Frustrated

Noters Beware!! This is a “mean-note” free diary.

I am on Facebook these days much more than I am on here, it seems. But last night was one of those nights where I wish I had not commented on a post. Those of you who have been reading my diary know a lot of my story. You also know that politically I am a liberal. I have told many parts of the story of my life that has led to that thinking. Well, last night I made the awful decision to leave a comment on a “friends” facebook. This friend I have never met in person, but she is a fellow animal lover like myself. For the most part I try to ignore political posts there, because they turn ugly just as they have here. But this friend posted a thing about Obama’s yearbook photo stating that he was born in Kenya. I looked it up on Snopes and the opinion there was that the piece in this post’s photo was written by a publishing firm years ago and was never published in any Harvard yearbook. I didn’t send a link right away, but I got irked when someone else left the comment that they should throw not only Obama, but his family in jail. Now, really…if you hate Obama…and maybe even Michelle….fine. They are adults. But why would you add their children into that? Those two girls had no choice what family they were born into…they love their parents and that is as it should be. They are children, for heaven’s sake!! It makes me ill. So I left a comment saying much of the same…and I added the Snopes info on the supposed “yearbook description”. All of a sudden I had not only the idiot who left the comment about throwing the entire Obama family in jail, but also some other lady tearing me apart. The lady said Snopes was leftist….something about being owned by George Soros. From what I have gathered since last night, Snopes is not owned by Soros, but by a married couple whose last name is Mikkelson (the wife of this couple is a Canadian citizen and cannot vote in U.S. elections or contribute to political campaigns and has never joined any political party.) That was proven on Factcheck.org, but I am sure if I posted it, I would just get a response that Factcheck is leftist as well.

Anyway, I stood my ground and told parts of my life to back up my thinking. I explained how I went to college years ago and majored in Early Childhood Ed…and was a miserable failure. I take some responsiblity for that, but I also put a lot of blame on my high school guidance counselor who pushed me to go to the school I did. My high school was small and while I did very well there, they didn’t offer classes that prepared me enough to compete against students from much bigger schools. (As an example…we had no foreign language of any kind until my senior year. When it finally became available,I took it. So when I went to college, I thought I would be able to continue with that language to fulfill their credit requirements for foreign language. I signed up for Spanish 101, which I thought would be a refresher. Turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong. The professor wouldn’t allow any English usage after the first day…and even though I did so well in Spanish in High School that I got an award for my work, I was NOT at that level. I wound up dropping the class. Also, my math skills were extremely weak…and that led to more of my failure. In high school, the highest level of math I took was algebra. I hated it, and muddled through with the help of my best friend. But she wasn’t with me when I went to college. She was at a different university hundreds of miles away.) I told the people on this Facebook post that I had been to college, and that I did not finish years ago…and that I had also racked up debt to the tune of $28000 during that try at getting a degree. I also said that I was currently working in retail for $9/hr. I live paycheck to paycheck…haven’t been to a doctor in years except for a couple emergency room visits for an infected tooth that caused my face to swell, and for a kidney stone. I said that my current so called “health insurance” is a joke because I have $30 taken out of each paycheck and have a $1500 deductible. My ER bill for the tooth came to $1487…just under that deductible so guess who gets to pay the bill??? On my $9/hr salary. Then I also stupidly added in there my more recent troubles…for those of you who don’t know…I got caught twice with no car insurance…which I KNOW is wrong…but christ…I only bring home about $800 a month. There often isn’t a lot left over after rent, food, gas, etc are paid. I didn’t not pay the car insurance to make a statement…I just didn’t have the money. Simple. I spent a night in jail and wound up with $1500 in fees for court, etc. I also had my car impounded and wound up in the middle of one of those awful payday loans just to get it back so I could go to work. They kept upping the fees for it every two weeks and before long I was paying $150 in fees….it doesn’t take long to run out of money that way. I went weeks with just a loaf of bread and peanut butter just to eat. I paid it off with my taxes this year…thank God! But now, the money I should have from my taxes to fix my car, pay the insurance…is gone. I’m out from under the awful loan…but I’m still paycheck to paycheck.

I am currently going back to school again…and trying to do well…but have fallen behind because of weather…limited computer capabilities at home (many of my classes require the use of Microsoft Office programs like Access…and I don’t have that on my computer here…I have to drive almost 40 miles to my school and this year winter hit my area hard. They don’t plow my roads for days sometimes, because I live out in the country and I got stuck at home several times. I got so far behind in my English comp. class that I wound up dropping it. However, I am doing great in my Math class. I’m running an A!

