Will this be me one day? If it wasn't for the fact just a little bit of cold would kill me, at least being spared crushing bills may come as relief as me and my shopping cart toddle down the street.
I know yesterday was the "love" holiday but I was not in a loving mood. My poor husband. He did make me a nice card though.
I don't know why my husband will not apply for disability and seems to put it off. But on the other hand no one will hire him due to his age and health and he knows he can't do the 12-14 hour days the newspapers want anymore. Now that our car is old and his clothes are even older, what does someone like that do? Should he write a fake resume? Should we run away and join a commune?
His career prospects seem to have hit a brick wall of no return. Even the free lance people quibble over 20 bucks. The work world in the USA sucks. If I was an employer, I would write an ad, no resumes and bullcrap. How come there isn't one that leaves the herd?
I had to tell my husband the other day, I cannot afford a rent that takes three fourths of my check, even if he pays the other bills with his freelance work. Say goodbye to the nicest apartment I've ever managed. It is still too small but I will miss the quiet. I have to go get on the waiting list for disabled housing. He can move in there with me too of course. He doesn't like that idea. He sees it as defeat while I am trying to make sure I can survive.
I will put us on the list, but maybe we won't need it. I am not sure. I am just trying to prepare. He saw this article and told me "There goes Peep woolgathering again!". Ok maybe I am a worry-wart. Well I will go work on my comic and calm down.
Your husband not wanting to apply for disability is all about freedom, I think. It is the number one thing for men, I've studied this, as it was, well, I studied men, I've been in many abusive marriages.
ReplyDeleteIt is so hard for a man to give up his freedom, that even marriage is a threat to it, that's why sometimes they drag their feet.
I think the disabled housing will be fine. I lived for years in a rent geared to income housing, and it was fine. The best part was the rent.
He got turned down for it before too, maybe afraid it would happen again? It's much more stringent. Too old and unhealthy to get normal job.....I fear him sliding through the cracks. He has caretaker duties pertaining to me too. Yes I understand the freedom thing too. He says he fears them cutting disability too. The 20% threat of a reduction I don't think made him feel better. We do have a good building down the street. I came up on the list years ago but we were then just over the yearly income line. Now we'd probably qualify. He says he doesn't want penalized for making more, which I understand, but this rent is squishing us. I have thought of cheaper options but they always take the quiet and safe away. [the disabled place I'd move into is in a safe good neighborhood]
DeleteHi, Joan -- freedom is definitely the issue. As far as applying for disability again goes, I don't have an issue with that -- it just can't be treated like some half-assed experiment, which is what happened. My impression is that you need somebody in your corner to navigate that maze, otherwise, you just get brushed off.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with the disability place is the structure of the deal -- the more you make, the more they take. So I don't think it would solve the financial problem that Peep describes.
In fact, that's the main issue for most people who require some sort of public assistance -- be it food stamps, welfare or whatever else you want to call it. If you try to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps," as the far right idiots keep on demanding -- they cut you off at the knees.
Hence, the reason why people remain tethered to that assistance -- the more you strive, the more you lose. I think about what happened last year, when my KS campaign injected a welcome shot of green into our lives -- only to see our ever-yuppifying area suck it all out of my pocket.
So I, too, am sour, but for different reasons. Part of the problem is the area we live in -- the times when you could get something better than a crackerbox that doesn't require you to sign over your firstborn are long gone.Throw in the lack of subsidized housing, or new apartment construction, and you've got a major problem. So I hear you there.
Then I think about how things got to this point. Every time I accepted a less than ideal job -- as in, less than the going rate, or, less than what you'd think shouldn't be an item of debate (decent working conditions, not getting yelled at if you don't jump right away, and so on) -- my lot got worse, not better, as time passed on.
Everybody kept telling me to "hang in there" (I don't know if they meant the rope you'd tie to the rock that you'd used to help jump over the cliff)-- but the calvary never showed up. Nobody lifted a finger to help me, and so, I got cast into the wilderness.
All I ever heard was either a) "Hang in there," or b) "I'll see what I can see do" -- neither of which c) helps me where I need it most (at the box office), nor will it solve all the issues that Peep describes so eloquently.
So I'm aware of things, trust me. At this point, I still want to make sure that I've exhausted all my other options, whatever they may be. I don't want to deal with the quibblers anymore, either -- it just takes time to find some new clients to replace the old ones.
Ultimately, I still think the best course is to develop our talents and go straight to the people who want them, instead of dealing with all the middlemen (or, as you call them, the quibblers -- I don't like them anymore than you do). Though the campaign hurt me in terms of the tax burden, I liked it because there was nobody dictating how much I can make. Instead of some middlemouth taking his cut, the money went straight to me, and we were able to buy some peace and quiet for awhile, at least.
So that's how I see it. If I have to surrender again, fine -- but not until I've run through whatever options still exist. I'll feel better about myself in the long run.
Hi my husband,
DeleteAnyhow yes we don't want another failed attempt at disability. I think the job system sucks. They are allowed to openly discriminate against age and health. You know I will be pissed for life about how you worked all those 12-14 hour days always underpaid, only to be thrown overboard on their whim. Disability is very hard to get now. The world believes anyone with a back problem can get on, though I question how one girlfriend of a relative who is healthy enough to walk a whole zoo, has never been in the mental hospital, and can do heavy cleaning with vigor was allowed to get on. It is strange what they put you through knowing about these cases.
