Is it horrible of me to pass up a possible job opportunity where I'd have to stop my work with the LGBT group that I've been volunteering with and any weekend trips to Slightly Larger Midwestern City to see my Grandma? I didn't even really get into the interview before I was told that it was every weekend, both days, and also a couple shifts during the week, and told to come back to talk to the manager if I was ok with that schedule. So I don't really know if I would have been offered a job or not. Also, it's definately just a job, not a career, probably doesn't pay much more than minumum wage, part-time retail work in a hardware store when I don't know much about tools and such. Maybe I'm just rationalizing because I really don't want to take this job, but I also feel bad in not taking any job that is offered me right now, as it's so hard to find jobs anyway and I am living off other people. Mom won't really answer me about what she thinks I should do. TyRoy said that it is pretty bratty to "turn down a good job." I think our definitions of "good" are vastly different. Honestly, I think I would take a job I didn't think I'd like if the hours weren't every single weekend. And, while I know this is in part my privilege talking, I don't think it's fair to a job to take a job just to take it while I'm actively looking for another job just to dump the first job. Please please please let me know what you think, dear readers.
If 50% of the population is overweight and we can safely assume that is relatively evenly divided among men and women, why are there only 4 plus size clothes racks at Target? There are at least 5 times that many clothes racks for "regular size" clothes. And all of those plus size clothes were casual wear, not what one would wear to even a business casual workplace. Do us fatties not need clothes? Do we not work in professional environments like the non-plus sized women? Should we just stay home, locked up so no one else can see our ugly fat bodies? Do they just not want our money? Grrr. Not that I have any money to buy anything, but I would still like to be able to find clothes that fit my body, especially when there is a large percentage of women who also need the same category of clothes that aren't stocked.
I hate feeling like this medication has made me cognitively slower. Other than the schedule of the position, I also found out in the interview that the job is very fast paced, with either a store full of people or a back-room full of stock to put out. I hate admitting that I thought about stopping the interview there. I have a hard time dealing with a crowd of people, even on my best day. I tend to need a bigger bubble of personal space these days. And I'm just not as fast. I can't get things out of my mouth. I back my car up, only to find that a car has appearred behind me out of nowhere, when I could swear I checked my mirrors before I took my foot off the brake. I remember when I worked at a gas station/convenience store when I was in my late teens. They prided themselves on their friendliness, well-stocked shelves, and cleanliness. By the end of training, we had to be able to do the full cleaning and stocking routine in 2 hours flat. We would get crazy busy at times and I remember being able to handle the rushes. I haven't applied to work for that same company again, though I know I have a great record with them from when I worked, because I know I can't do that stuff as fast, if at all. It's not that I don't think I can do anything. It's just that there are certain things I'm pretty sure I can't do right now.
Well, that's my day. Feel free to share your thoughts.
Before I jump on my soapbox, I’d like to beg your forgiveness. While I’m not sure that I could have made this all make sense when I was at my best, I am really afraid that this might be incomprehensible, as it seems like my IQ has dropped 20 points since I started this medicine, but I feel like I need to try to get it out anyway, whether or not it makes any sense or any difference.
Next, I should say that I don’t understand the economy. I’ve never really wanted to. I’ve never taken a class on it, or even read a book on it. I have an IRA that I don’t pay attention to that I got from my high school graduation. But I do have a love-hate relationship with politics and news, so it is hard to avoid economics these days. And I know, generally, what each side is fighting for and against, the principles and theories that each side says is guiding them. But I can’t claim to have any idea what is best.
But it isn’t just a lack of education and understanding of economics that prevent me from feeling like I can claim what option is “best.” It is that there is also the question of “What is BEST for what and for whom?” For someone who holds the belief that the country is best as a strictly capitalist economic structure (which it hasn’t been for a long time, but whatever), then they would think that it would be a necessary evil for people and corporations that couldn’t hack it to go under, for the country to go through more economic strife if it meant maintaining and/or reasserting a strict capitalist structure. Most of these people think that capitalism is best for the general good, that capitalism provides the best opportunity for innovation, for people to rise through the work force, for individual and group liberty, etc. And many also believe that it is what is best for them. Even if they aren’t rich now, they still think they could be rich, could run a successful company that they don’t want heavily regulated, and that they don’t want to give more of their money to the government in the form of taxes. This goes for every theory. The theory that a person or group prefers benefits them in some way, just as it also benefits the greater good. I used capitalism as an example, but it is true of all these theories and, also, it is almost impossible to follow one of these economic or political-economic theories completely. There’s always a mix of something else in there too.
