terrawombat

I was thinking of submitting pre-two weeks letter that would basically say exactly that.

I appreciate the responses, fellas. We seem to have strayed off the topic a bit. I was primarily looking for advice on how to break the news to my boss so as not to burn bridges and not make the remainder of our working relationship extremely awkward. I've honestly never been in this kind of position so I don't really know how to approach it other than handing him my notice of two weeks and saying thanks for everything, but I've got a GF 3.5 hours away that I'd rather be with. I'll worry about finding another job. Although the market isn't really looking great, I have a plethora of other things that generate revenue and could keep me going if it came to that. I'm going to first make my boss completely aware that I am going to be looking for employment in the area close to where my GF will live and put the ball in his court and see what kind of mutual agreement we can come to. I think if I worked a shorter week on an hourly basis, I could put a lot more focus on getting the things in my shop completed and out the door, while still maintaining an employment record and bringing in the paychecks.

Many of my friends have said the same thing, too. However, define "job." I don't anticipate sitting on my bum watching TV all day while casually browsing the job listings on Monster.com and Craigslist (behavior taken from my old room mate). I'll likely be working longer days trying to get my metal cutting and fabrication business off the ground and earning a buck. I can also pick up some part-time work at my buddy's garage doing mechanic work and my parents have never turned down my offer to work on their farm. My biggest issue I have right now is that I have so much money and resources tied up in my shop that I need a few months to get projects finished, vehicles/parts sold, and the facility returned back to its original condition. I thought I could get that done spending a few hours here and there at my shop after work and on the weekends getting things done. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out that way. I've sold a few parts and a couple of vehicles, but there's still a lot more that needs to be done. What you see in my signature is merely a fraction of what I own. I'd like to see if my boss would let me go on a shortened work week - maybe 3-4 days, but I've heard that he doesn't like to do that so I'm not sure if that's a viable option. I've been doing the long distance thing since summer of '08. I'm not sure how much longer I can do it. I feel like we've been at the same spot for three years with no real advancements in our relationship and I blame the infrequency in which we see each other as a reason for that. I also read an article about how companies have been trying to discriminate unemployed people looking for jobs. Until it was ruled discriminatory there would be statements like, "Unemployed need not apply" on certain job advertisements. Can't say I understand their mentality, but just seems to be the way things are going...

Damn you Rob. Now I want to watch that movie...haven't seen it in years. I don't know if I'd want to further my education (at least not the next logical step in my engineering path). I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering and all of the coursework needed for a MS, just need to finish my thesis and defend it. Now, as far as my GF being able to support me during a lapse in steady income - NOOOOOOOO WAY!!! She once gave me a figure of how much debt she is in and my jaw almost fell off it dropped so hard. She went to an out of state college and paid her own way so she has loans out the whazoo. I'm not looking for her to support me and I would never put her in that situation as it's just not fair. I'll figure out my own ways of maintaining a steady income - I'm not worried about that. In fact, I'm less worried about that than I am sitting down with my boss and explaining that I'm basically out and leaving him high and dry. As for them wanting to keep me - they definitely do. My boss and the guy who is eventually going to take over the company took me out to lunch last month and basically asked me what I needed in order to remain at the company. It was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable for me and it happened out of the blue so I was totally unprepared for it. Even then I knew my days were numbered so I simply said I was content and didn't need anything. I felt like I would be taking advantage of the company if I requested anything knowing full well I wasn't going to be there much longer. I've been trying to distance myself and drop subtle hints here and there that I won't be there forever, but I'm not convinced its sinking in...or they're just trying to counter it by giving me reasons to stay. I would be moving to the Eastern Shore, most likely. My GF's family is in Kent Island. My GF is currently in Ocean City, MD for the summer with summertime job and then she's got a full time one waiting for her back in Stevensville. Pretty sweet gig and I can't say I blame her for wanting to stay down in MD rather than live up here in NJ with me.

