"What kind of gifts can anyone afford and still fly a trip[?]" The question mark is my addition because I assume this is an interrogative, and I'm not sure how to answer, but I'll give it a shot. Umm, this year, I can still afford to gift my handmade voodoo dolls, and at the same time be able to fly what will likely be a back-breaking four day trip awarded by daily scheduling about mid-day Christmas Eve, just like the way it's gone down for time immemorial--one hundred and five years if I were Parker's perky lap pooch. It's just a matter of time management; on one of the eleven days I'm free from the scheduling albatross, I'll scour thrift stores in search of forsaken dolls and doll parts, cloth remnanats, etc. Then, over the course of several evenings, I'll don my Snuggie or my Jeggings or whatever infomercial clothing purchase for the chronically cold and uncomfortable I've most recently acquired, light the Yule log and cue up the Jim Nabors Christmas Album (on vinyl, if it matters), and begin the process of transforming, say, a 1974 Malibu Ken into, for example, a paunchy ex-frat boy executive. Mother has been dropping hints, she thinks she isn't being obvious, but when I hear her say of Paul Ryan, "I wish that little f***er would come down with a case of the clap," I know I need to somehow find an Eddie Munster doll if I'm to make her holiday wishes a reality. I hope that answers your question about how I'm going to afford gifts and fly a trip at the same time.
Another point. I voted no on both of the TAs for several reasons. I couldn't ever crack tenth grade math, so I used sixth grade math to calculate that a 13.5% pay raise provided in TA2, the more generous of the two, fails to address even a modest cost of living increase, which has risen approximately 21% since the signing of the concessionary contract we work under now. To wit: You actually had more spending power in January 2005 with the acceptance of concessionary wages than you would in 2013 with the proposed "industry leading" raise, never mind in five years when the top-out wage of $49.06 is only about 4% more than than top-out on the date of signing. And surely, no one is enough a Pollyanna to think this contract would be replaced in five years, it would more likely be at least seven. The second proposal returned no vacation days that were snatched in the name of saving the company--there were ten more of those in 2004, plus it provided for no increase in per diem. In 2018, that rate would be .10 more than in 2003, just like the wage proposals, ridiculous, though I don't think that would have mattered much if the company would pony up with fair wages.