Yes sadly you are right the more you make, the higher the rent goes, though they have some kind of cap, I fear that is probably high as well since they base it on the market rate. I'd have us just rent a room but that doesn't work when one even has a roomful of medical equipment they need to use daily.
Rentals are getting worse and worse, they raise rent everywhere and never the salaries or very rarely the disability. Yes the yuppies are raising prices here like crazy.
You know I have new beliefs about the job system. It should be illegal for someone to fire someone based on a "bad hair day" or the "youre not a good fit" crap. I still remember how you got a good eval at the ad agency and then they suddenly did a 360 on you. At will employment sucks. There are tons of narcs out there who seem to get their jollies destroying people's lives. Sadly in American culture, the way things are working it's not the hard workers raising up the ranks but the narcs and sociopaths. Count at least two of your old bosses among their number.
Maybe the disabled apt could give us a break on the rent. We need to know the cap of course. I know this place they could price us out without enough time very easily. Some of the greed out there knows no bounds.
Aw, I wish things could get better. And, yes, Mr. Peeps, I'm sure you are aware of things, and you are very trustworthy. Time will tell, and I feel a big change coming for both of you. But for now, relationships are hard in the best circumstances. One wants security, the other wants to be in charge of his life ie freedom. You both want good things. Freedom is not all about ego. It is about survival. It is what good men do.
DeleteI know what it feels like to jump through hoops. When I was trying to escape a bad marriage, I got into a rent geared to income apartment. At one point I did make a lot of money and it capped off at the market value which I would have been paying outside the system.
I just want to say, that both your feelings are very valid, in real terms. You both are making sense. And you are both being honest about your emotions.
Sometimes, when I look at my husband, when our feelings aren't matching, and he is against me on something, I'm sure I have daggers coming out of my eyes. And he is just like Mr. Peeps, and I can't.... well, you know. I have to try hard to understand him. And it sucks. And its the same for him too.
Sorry, I don't have any solutions, I live in Canada, my gov't is not the same. But it is my belief for marriage, that understanding is the key. But this is a tough time. You both want the right and best thing.
You hit a nerve with this one. All your articles about poverty do, but I love reading them because I can relate. Although I work, I also worry one day I will be homeless. And working at a low level job really sucks. You're just a thing, a cog in a wheel, easily discarded and easily replaceable. You can be fired if they don't like the way you look or for any reason at all because as a so called "right to work" state, workers have NO RIGHTS AT ALL. --Lucky Otter
ReplyDeleteThanks Otter. I worry about anyone in low level jobs and yes those can be ripped away any minute. I hope you are never homeless and will pray for you. Homelessness scares me I have almost been homeless. I think how they treat workers today is abusive and it's not just the fry guy but all the way up to middle management, everyone is treated like commodities not even human beings. In the past business was social and social connections but with everything so big and disconnected and globalism, there's no personal connections holding the worse behavior at bay. I think right to work means right to be fired and it's crap.
DeleteHi, Joan, good comments overall, but I just want to be clear on one point...it's not a matter of ego, it's a matter of self-preservation.
ReplyDeleteOr, to put it another way: I remember a local official sharing his definition of a good compromise. He saw it as one "where both sides coming out hurting a little bit."
Unfortunately, that definition never applied to all the bad deals I was always tricked or foced to accept in the past. I gave...and gave...and gave...and gave some more...but I never got anything in return. Zip. Zero. Nada.
When you are treated that way, like you're an unwilling subject of some evil science experiment, it tends to make you a bit wary. And less forgiving, too.
Despite the current issues that we have in our nest, I don't miss that era at all -- and, for the short term, I'll bet on myself.
Peeps, your points are well taken, too -- I have no problem with you putting your name down for the other housing.
I just hope we can get ourselves up and running in a better position than we have at the moment -- I don't who's driving me madder, the quibblers or the wretched pluimbing!
Your ill treatment in the work world has always deeply troubled me. I still don't understand it even today. In your case dear husband, your work results were there for the entire public to read. So it was weird, how people in the community would tell me what a great writer you were but you would end up with these bosses save for some exceptions who always never lasted long in the shark workplace themselves for very long, who were so awful.
DeleteIt troubles me how you did give and give, and they acted like throwing a man with a disabled wife over the side of the ship to go drown was A-OK with them. I was glad one got to pick pumpkins after his own lay off and devastation of endless lives, but even there, he is pretty spoiled with his wife holding a comfy middle class job that kept his fridge full and his suburban life with dog and three kids humming.
Some friend told me another name for JOB is Just Over Broke. Maybe they should come up with another anagram to point out how one can't depend on any of them anymore. Work hard and the boss gets a hang nail, and you are looking at the soup lines.
Thanks for understanding why I want to go on the list again. I wish they had some good over 55 cottages around here, but I don't want to leave the community had enough of that. The one disabled place is clean and safe at least.
I wish everything wasn't such a struggle. What is scary about us, is we seem to try so hard and the results are never seen. I had fun writing my Medicare appeal letter, and trying to figure out the final letter to the adoption court today. I am glad the plumbing is behaving. The quibblers are cheap. I am sure that particular quibbler spends 20 bucks a day just on eating out if not more.
We just have to stay off the streets. You know I'm too sick to hand life under the highway underpass. :p Maybe I am a worrywart maybe not. This world has gotten too crazy.
Love you