I don't have a Torchmate, though, just a measly ez-router :D It's probably my number 1 method of raking in some cash when I don't have a steady paycheck to do so. Right now I live about 10 minutes from Princeton, NJ. The amount of money that the housewives spend on "artsy-fartsy" crap is pretty unbelievable. These womens will drop $300-$400 like it's nothing on potted plants and hanging baskets at my Mom's flower stand. Then they'll come back next week after Jose has planted all of the flowers and it still doesn't look "right."

Guess it's time to start a multi-state Jeep business. On the health insurance racket - I got to speak with a lot of my friends this past weekend since they were all home for Easter. I went off on a health insurance rant and they all looked at me with blank stares and told me it wasn't really that big of an expense. I asked each of them how much they paid and my jaw dropped. I got six responses between the ranges of $0 (company pays for it all as a benefit) and $120/month. Most were in the $20-$50 per month range. WTF.

Yea - I've looked at the job market in my area and around where my girlfriend lives and it looks bleak. I'm working on other solutions to maintain a steady income if/when I do leave. Thankfully, all of my debts are paid off - that was the first thing I did when I got my job. My current living expenses are pretty low (about $500/month for rent and utilities), however, I would lose health insurance coverage if I left my job, although they currently only pay for 50% of it and they have one of the most expensive plans on the planet. My total coverage is $828/month and I'm a healthy 26 year old male. If my company didn't foot half that bill, I'd be Audi 5000 for that "benefit."

I've been trying to figure this one out for some time. How do you leave a place of employment when there isn't a good reason? I don't dislike anyone I work with - they're all really good people and have been in the industry for decades so I've learned a lot. The pay isn't bad - it gets me by but I wouldn't mind some more. I'm not trying to make anyone upset, but I know if I go and talk to my boss and give him my two weeks, he's going to be furious. There's lots of work to be done now and plenty of work down the road. Also, the only other person my age (also my friend from college) is leaving sometime in the next month or so to get a PhD. Starting next month my girlfriend will be permanently in Maryland - over 3.5 hours from me with no signs of her joining me up in NJ. I've never had to leave a job before other than summer jobs where school began so it was a given that I'd be gone. My current job is a little different - been here over 2.5 years now, still involved in several projects, and my boss has me lined up to do several new projects. My boss knows my girlfriend is going to be in Maryland and has tried to make accommodations to make that easier for me - coming in late on Monday and making up lost time during the rest of the week. Not really a good solution and more of a band-aid, in my opinion. Per my employee conduct manual, I need to give my two weeks in writing and notify one of the company officers. That's the easy part. The hard part is how do I go about doing this without burning bridges? Is wanting to move closer to your GF/fiance/wife a valid reason for voluntarily leaving a job? I've heard so many stories of guys making the 1.5-2 hr. one-way commute to continue their career and be with their loved one. They were also getting paid at least double of what I currently make, though! Anyone with any voluntarily employment termination stories - both good and bad?

I pulled a 4.0L, AW4, and 242 as one unit out of a '99XJ a couple months ago. I removed the header, radiator, and A/C condenser and it was still a pretty tight fit. The transfer case got hung up on everything as I yanked it out. I wish I would have pulled out the motor mount brackets on the frame since everything seem to get snagged on those. I also tried to pull it leaving the exhaust downpipe on, but eventually pulled that out for some more clearance. One of the bigger issues was that I was pulling everything out on gravel so the steel wheels on my hoist didn't exactly roll....at all. I basically just used it to lift the assembly and then rolled the XJ backwards.

He was a pretty flaky seller so I'd be surprised if anyone could have even bought the thing. I called on it last Thursday, April 14th and told him I could come up that Saturday but I wanted to at least see some pictures of the thing to make sure it wasn't a total basket case. Never got any pictures so I called on it again and he gave me the standard, "My phone broke because I dropped it in a puddle" excuse. He gave me his e-mail address and asked me to send him an e-mail so he got mine and he would send me pictures. Sent e-mail...nothing. Called him again and he said he would upload pictures to the CL ad and once he finally did that, I knew it wasn't worth the trip unless he would take $400 or less for it. I negotiated a bit with him on the phone, but the lowest I could get him down to was $600. Wasn't worth that to me since it didn't really have much going for it other than the HO stuff and the visor.