But I guess what’s been bugging me lately is the attitude around me. “Both my parents taught me about goodwill and I have done well by their names.”-Ani. We’ve never had a ton, though we’ve never wanted, but my family always encouraged the idea of spreading it around. I remember my stepdad inviting guys he worked with over for Thanksgiving when they didn’t have family nearby to spend the holiday with. This Christmas, I overheard him in the other room telling someone about how all the guys he worked with pitched in to get the poorest among them proper clothing to shovel show in. It was all second-hand work gloves and boots, but it made all the difference to him. So, how can this same man unsympathetically advocate throwing people on the streets if they face foreclosure, without any recognition that some people were tricked into ARMs or the simple economic fact that it would be net a lender more to change the terms of the mortgage than just foreclose? Who calls those to use government help, not just welfare but even unemployment benefits, bums? Who doesn’t want to pay more in taxes, to have less personally, because he says that, even if it were to JUST go to create more jobs, those jobs would only go to the same old people, not actually employ those who are currently unemployed? I could go on, but it’s depressing.
But the fucked up thing is that, if I present a specific example, he usually agrees with me, has a more compassionate stance, based on the reality of the situation. When I asked him if I was a bum, as I’m currently living off of him and my mother, he said that I wasn’t a bum, that I was just going through a difficult time, but that it was different because I was relying on family. When I pointed out that, if for example I went on disability for one reason or another, I would be taking money that I had paid in on my paychecks, which is also what unemployment benefits are. These things are part of why we pay taxes. When I asked him if he didn’t think that the government should take taxes that go to public education, he said that he thought that was ok. So, he obviously doesn’t think that the government shouldn’t do anything. Or he at least believes that there is not a current privately funded system to do those things for us. But the big picture answer stays the same. No higher taxes. Let companies and corporations fail. Let us go through what we’ll go through, as a country.
One of the high-profile liberal bloggers that I read regularly, John Arvosis, recently wrote about how tired he personally is of the sob stories surrounding home foreclosures, especially as he’s worked hard, sacrificed, and maintained his payments on a condo he bought after saving a sizable down payment and doing his homework on loan terms and interest rates. His biggest point is that he might care about home foreclosures if the news stories he read didn’t use people who did stupid things or were planning on flipping the house for more than they originally paid as examples, but instead showed real people that had been taken advantage of by fast-talking, misleading mortgage brokers. While John got a lot of flack from commentors, a few did share their personal stories of being mislead or outright lied to, while others pointed to stories in their local paper or on their local news stations that highlights real people who had been mislead or lied to about the terms of their loans.
To me, the lesson seems to be that when one gets down to specific examples, to the level of the individual, the story can often change. One part of me things that this means that the best way is to bring up a specific real life example of an individual to sway someone who might only be thinking of themselves or sticking to their larger economic and political views, rather than the good of those currently less fortunate, along with the reminder that they could be that less fortunate person at any time. An example of this might be to talk about the real life person I know who was just laid off from his job at a small company that didn’t have to give him any notice during which he could look for another job and doesn’t currently have much saving because he just paid for the burial of his son. If he doesn’t take the unemployment benefits, which he has been paying into all of his working life, he and his working wife could lose their home and cars while he is looking for a job. There is no reason this man shouldn’t take the benefits available to him and he is not a bad person for making use of this safety net, which seems to me like a mass savings account. And I do think that this might be able to sway the person, get them to agree with you in the moment, maybe even make them change their idea on a vote, but I’m not sure it’ll make any long term difference. I suppose as I think about the larger liberal movement and also all the –ism movements that I follow, the real argument needs to be about everyone, what rules and rights and privileges should be afforded to everyone, not just a few, based on what one thinks a human is entitled to from their government and from other people. For example, saying that no recently unemployed person who is eligible for unemployment benefits under the current law should be denied them, have it made difficult to get them, nor should they feel a stigma attached to taking a security net benefit that they have been contributing to for the duration of their working lives. Unfortunately, that broader argument is going to be more difficult to sway someone on, as they already have their own view of what a human is entitled to. So I’m not really sure how to answer this or fix any of this, except to share it with others, knowing most people won’t change their mind.
