Settling In.

I have finally settled in to my new job. I’m actually working, as opposed to merely getting oriented. It will take time to get the project off the ground, but the team I have is brilliant and motivated, which is nice. I’m excited by the opportunity and figure I can meet the challenges expected of me.

There was a crazy hiccough though. My first paycheck was $14,069.97 heavy. When I negotiated to come out here, I was given a $20,000 travel allowance. That’s about what it costs to have a home and car professionally moved coast to coast. But the way it was supposed to work is that MWCMC was going to pay the movers directly. I was not supposed to see the money. There are major tax advantages to me to doing it that way.

But what did happen was that MWCMC paid the movers AND they paid me the $20,000. After taxes and withholding, that made my first paycheck awfully big. I kind of panicked. I admit there was a part of me that thought I could keep it if I just kept my mouth shut, because their left hand would likely not know what their right hand was doing, and no one would notice.

Whether or not that’s true, the better angels of my nature won out and I contacted both my institution and the moving company to put the situation right. I don’t want to have anything like that hanging over me, and it would surely be a firing offense if discovered. So, in the spirit of sobriety I decided to pay the money back instead of buying a helicopter full of cocaine, or whatever.

I mean a nice oriental rug. That’s what I meant.

Sobriety requires that we do our best to maintain strict honesty. I’m not always perfect at that, but my “cash register” honesty has always been pretty good, even while I lied and lied and lied about other things. Life is treating me very well. I don’t need to try to swindle my employer.