Rispon Avenue

My workplace is considering even greater perks than we previously had.

I suppose they’re trying to combat the lingering economic crappiness and the not incredible rates of pay they give us, though to be honest the pay isn’t bad at all and is still competitive in the field.

It’s a small company, with two offices and some of us who work from home. I’m a web designer, and it’s good work that I enjoy and I can do it from home, which is fantastic, and as I said, the pay rate isn’t bad at all. Basically, they’re saying that at the beginning of the new economic year they won’t be able to offer us a pay rise – a small pay rise each year is the general norm for this company, usually just matching inflation rates – because of the world economy woes, but they do want to offer us a greater group health insurance package as well as better pension schemes for those of us with the company long enough.

I have to say, it’s a fair enough offer. I didn’t expect a pay rise this year as we’ve normally had the last few years, as we didn’t get one last year and I figured they’d address it at the beginning of the financial year after this one. It’s been common water cooler talk for the last few weeks – when I go into the office, anyway – that something other than a pay rise was going to be the incentive to work that little bit harder for the company, and honestly I like the two plans they’re offering us.

I’m hoping that, at the onset of the 2011/2012 financial year the company once again offers pay raises to match inflation rates, as that would just be nice and tidy and, well, they can’t really offer another even better health care plan every year. I think by that point the world economy should have bounced back fully, or at least well enough to justify our little company going back to their regular business practices.

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It’s probably a yay, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to spend the time pouring over deals to find the right one.

This is something that most of us should have, especially later in life or if we partake in any extreme sports, neither of which apply to me. I’ve tried looking at life insurance news sites, or looking at life insurance blog sites, but I just can’t get interested. I think I would have to get one of those broker companies that search out life insurance policies that best suit you.

I just find the whole topic somewhat depressing, and I’d rather not invest a heck of a lot of time into delving into it. That’s why I’d rather have the issue taken care of for me; I don’t mind paying for it, because I see good sense in it, like with any insurance, but I don’t want to spend valuable time in going through all the different options.

Thinking on this has made me rather philosophical. I wonder who the first person was who came up with the idea of someone paying them a monthly sum, on the off chance that they would find themselves in trouble with their health, or even dying. Hmmm, I’m going to look that up. There you go, insurance pretty much came about when human society did. Though insurance the way we know it today really started around 1750BC by the Babylonians, where a caravanner who took out a loan to fund a shipment would pay an extra fee which meant that if the shipment was lost for whatever reason, the caravanner wouldn’t have to pay back any of the loan. That little five minute look over the history of insurance was so much more interesting than anything I read regarding taking out insurance. Isn’t that funny?

It’s still something under consideration. I’m pretty sure in the short term that I will extend my healthcare insurance to cover life insurance, but as I said, I will be having someone else do the work to find the appropriate deal for me.

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