My phone bill has a past due balance. Kind of bigger balance too. I don’t have the money to pay it. Because eBay stole money from me back in April. I will mention it as much as I can, I hope it is getting old. I have been meaning to ask a family friend from way back in the day for help paying my phone bill. I am not going to say, “I will pay you back,” because I have no idea if I’ll have the ability to do that.
Weird right? It is less than $500 & I have serious doubts as to whether or not I will be able to get caught up enough to repay that amount in the future. I don’t care though. I am attempting to have my phone bill paid so I can get calls from employers for jobs. Because having a full-time job is the answer to all of your problems.
It is quite peculiar to me, the reasoning behind the idea of full-time employment solving everything. It does seem more like a generational belief that aligns with the disconnect of understanding where that line of reasoning spawns from. I will straight up tell people that I would rather live in my car than work a job that pays me enough to live paycheck to paycheck.
Work the entire day doing something you loathe or sit in a park all day in my car waiting for the sun to go down. “I have to go back to work, my lunch break is only thirty minutes. I don’t want to be written up for being late. If I am late more than three minutes more than three times, I am considered late & I could get fired.”
“I guess I will drive over to that park & sit in my car. Just thinking about how grateful I am to not have to worry about getting written up because I didn’t punch my number into the time clock within the three minute window. I don’t have to run back out to the parking lot because I left my badge in the car. Stressing about a three minute window of time. I don’t have to request time off. I don’t have to find someone to work my schedule if I want time off. I don’t have to come in to make up the hours after taking a sick day. I don’t have to have to.”
I have experienced having money. Now I am experienced with having no money. It is inconvenient, absolutely. But there is nothing, or no one, that can convince me being a slave is a good idea. “Just get a job temporarily to help pay for your phone bill. You might have to find something you don’t want to do in order to pay your bills. Until you find a better a job.”
How about I just wait for a better job? And if it doesn’t come along, I won’t have wasted my life being tortured at that temporary job. “You might have to take a job you don’t like.” I don’t have to have to. It might have worked for others, it might still be working for a lot of people. But I have already wasted years being a slave. Paying taxes to fund a police department that arrests nurses because the nurse would not allow the police to disregard her patient’s civil rights. Let me work at this job nobody else wanted so I can fund police that push old guys to the ground in front of the library. During a police brutality protest.
Police are a problem. But that is not the reason I refuse to work at a temporary job that hired me because nobody else is willing to work the job. I refuse because I know how miserable I will be. The interviews, the drug tests, the background checks, the second interview, the orientation, the one co-worker everyone hates, the boss, the assistant manager, the nepotism, the hourly wage, the “you were late from your break…”
All of that torture & still, I would have to wait two weeks to get paid. Two weeks of torture to get that direct deposit on payday. Then the disappointment of spending it on rent. Then working another two weeks. Then the disappointment of spending that on a phone bill. Two more weeks, rent is due again. Two more weeks, phone bill.
That is why I refuse. Because it is slavery. Jobs don’t pay the same amount of money they paid the generation before mine. Jobs aren’t easy to get like they were when it was applications kept in a file in a filing cabinet. There is so much garbage to wade through just to get to the first interview. “I hope I look good enough for the interview for this job I don’t want. I hope my attire really impresses the bosses. I hope I am not too nervous with the stupid gotcha questions.”
The gotcha questions like, “Have you ever been in trouble for something dishonest?” How do you answer that? Honestly? Okay, how do you answer that if you got in trouble years ago, but had the charges expunged or set aside? What if you got in trouble seven years ago? Does it still count? Should you disclose that during the interview? What if you got in trouble for something that was fake? Are you going to explain that it was fake? How?
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” “What do you want to get out of this position?” “Describe a time when you had to multi-task.” “Tell us about a time or situation where you demonstrated strong leadership skills.” “Tell us about a time when you worked on a team where you demonstrated teamwork skills.” “How do you manage stress?”
I would know how much I needed to survive every day. To the cent. But I am begging right? Don’t want to be a beggar right? Like begging for time off? Begging for a position by dressing up & answering irrelevant questions during a nervous anxiety laden interview? Begging for a raise? Begging a co-worker to cover my shift because I called in sick? Begging God that traffic won’t be filled with other people in a hurry to not be late?
There I am, sitting in my car in the park waiting for the sun to go down. There I am delicately approaching people in front of the store politely asking them if they could spare a dollar for a drink or food. It would become so routine, I would know exactly how to do it. I don’t want to ask people for money, I don’t want to beg. I also don’t want to pretend I enjoy living paycheck to paycheck two weeks at a time. I would know exactly how much a 24 OZ. can of Coors Light costs and where the cheapest place is to buy it.
I was blind to these issues before. What good is a job if you don’t have extra money to spare? What good is a job if you do have extra money to spare, but won’t spare it when people beg you for help? Because the people begging for help need to earn it? They need to work for it like you did? Keeping the money for themselves like you are? Then what, retire?
I can see now, there is no point to having extra money if you don’t share it. Status, power, control, it’s not worth being a slave for three quarters of your life. Slaving away in futility for years helping the top “grow their business” and expand. As long as you’re on time every day & don’t take an extra five minutes on your lunch break. As long as you continue to beg for, I mean, take advantage of the company’s excellent benefits like tuition reimbursement, maybe one day you will be at the top. No more clocking in, no more being late, all the sick days & time off you always dreamed of. Everyone else on the levels below scurrying about, begging for paid vacation days like you used to. They have to earn it, just like you did.
This whole experience for me has given me a sight that I was blinded from for so many years. What is this “you have to earn it” shit? Do I ? It is “I have to beg for it.” Like you do. You just have to “fake it till you make it!” I would rather not & save myself the embarrassment while keeping my dignity asking for spare money from kind hearted strangers. Rather keep the money I begged for instead of fund the police with my hourly wage slave labor.
The co-worker you hate. The co-worker you dislike the most. The co-worker you like the least. You know what their face looks like. You’re picturing them as you read this. What about the last person who asked you if you could, “Spare a dollar?” What does their hideous parasite face look like? Who knows how long it had been since they showered too. You know the co-worker’s name. You’ll never forget it, what about the beggar’s name? You never got it, they never told you.
I guess their begging dignity remains forgotten in the gutter. Working Begging for spare change & dollar bills for a few hours a day to survive. Except they don’t have to clock in or clock out within your favorite calming three minute window. They don’t have lunch breaks or sick days. PTO. How is it possible for them to have all of the freedoms you are begging working so hard to achieve? The same air you breathe, the same water you drink, the same earth you stand on. They don’t have to wait two weeks to get paid. They get random bonuses that you never got. They live in the same zip code & get shot by the same bullet, same gun, from the same police precinct. Except you’re stuck there, you can’t just quit your job.
Imagine you had saved up all of your PTO, sick days, and vacation days to go on a cruise through a tropical island paradise. Then imagine the nerve of someone ruining it by screaming for help in the water. They’re going to drown. Not so fast with throwing the lifesaver. How did they get in the water? If you throw them that lifesaver, how will they use it? Will they just end up back in the water again screaming begging for help while they drown? They did nothing to earn that lifesaver. Why should you throw it to them? Maybe you should ask them how they ended up in the water to begin with. That way you can give them advice on how they can avoid drowning in the future. You avoided drowning. Just make sure you don’t save their life without them earning it. Like you earned being on that cruise.
What if someone pushed them into the water? What if someone pushed you into the water? What if it was you drowning? All of your hard work, everything you earned, down the drain.
The Bling Viera Podcast 