I normally keep the throttle plate fully open.

It was called Welcome back, Kotter.

What a cop out on Jeep's behalf. That's not a truck.

Thank you oh great one. I hope that we can find some kind of middle ground to make this work. I don't really want to clutter up the main Index screen, either. I was thinking about it some more and I'll settle for a subforum under the 'MJTech' section :D

Yea, I was mainly interested in the HO stuff. He also said there was only a little bit of rust on the bed so that had me interested, too. But then he posted pics and it's pretty far gone - much worse than any of the MJs I have. Now, if it had really nice bucket seats and a center console with column shift (is that even possible), I'd be on it. Let me know if you do wind up getting it. I'd probably buy some parts off of you.

I wouldn't be surprised if he relists it.

Been talking with this guy a bit. He sounds desperate to get rid of the truck. Said he would let it go for $500 if I came and got it today, but no way I'm taking off work for a rust bucket. Looks like it has some good, usable parts on it and a decent drive train, but given the extent of the rot on the body and frame, it's probably too far gone for me to consider it. http://hudsonvalley.craigslist.org/cto/2338362524.html Nice tailgate, bench, and visor!

I have never heard of planned outages for an impending storm, but then again, I live in NJ and we rarely get anything that can be considered "severe" weather. However, we did have an outage roughly 10 years ago that knocked the power out. It had been down roughly 10 minutes when lightning struck a pole within a hundred feet of my (parents) home. Even though the power was already out and most of our important electronics were surge protected, it still took out our desktop computer, television, and DVD player.

There should be four little 1/4" spacers for the Draw-Tite hitch. There should already be two spacers welded to the sideplates. The hitch mounts to the rear bumper bracket locations and uses metric bolts, but I do not recall off the top of my head what the diameter, pitch, and length are.

lol

I used to get pink slips in elementary school when I did something bad. Three pink slips = detention. Is that what we're talking about?

So as I'm eagerly awaiting the response from the CL seller with the '91MJ, I come across his newest ad: http://hudsonvalley.craigslist.org/cto/2336250938.html He told me he was going to e-mail me pictures. Said he would hold it for me if I was interested. I told him that I'm not going to go through the effort of getting a pickup truck and a trailer, drive 2.5 hours north without seeing some pictures of the thing. His original ad said rotted frame, but body was in good shape, but when I asked him about the other common rust spots, yea, it has those too. I dunno, I give up on this.

I'm a big fan of the small and concise number of forums on this site, however, as of late, I've seen a lot of people (myself included) starting to get into doing some custom fabrication work for our beloved and outdated trucks. I was thinking it may not be such a bad idea to get a subforum going separate from the MJ Tech forum. Leave that forum for mechanical/electrical issues with the MJ and create a new forum for the discussion and progression of new project ideas. Two recent threads come to mind - the trailer hitch and hidden winch. Those are two great threads with a wealth of good information that seem to get lost in the day-to-day "my Comanche won't start" and "what do I need for 6 inches of lift" threads. I'd like for it to be a main forum that is easily seen on the main forum Index and not buried within layers (like under the DIY Project or MJ Tech forum) so its easily recognizable. It would almost be like the "Advanced Tech" forum on NAXJA, but without the needless member abuse and arrogance that is commonly displayed over there. Thoughts?

Whenever I go to pick'n'pulls, I grab every single nut, bolt, screw, and random odd fastener I can get my grubby hands on. As long as I'm buying other parts, my yard doesn't care about what fasteners I grab and won't charge for them. I don't think I've owned an '84-'96 XJ or MJ that didn't have at least five screws missing from the interior dash panels.

If it were actually a STOCK Shelby Dakota that was still in its original condition, I'd be a little more upset than I am about its recent "storage", but it seems to have been turned into a "racetruck" of sorts so, meh.