Dear Life: Fuck You. And the horse you rode in on.
I’m gonna bitch. And I’m gonna bitch about everyone else bitching about shit. Shut up.
Poverty Sucks
Apologies to the real sleeping-on-dirt, eating-every-3rd-day poor: yes, I’m talking the U.S. version of poor.
I’ve been poor my whole life. It sucks. It’s got in the way every damn time.
- You, enjoying your a glass of wine with its 300% mark-up, bitching about ‘those’ people ‘taking’ our jobs. Screw yourself. Or go, apply for the job picking fruit, cleaning houses, cleaning shit. Do that job for a fraction of your wage without benefits. Anyone? I thought not.
- You, bitching how you’re upside down in your house? STFU. You and your spouse combine for $53,500 a year in income, had the balls to buy a half million dollar house with $5,000 down? Some half brick, half siding track home piece of crap than any idjut could tell wasn’t worth more than $300,000 – tops – and you blame the shitty mortgage company? Yes they suck, but guess what.. you do too.
- You, making more than $250,000 bitching about taxes. STFU. Is it bullshit you’re taxed as ‘heavily’ as Warren Buffet? Hell yes. What’s more bullshit is that – if you make use of the myriad of tax breaks available to you – you barely pay a percentage or two more than someone like me, who’s lucky to take home $20K a year.
- You bitching about how you didn’t make enough to retire because of the latest IPO fiasco? Bite me. It’s called ‘playing’ the market for a reason: it’s gambling, you lost.
Is it my fault I don’t make any money? You bet your ass.
But it sucks that if you’re single and working poor, you have no choice but to live payday to payday. Reach for the stars? Walk then run, soar, FLY!? Bullshit.
That’s not gonna fucking happen if you’re struggling in quicksand – and have been since you were 16, figuring out how the hell to pay for college (that bullshit promise of escape) because you’re fucking poor.
The Insiders Lucky Club, You’re Not Invited
There’s a reason the billionaire’s stories are so cool – and that they’re the exception to the damn rules. No one really does that shit.
“Stay in school, make good grades, get scholarship. Get degree, work harder, be professional and smart, do good work and you’ll get ahead.” Giant flaming pile of poo!
No one wants you to succeed – they want to use you and your ideas to further their career, not yours. It’s one reason I hated Devil Wears Prada; America’s supposed to be a meritocracy, but they demonized the ‘heroine’ for doing a good job and getting ahead.
I’ve done well at every job – in spite of myself, office politics, poor management. Didn’t matter; I didn’t smile and say “good morning” enough, didn’t kiss enough ass or make the connections everyone else already had.
How the hell was I to know that I had to make nicey nicey with the douchebags in middle management? Know not to call them out – tactfully, professionally, privately – for stealing my ideas or blaming me for their mistakes? Never mind, how the fuck to find the time between school, work and oh yes, the ever present job #2 (back in the day, waiting tables) because damn, that pesky light bill has to be paid – for all that career-building networking?!
Doesn’t matter. It’s all about who you know – and if you’re like me and know no one but other poor people sans connections, you’re totally boned.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
Why this rant? Because for every year I think ‘this is it, luck will finally break my way’ – three things hit to not just knock me down, but pull me right back under even deeper. This year it’s the fucking taxes of woman working two jobs.
Job #1 is my ‘chosen’ career – my own biz that’s been failing since it was started. Couldn’t find a job, so I created one of my own whilst looking. Pretty soon, no one wanted to hire the independent pro for a FT gig. Cue economy collapse of ’01, dots bombing, housing crash. Wash, rinse, repeat – I’m stuck taking on the lowest of the low-hanging fruit clients. I’m smart, capable and will work my ass off, but can’t find anyone to pay me what I’m worth.
And yes I’ve looked for a ‘real job’ and I got three words for you: hidden job market. Need a fucking telescope and decoder ring to find that sucker.
Job #2 is lifeline – the eating-shit that pays the bills, that you have to hide from everyone, gig. If I were to make it big, it will be great fodder for the Fast Company cover story but right now it just means I’m a big fat failure. BTW – I’m good at it, work my ass off, they love me; it’s a menial shit job that’ll never go anywhere. And I’m grateful to have it.
Now I’m being told I owe tens of thousands of dollars in penalties for not filing. Bad me, my fault. I KNOW. But fuck me on how to pay the accountants and the taxes when I can barely make rent?! And penalties that dwarf what me and my business have ever made?! FML.
Put this in your ‘you whiney bitch’ pipe and smoke it:
Between the two gigs, I put in at least 60+ hours of week of mentally taxing and/or physically exhausting work. Even if it is unpaid or unproductive (my never-ending client/job search).
I have one or two Starbucks – a year.
I don’t take backpacking trips to Europe. I’ve never paid more than $100 a night – split! – for a hotel. Screw that, almost every trip I’ve taken in the past decade: paid for by family, birthday and Christmas “presents” that still ended up costing me big money.
My car is a domestic, a used economy rental – at credit card like interest with my shit history.
The nicest pieces in my wardrobe: gifts and hand-me-downs.
I don’t go to pricey spas. I color my own hair. I practically live on sandwiches and daily food deals.
My only extravagances: a 5-year old Apple computer, I suppose my cable/internet could be from a cheaper shittier company, and my occasional escapes into movies and TV (which I watch – while working on something else!).
I have no one – no one who can truly help with anything more than pep talks, platitudes or microscopic pity loans. I have to rant like this here, unless I want to ruin any and all job prospects by coming out as a failing loser.
This is as good as I’ve had it in about 5 years.
I’ll shut up now.
I had 10 whole minutes of luck last week. It’s already gone 1,000 fold and I don’t know what I did wrong. Other than ‘wasting’ my time on the Internets like this. But hell, you’re reading it now aren’t you.
Posts I’ve never read, with clever Snarky Titles