But after explaining some of this to these fools on this post, I was told that my story was fishy…that I couldn’t be going to school now. WHAT??? What exactly is fishy? I am 42 years old. I went to school once when I was 18…spent several years at a major university and failed. Racked up a ton of debt that I lived with for years. Nothing too unbelieveable there. I’m back in school now, years later….I work at the same time. What is so hard to “get” about any of that??? Then these same two fools were telling me that I need to work harder…maybe get a second or third job. For one, I live in out in the boonies…and I’m in Michigan. Jobs aren’t a dime a dozen here. Second, it’s not as though I have tons of free time now as it is. The “golden rule” of college is that for every hour you are there in the class room you should put in two at home. So with that and 35 hours at work, I already have no “me” time. I basically go to work, or school, and come home and after a few minutes on Facebook, I start doing math, or research for one paper or

another. I do try to sleep at some point too. I never have a day off. I drive 30+miles every day either to school or work. But hey, I have plenty of time for yet another job. Should be a piece of cake…except for the fact that my current job isn’t exactly “thrilled” to work with my school schedule…so I’m sure adding in even more time that I am not available would please the shit out of them. I am an assistant manager and have to be able to work both mornings and evenings…and our truck day is a crap shoot. We get a call the day before it arrives telling us when it will be coming…could be 6AM…could be 6PM…or anywhere in between. So it makes it hard to schedule a class on that day. Plus my store manager only gets one day off each week…and that day is Monday…so I have to be there for half of that day. NO choice. So I can only schedule an evening class on that day. As it is, my juggling game made it so I missed out on registering for a class I need (one that the school doesn’t offer every quarter…so I don’t know when I’ll be able to sign up for it next) because the class fell during a time when I would have to be at work. I am scared shitless of failing school again. I am trying, but sometimes it seems that I battle forces I have no control over…weather, other responsibilities.

And these people commenting to me kept saying things like “Why do you think you are special? Don’t you think there are people who have it harder than you?” “Nothing is free. You have to work hard for what you want.” Okay…I get that…and yes I am sure there are people who have it harder than me. There are homeless people who are struggling to live under bridges in freezing temperatures. There are single mothers who are working two jobs. I NEVER said I was special. My point is that it isn’t right…for me, for the homeless folks, for the single mother. I remember my grandfather worked ONE good paying job. He raised his family on it, and had money saved when he died. My stepdad raised me and my sister on ONE good-paying job. We had health care and he, too, has money saved. Both of these men were hard working. You will never hear me say otherwise. But why is it that the generations after those…MY generation and those following, are expected to work 2 jobs…or god help us, 3??? Just to have those same things that my grandfather had. I’m not asking for a mansion and a Mercedes. I would like a small house…and a good car. Enough food for me and my 2 dogs to eat. Decent health care for me and enough left over for me to adequately care for my dogs. Having a few perks…like enough money to go out to eat with friends once in a while, or take in a movie would be nice. I don’t want diamonds. I’d like a hot tub, but I can live without it. And believe me, I do work hard. I have stated it on here before…but at my current job, as an assistant manager in retail, I work my ass off. I don’t just stand behind a cash register and ring up customers all day long. NO. When I work the morning shift, I work alone. During those hours I wear many hats. If a customer spills laundry soap on the floor, I am janitor (which sounds easy enough in theory…but here’s a scenario for you that took place at one of my store’s other locations near me: The store manager, (who I will refer to as Sherrie), was working her store alone when a customer spilled a jug of Ammonia on the floor at the back of the store. Sherrie went to get a mop bucket, thus leaving the front of the store unattended. Sherrie had a stock cart (big long carts used to haul freight from the stockroom to the sales floor) with new clothing on it up near the front of the store, as she was attaching security tags on them before placing them on the racks. Well, while Sherrie was mopping up the spill…another “customer/thief” saw an opportunity and took off out the door with the entire stock cart of clothing. The ones that had security tags attached did set off the alarm…but he had a running start on Sherrie, and she couldn’t leave the store entirely to chase the guy. It took the police 25 minutes to arrive at the store…by that time the guy was long gone…cart, clothing, and all. And stock carts are very large. He was not found. ) Just yesterday, the security bar on our back door needed a battery change…it started beeping loudly. I was alone. I had two choices: 1) Ignore it until the second girl came in for her shift…5 hours later….or 2) Fix it in between customers…which required me to leave the front of the store unattended…and have the back door open at the same time, because you have to take a panel off of the door to access the battery and you can’t get a screwdriver in there to do it without the door being open. Now thankfully, I am in a better area than Sherrie, and many of our customers are regulars. But we still have our thieves…so it’s not a given that nothing was stolen while I was fixing the door. Also during your shift alone you might have to do a store order which requires you to look at every section on every shelf in the entire store and scan items that are low with a scanner. It would be a piece of cake if you could just do it, but you have to run back and forth to the register when someone is ready to check out…and you also have to physically make eye contact with every customer that enters the store and greet them. So when you hear the bell on the door, you have to walk back up front. There are many, many times when I just get to where I left off ordering just to have to turn right around and walk back up front to greet someone, and then I turn around and go back again only to have a customer ready to check out. Usually you also have stock to get out on your shift as well…and you hear about it if you don’t. I also unload trucks. I regularly lift 40 lb. bags of dog food, cases with 6 gallons of water…cases with 4 or 6 jugs of laundry soap, depending on the brand. We don’t get our freight shipped on pallets like some stores do. We unload it off the truck case by case…and we have to pick them up and haul them to designated stock carts arranged in the back room. It’s hard work and sometimes dangerous. I got my finger caught in rollers three weeks ago and it’s still not fully healed. It was all kinds of purple. It happened right when we started unloading. I only took a minute to curse and deal with the pain. I had no choice but to keep unloading. There was no one else to do it and the driver had other stops after ours so I couldn’t delay the whole process because of my finger. I just kept it bent in toward my palm and used the other fingers to lift the boxes. Move on. At my job, I rarely take a lunch break. As an assistant manager, I am either alone or with 1 cashier. (And by the way…my store only has 4 employees total…1 store manager, 2 assistant managers, and 1 cashier)…so when I am there with our cashier, I am on an evening shift because she never comes in earlier than 3:30 and most days not until 5:30. We don’t get the payroll to allow her to come in earlier. But even when the cashier is up front, I rarely have time for a real break. If she has a return, I have to go up front and authorize it by turning my key in the register. If there is a customer question, I might get called. Our cashier can help with some things…like where to find an item, but there are often other questions that she cannot answer. H

