zeptember

The short of it is that twice in the past month, 2 companies have made me feel that what I experience and believe is not relevant or important. This in turn embitters me further towards continued employment.

But first, I’m mad enough that I wish to first bring up my ancient history.
I grew up in poverty. My mom held down THREE jobs after my dad divorced her when I was four. She got to keep the kids, the house and the car. Dad had to move back in with his mom. Dad had to give up his Harley mechanic and hippie life and get a job at Ford Motor company, where his dad had worked. Dad rose quickly through the ranks and squirreled away his money. Within ten years, he had a condo.

Not so for my mom.

She worked at Big Boy restaurant during the day, and on weekends she did hair in the basement (during the marriage, her job was professional hairdresser, so she had the hairwashing sink and the professional chair dryers and everything, all in the basement). Later on, she did housekeeping during the day and worked at a bar at night, and still did hair on weekends.

My mom ran $30K into debt by the time we reached high school age. As the oldest, I was made to go out and start working at age 15 to pay for my own school supplies and clothes and other teenaged necessities because mom couldn’t afford it.
I graduated high school and worked full time at a drugstore while going to college full time on state money that I qualified for, because we were so poor.
Later, I worked full time at a daycare, which lasted through most of college until graduation. I moved out of my mom’s house within the first year and a half of college, and cut her off financially after having helped pay off one of her credit cards. I needed to start my own life.

Instead of becoming responsible, she pressured my teenaged brother to go get work and help her out now that I left home. He didn’t forgive me for at least a decade.

In Junior year of college, my housemates skipped out on their lease and left me holding the bag, only I was not on the lease. So I reported where one of them fled to and was told I would not be held responsible for their actions. I moved in with dad.

Upon graduating college with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science, I found that there was… NOTHING out there for me with that kind of degree.
My dad tried to get me a job through his friend who owned a group home, and it fit with my degree credentials.
That job lasted a month before I discovered client abuse and reported it, then quit after having death threats against me from the person I reported.

Rude awakening - welcome to the real working world.

After that, all I could get was work at a bindery factory through the week, and I worked at a nightclub on weekends.

Ten months after graduating college, my dad declared me an utter failure and kicked me out of his house. A month later, I showed him by getting a job with a real live corporation. Then my car was totaled a couple of days before I was to start that job.
I moved in with my boyfriend and walked to work from his place until I could save up enough money to get another car.

I worked at that corporation for a year. I was finally on my way to escaping poverty!

My boyfriend got a job offer in California. He took it and invited me along. I moved with him and got a new start in the booming computer industry.
Two months after starting my first ever computer job, the department was sacked and operations moved to Dallas, Texas. I took it very hard and was told by the HR dragon lady that I’d better grow a thick skin and quick, or I’d never make it in this field.

I showed her by getting another job in the same field.

That lasted seven months before it was swallowed up by a bigger fish and our department was sacked.

And so it went like this for EIGHT YEARS. Employed, unemployed. Employed, unemployed. Yo-yo.

But at least I was making no less than $20/hr for each of these dotcom jobs.

After the last job ended in January of this year, I vowed not to go back to the dotcom industry.

That’s why the job I found in June ended up paying $11/hr.

The 2nd job I found in July pays $15/hr.

They’re not dotcom jobs.

I found that I couldn’t make it on $11/hr like I thought I could. Why not?
I’d made it okay on unemployment, which was around what… $8/hr? I realised then that unemployment takes out MUCH less in the way of taxes than a J.O.B. takes out.

And yet millions of Californians are somehow forced to survive on MUCH less than my $11 OR my $15/hr. The state minimum wage is $6.75/hr in California’s expensive economy, which is set by those hateful dotcoms (unless you work in San Francisco proper, where they get $8.50/hr… ooo big dollars huh).

How the hell do people do it?

I thought I let go of enough of my material wants. I thought I had pared down my bills. I even got a $10/mo reduction on my DSL line. I haven’t had a cell phone in over two years.

But apparently I’m still spending above my means. I am tempted by the materialistic lifestyle of my boyfriend, who still makes dotcom money. It’s not his fault of course. I have the problem. It’s tough to exist in a relationship when one has so much money to do so much with, and the other has barely anything. It’s unbalanced. The person with more money starts feeling like they have a dependent, because if they want to go do stuff that costs money, they have to pay for the one who doesn’t have money, or else not invite their love along.

This has created issues in the past month for the relationship.

I need to grab hold of the situation and have a long talk with my man about what I can and will do, and what I cannot and will not do financially any longer, and this time I need to hold true to that.

I know, this still hasn’t given any details about why I quit my night job. I have a lot of shit to work through, first.

Part II coming soon.