See? I suck at this. I can't post every day. What could I possibly have to complain about, in a new and interesting way, every single day?
Today was rather interesting. I went to the Unemployment office, seeing as they don't recognize Mac computers through their website. (Can we say "outdated"?)
I was surprised to see at least of a quarter of the people sitting and waiting, or standing in line waiting, were under 30. Maybe another quarter could be considered "elderly" and the rest were all the in between. But still, it struck me, seeing so many younger people.
You fill out the application and they tell you to go home and wait for something to come in the mail. If you don't get it in 2 weeks, you go back to the office. I'm assuming they'll be asking for more information, but maybe not. Sure, they asked for your personal information and your work history, but that was it.
Still waiting around on foodstamps. My appointment is the 14th, so hopefully I'll walk out of the office with a Link card. Gotta put together all the paperwork I'll know they'll want for that.
In the meantime, I've been helping my mom with her paperwork. I can't believe they make it so hard for her. Here's the deal: for medical aid/foodstamps/etc, etc, if you claim to be disabled, they want proof. (duh) BUT they want to see doctor's notes and info from only the past 6 months. How do you get that if you've been uninsured and unmedicated for years? She's brought them all her medical records from when she was first diagnosed with MS, but none of that stuff is recent. Basically, I have to go with her to her next doctor appointment and get the doctor to write down in her notes, all the symptoms my mom experiences related to the MS. Then I have to try and get the doctor to look at my mom's old med records and acknowledge in her own notes that the records show my mom was diagnosed in the past. Basically, I have to tell the doctor what to write. (spuh!?)
Then there's just the messed up fact of how the system works. So everything has dates, right? And paperwork has to be in by deadlines, right? But when you don't really know what they're going to want, it gets difficult. They don't tell you straight out that you need doctors' appointments, so by the time you schedule the appointment and manage to get into the office and manage to get the damn paperwork they wanted, the deadline has passed, and you have to start all over. Stupid, I know.
If my dad asks me one more time, "How's it going?" in relation to my job hunt, I might have to strangle him. What do you tell him? There are no jobs that I would even consider working? And all the ones I would, I've applied to, and heard nothing? Is that what you tell him? If that computer-hating, stuck in the past, soon to be 64 year old man ever looses his job, and has to get another one, I swear he'll just lay down and die. He has no understanding of how things work now. Don't get me wrong, I personally think it sucks that everything has to be done online, and employers really don't want to see you, don't want you to come in and make yourself known. I hate it, because that's how I learned to get a job, that's how I was raised: give a good impression, show them you're really interested, then when you get the job, show them you're a reliable and hard worker. Oh society, what have you degraded to? You send your resume and all these applications off into the interspace, and, what a surprise, nothing happens...
While reading some research stuff my mom emailed me, I realized I needed to clean out my mail downloads, and you wouldn't believe what I found... Having run across two or three letters from an angry, ugly-ending, ex, I realize how very dark my life was for a long period of time. I realized I'm lucky I didn't try to kill myself outright, instead of slowly drowning my woes into the bottom of a bottle. I realize I'm lucky my priorities were at least straight enough that I sobered up after 3 months and threw myself at my education with a vengeance.
Then again, for throwing myself into my education so completely, so all-consuming, the way I did, I'm kind of surprised I didn't try to off myself.
Now here I am, all that education, time, money, effort, energy... all complete losses, no way to recuperate any of all that spent... and for what? But I'm here, and looking at my track record, this, too, shall I survive.
THIS, my friends, THIS is the sign of our times! We have all been lied to, perhaps unintentionally, but lied to none the less. We were bred and groomed and educated to believe that you went to school, you worked hard, you finished school, you got a job, you worked hard, you attained some comfort in life, and the rest was all whatever until you died. Not true.
I went to school, I worked hard, I finished school (and did pretty well, I might add) and now I struggle to find a job. Seems like the map derailed a bit there.
I don't feel any shame in trying o get food stamps or unemployment, or whatever. Let's face it, ladies and gentlemen, we PAY for those services. Every single time we pay taxes, we PAY for those services. Why not take advantage of them? Well, the answer is because it's so frustrating that you don't want to deal with it. But I will. If I have to learn to help my mom, I might as well learn to help myself, and then maybe I can make one great big post on here about "How to get your well-deserved, tax-paid-for, Safety Net Services"... or maybe I could post myself to Craigslist as a personal assistant to those applying for the benefits. Then again, they have no money, so how could they possibly pay me to do it for them?
Sigh.
THIS is OUR time, and it is a dark time. It will not be dark forever, unless we sit back and let it be. Changes need to occur. We need to make it easier to get the safety net benefits we all occasionally need, because that's how people get so screwed. Mom told me today they were selling all these awesome foreclosed homes for $1000. Yes, you read that right. The banks are selling these $500k homes for $1,000.00. That's ONE THOUSAND. You can't even get a crap box beater car for a thousand dollars. And MAYBE, if the banks would have told the original home owners, "Hey, give us $1000 and we'll leave you alone for a while" instead of "Please pay: $50,000 [or your first born] by two weeks from today, or we shall foreclose" maybe if the banks had just taken $1000 from the original home owners, the original home owners wouldn't have lost their house, and there wouldn't be such a horrible state to the economy right now, people's lives wouldn't have been so shaken and crushed, they wouldn't be depressed and discouraged...
THIS is our time, ladies and gentlemen, and if we allow the horrible things to happen that keep happening, it will not get better. Only we can [prevent forest fires] make the changes we so desperately wish that our parents had made. So be proactive, and please at least vote for mayor in the upcoming elections. Please do a little research. Please fight the utilities and cable/internet companies and cell phone companies for every penny they don't really give you. Make sure people stick to their contracts, make sure they keep their appointments (how come if we cancel our appointment at the dr/dentist, within the 24 hours leading up to the appointment, we get charged, and if we're late, they move on, but we can sit there for hours and wait, and our time is not worth any money?) make sure you MAKE them have some business ethics, huh?
THIS is our time, to stand up, to pay attention, to stop letting people and companies do things TO us, ACT upon us, and to speak up instead. THIS is our time to TRY, to MAKE a difference, to DO.
I have seen the darkness, and I shall forge through it. I shall NOT go quietly! It's hard to not throw up your hands, lay down, and give up, but THIS is not the time for that... That will come when we are all old and dying. Now we are young of body, and we need to recoup the fire of youth in our souls, and we need to make a stand.