I’ll leave you with another Ani song. I guess I paid attention to it for the first time tonight when she was playing on PBS. It highlights what I feel right now, the difference in my head and my stepdad’s head between what is right and what is wrong in this situation, when I learned a good deal about helping others from him.
Sorry, it's sideways. What do you expect from youtube?
Paradigm - Ani DiFranco I was born to two immigrants Who knew why they were here They were happy to pay taxes For the schools and roads Happy to be here They took it seriously The second job of citizenry My mother went campaigning door to door And holding to her hand was me I was just a girl in a room full of women Licking stamps and laughing I remember the feeling of community brewing Of democracy happening
But I suppose like anybody I had to teach myself to see All that stuff that got lost On its way to church All that stuff that got lost On its way to school All that stuff that got lost On its way to the house of my family All that stuff that was not lost on me
Teach myself to see each of us Through the lens of forgiveness Like we're stuck with each other (god forbid!) Teach myself to smile and stop and talk To a whole other color kid Teach myself to be new in an instant Like the truth is accessible at any time Teach myself it's never really one or the other There's a paradox in every paradigm
I was just a girl in a room full of women Licking stamps and laughing I remember the feeling of community brewing Of democracy happening
[Back dated to when I wrote it in my journal, by hand, old-school, because our internets were down. Now I can only hope that I can read my own damn handwriting.]
I have a job.
Don't get too excited now. The longest I've ever kept a job was a year and I loved it. But I even screwed it up in the end, so there was no way I could go back. I've worked good jobs that I've liked more for less time, or barely past the first real day because of my own self-defeating, self-destructive nature.
But things being what they are (or aren't or are, who knows from day to day) with BT, and with me realizing the extent of some of the bills I'm dealing with and finding that a Sugar Daddy, especially when you aren't in the best shape of your life, is harder than one might think, I had decided that I'd better start the job search hardcore next week, after visiting my uncle early in the week and spending a weekend at Gram's.
But a job found me! Last Friday, a temp agency I had signed up with over the summer called, asked if I'd be interested in a 3rd shift data entry position. I'd just have to come in Monday to file out the same paperwork I'd filed out at the other, original, office that I'd signed up with (you'd think that they'd have a database for this kinda shit but I guess now), take a drug test, and fill out the paperwork for the background check. I was excited just by the prospect. What luck! A job found me! And it's 3rd shift so it's not like I'd have to worry about getting up in time or about the worst, most depressing hours of the day/night, when I'm all alone, there's nothing on TV, and so I'm reading, wishing I could sleep like the rest of the world.
I actually hadn't gotten much farther than that in my thinking. I'd had seemingly good job prospects from temp places dangled in frong of me, only to have them find a better candidate or some such. But the background check came back in precisely three days, which was yesterday (I was told it could take between 3-7 days because I'd lived in another state recently), and the temp place wanted me to start THAT NIGHT. Something about how quickly this all went down really should have set off some red flags, but it didn't.
In the shower, all I could hear in my head was the Bright Eyes lyric from "First Day of My Life"-"But I’d rather be working for a paycheck/Than waiting to win the lottery." (I know the song isn't about work necessarily but it fit in my head.) I was really happy to be doing something positive after all the negative I've been doing, or at least things that people around me perceive as negative.
Most of work was ok, but, and maybe this is just PMS or being tired and cranky, but I got to a point several times where I just wanted to cry, for no particular reason.
