04.19.2023

Four months into 2023 and I’m still writing 2022.

When you try to improve your position in life, whether it’s professionally, academically, socially or financially- in any way really, the people around you will try their best to keep you down. It’s true. My adoptive mom told me that, and she was right. It’s not just a catchy phrase people throw around.

And boy for years I’ve been letting them. The trouble is, you don’t realize you’re letting them. It may be people who do truly care about you, and maybe their just falling into their base instinct without realizing what they’re doing. And then there’s just people who are bitter, companies who want to use you to their advantage, relationships that when you look back on you realize were unhealthy.

It’s frustrating to me that after 14 years I’m still here with the same company making the same pay. They’ve recently started shipping patient information overseas to third world call centers and paying the employees there even worse. When people are in desperate circumstances and struggling to survive they do desperate things. I doubt anyone’s private information (social security numbers, DOB, policy numbers…) are safe anymore. It’s not that I think people overseas are evil, it’s just I know what happens when people struggle in poverty. The crazy thing is that nobody knows about it except those of us that survived the outsourcing (so far anyway). The patients don’t know, and they’re the ones at risk.

I’m off on a tangent though. My original reason for writing is that after all these years in the company I’m still making the same as my stepson and he’s working at a bowling alley. It’s his second job out of high school, entry level stuff. I know you’re not supposed to compare yourself to other people, but the only people I compare to are my cousin who doesn’t even have a high school diploma and was hooked up with a job by her rich BIL, and my brother who works at a truck stop. It’s insane. I clawed my way to an associates degree (paying out of pocket), but now that’s not good enough.