, so that's not an issue. I will have to get a NJ liscense and surrender my PA one, that sucks as a matter of pride. But now what happens during tax time? Am I going to have to fill out a NJ and a PA tax form? Since my current job I pay PA taxes, but I'll have to hold a night job in NJ and will likely pay NJ taxes for that, how the hell do I figure out what goes where? Most troubling, this year was the first time I used TurboTax and I loved it! But will TurboTax let me fill out forms for two different states, or will I have to do my state return(s) by hand?
While all this change does cause me some anxiety, I don't loose sleep like I do over work. Just the thought of something being broke over the network that my boss sees as "my fault" causes me to start awake in the middle of the night. Granted, not as often as back in February, but often enough to not only make me want to quit but in fact relish the thought of quitting.
The fact that I've lasted this long, especially since February, is a testimony not only to my own constitution but to all the support from my friends & family. Everyone has been so helpful and so understanding, it's beyond anything I expected.
posted by Rothar at 4:08 PM
3 Comments:
I think you're over concerned about the tax issue.
Basically, for half the year, you'd pay for when you lived in PA, the rest of that year if you lived in NJ you'd pay NJ taxes.
I live in NH and worked in MA. Lucky me, NH has no income taxes. However, I would only get a free ride on those days that I worked from home (keep meticulous records), had holidays or sick days. For the rest of the year I'd pay Mass Tax.
It sounds more confusing than it is.
On the Medical, do you have an HMO? Have you gone for a physical recently? My company doesn't care about looking into my medical life, so I doubt that yours would look into it closely. If you've not had a physical this year, then you can "kill two birds with one stone".
I'd get more details from the folks running the CDL.
~J
You're right, I'm probably overly concerned about the tax issue. I'll just have to settle for filling out 2 forms...by hand if necessary.
I have a HMO with my current employer and am sure they have to follow doctor/patient confidentiality, that's not my issue. It's my boss.
As everyone knows by now, I work for a vindictinve, manipulative micromanager. I don't trust him even when he's in plain sight. I've learned over the last 5 1/2 years to not trust anything he says or does.
Just today I got my quarterly review. He casually mentioned how nice it is now that the daily stress level has dropped off, then asked if I agreed. I didn't and told him so, explaining how every morning I have to gather as much data as I can in the first hour of my day, so during our daily conference call I can be "Johnny-on-the-spot" with answers to his questions about the network. He claims that's not so, that all he wants is recognition that there's a problem and that it'll be worked on. This sounds great while the network is nice and clean, but as soon as there's a problem with equipment I'm responsible for and I don't have the answer, I'm sure to catch his wrath. It goes without saying that I'm keeping the "Johnny-on-the-spot" comment in my back pocket.
Okay, that was a bit of a long story. Basically what I dread is my boss digging into my personal business and harrassing me with questions. It seems extremely unlikely that he'd find out about my physical now that I really think about it, but these are the kinds of things I worry about when it comes to him. Hell, last week he sent me to a one day leadership class because one of my coworkers couldn't attend, now I worry about him trying to make me pay for it after I put in my two weeks.
You would too if you'd seen some of the stuff he's pulled on other people!
Go to H&R Block. Don't obsess over it. My financial advisor ;) thinks that it will probably cost you about $25 bucks to get it figured out. Might be worth the peace of mind.
If you get a driver's license in NJ you will lose your residency in PA. You need to figure out what state you are going to live in. Once you get your CDL, you can move back to PA.
Does PA and NJ have a reciprical agreement for taxes? You need to find this out it will help you figure out your taxes, but you will probably end up doing at least one of the returns by hand.
Bon chance.
~J
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