er favorite slogan is “I am an Indian…not a Chief”. So I get paged to the floor. If she needs change, I get called. She has stock to put out just like the rest of us…and when finishes one task and needs something from the stockroom, I get called. If the phone rings…cashiers aren’t allowed to answer it, so I have to go up front and answer it. If she gets more than 3 people in her line (or if there is a customer who is holding up the line for whatever reason…like the other day, we had one who couldn’t find her debit card in her purse…she kept looking and trying to remember where it was…but the person behind her was getting impatient…so I got called up to take the second customer on the backup register. I rarely get a full break without at least one kind of distraction. I often wind up helping to ring up customers and come back to cold food. And if I waste too much time on a break, with all the other distractions/responsibilities I have, I fall behind on the stocking I need to finish on my shift. There is no doubt I work hard. But apparently nowadays this isn’t enough to guarantee you decent health care and a comfortable life. Should any job pay so little that one can’t live on it? I mean most of us eat the McCrap, so is that worker unneccessary? Why should he/she make so little to give us what we demand? We all shop, so why should any retail worker be paid so little? I mean I have been with this company for 10 years and I am at $9/hr. As an assistant manager. Why is this even acceptable? Yes, I could maybe get a job elsewhere…but is it worth it? I would probably have to take a pay cut at the beginning…probably back to minimum wage to start…and move up again in a different company that may or may not treat its employees any better. And it would more than likely mean more of a drive, unfortunately, for me. And my car is 15 years old and I have no clue how it still keeps going. I worry about it all the time. So for me to do any more driving than I already do, there would have to be something to make it worth it.

I just don’t understand the other side’s thinking at all. How can this country be so great when my generation has to work harder to have the same things that previous generations had. When do we draw the line? Now we have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet, sometimes 3. Will future generations have to work 4? 5??? Will there even be that many jobs out there for people? What will this stress do to these people’s health? Will they be able to afford health care to deal with the issues those stresses can cause? Why shouldn’t health care be available to everyone who works hard? Why is it only for those in high-paying jobs? If someone who works a low-wage job is in pain, let’s say appendicitis, should they have to just deal? Why should they NOT get relief from their pain? And why should they wind up with a bill they cannot afford just so they aren’t in pain? Are we that cold-hearted? Why should those who have higher jobs not be required to help those who have less? Didn’t we used to be a society where we helped those less fortunate than ourselves? Doesn’t the Bible teach that very lesson? Didn’t we used to be more like the Ingalls family from Little House on the Prairie and the Waltons..where we helped our neighbors? I remember my grandfather helping to dig graves at the local cemetery…he did it because it helped out. Not because he wanted money for it. A simple “Thank You” was all that was required. Why can’t we be that way now? Now, it’s all “You have to work crazy hard…and do it yourself.”

I told these fools on that post that my sister has a college degree, and works in job that pays less than mine. The only reason she gets along is because her husband has a great job. They have 2 new cars and just bought a house. The one guy responded with “probably got it with government help. If they are making payments, the house isn’t theirs…it’s the banks.” Okay…but I hardly think they are alone in getting a bank loan to buy a house. They have excellent credit..they have paid one of the vehicles off and are working on paying off the second. Did this guy buy his house outright with cash??? Must be nice!

This is why I dislike dealing with people. I don’t feel I did a lot wrong…I have made mistakes…but I am human. I have had a lot of bad luck. I have made bad choices. I have been bumbling along alone my whole adult life. I don’t always do things right. I am scared of change, sometimes…and while I would like to change jobs, it has to be right and it has to work. I have 2 dogs that depend on me for food. They are my sole companions. They don’t judge me, they don’t criticize. They want to be with me for me. I cannot say that for a lot of the folks I meet. And some people have such wildly opposing views. It just leaves me shaking my head…and for what it’s worth..feeling kinda hurt.