Ok, that's not entirely true. See, my job is entering in addresses on packages and printing the extra shipping labels. Some places just sound like regular places but other places sound... wonderful- Sugar Maple Lane or Humble Road. And I think of this job, of this paycheck to paycheck life and I know I'll never see these places. Or places like what I imagine those places to be. My greatest adventure happened just a little over a year ago- Reckless and foolish and unplanned and followed by lots of unforseen not-positive consequences- the kinda thing I should never do again, probably never will do again, both because of better decision-making skills (yeah right) and a lack of that kind of disposable cash and not caring about the money.
I know I must sound like a broken record here, with the number of posts I have about jobs and how much working sucks and how I always feel like it is killing my soul, but how do people do it? It's mind-numbing and soul-crushing. Some people still manage great insight and widsom and kindness and love despite living this and/or worse everyday. But I've never felt like I could. Still don't feel like I can.
"I want something/That's purer than the water/Like we were/It's not there now/Ineloquence and anger/Are all we have"- "It's Beginning to Get to Me" Snow Patrol
Medical bills suck ass. Just when you think that you are done with one of them, the damn hospital gives the money back to the insurance company because the insurance company paid them too much. Then, when you call to find out how much you really owe, first they tell you that you can't go by the cheaper monthly payment that you were going by. Then, the next time that you call, they tell you really only a tenth of what they told you the last time. Finally, you go online to look it up yourself and guess what??? Not only do you owe the big amount but you also the owe the little amount too! FUCK! I'm never going to get out from under these bills! And, in about 2 months time, I get to go back to that same fucking health insurance company that is currently dicking me around because I lose the GREAT health insurance that I currently have being married to a deployed soldier and I have to go back to the shitty plan that my college offers. Can I just move to Canada??? Or Europe? Maybe I'll meet that ONE British guy or girl who just LOVES women with American accents. I just hope that he isn't a serial killer like Hugh Jackman in Scoop.
After getting a job so that I can pay off my stiffling hospital bills and how on earth I'm going to afford a divorce on top of that, the next biggest thought in my head is what I'm going to do about losing my health insurance after the divorce. I'm in my mid-twenties, for Chrissakes. I should be worrying about shopping and drinking, maybe finishing school. Not HEALTH INSURANCE!
But I am worrying about health insurance. I currently know how much a gall bladder surgery can cost, even after your health insurance company is done haggling down the prices and paying their 80% and it is quite a fair amount. But even beyond that, I have chronic depression. I would like to someday get to a point where every little setback does not send me on a self-harm/suicide spiral. I believe that this will require not a small amount of counseling over a not small amount of time. Finding the right therapist can be hard, much less finding that right person and developing a trusting relationship with them. That requires staying on the same health plan for that period of time, or having each health plan after cover the same doctors and therapists. Even if I didn't have worries about "pre-existing conditions" that might not be covered by a new insurance after a period of not being insured, I am loathe to go back to being uninsured because I can't afford to pay out of pocket for mental health services and the only avenue available to me, the local country mental health agency, takes far too long to actually help a person. When my meds seemed to have stopped working last fall, I was told it would take three months to get into the prescribing nurse practioner. When I think about all I went through when I started a new medication, which actually made me feel worse, I dread to think what would have happened if I had to wait three months to get the medication changed. Fortunately for me, I had private health insurance at the time and a private prescribing doctor who I could get in to see within a few days for a med check-up.
Then again, all this thinking about health insurance makes me think about how we establish other forms of insurance in our life. How it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that love, relationship, and marriage are just insurance plans against loneliness, having to deal with the hardships of the world alone, never having sex again, and any number of other things that one wants to avoid and that their partner can provide. Knowing the histories of both BT and TyRoy, I can't help but wonder how much I am just insurance to them. Then again, how much are they/ have they been insurance to me as well? Fuck. Too late for this kind of thinking. Wish I didn't have to do this kind of thinking at all. Wish my marriage had just worked like it was supposed to so I could currently be heartbroken over my husband being gone and just hoping to find a job, maybe planning on doing full-time temp work just to earn enough so that I could pay the hospital bills all by myself instead of using BT's hard-earned money that he wants to use for our future. Now there is no future. Yeah, it's too fucking late to be thinking about this.
