Monthly Archives: August 2014

The difficulties of honest communication between adult children and parents

August 27, 2014VentingdysfunctionAlecto

I’ve applied for a job. It’d be a pay raise. It’d also be a promotion. And relocating to a city who’s cost of living is nearly three times my current city’s. And living apart from my husband for at least a year. But I haven’t been offered the job yet, rather I’m just working the process to see if they’re going to make an offer that makes it worth taking that path.

I chat with my mother by text rather frequently. Today she’s trying to coach me into thinking about big picture life things like babies. By text. And she’s sharing that she has no regrets from turning down jobs and choosing to be a SAHM for me. Because the economic situation she and my father were in is close to the situation my husband and I are in, so her choices should reassure me that it’s all going to work out if I exit the workforce or stay in my current job where there is no reasonably foreseeable possibility of promotion, pay raise, or even COLA.

I know that at some point my parents debt load exceeded $300,000. And they managed to put my brother through college and raise me. But most of their debt was mortgage. And the house was worth about three times my dad’s annual salary at the time they purchased the house. So within the conventional wisdom of managing finances.

My student loan debt alone is over $300,000. (Yes, I had scholarships, but it still turned out that high). I think there might’ve been an oops as the loans got shuttles from servicer to servicer, but I didn’t keep enough documentation to be able to prove that. And I can’t afford to hire a professional who knows how to track that stuff down and get it fixed. Then there is the credit card debt and the mortgage and the car payment. Plus my husband’s debt for his education. And my husband doesn’t make as much as my dad did. So, the end result is my mom has talked me out of having babies because there is absolutely no way I can afford them.

It’s hard to share the immensity of the problem in the first place. But even when I do, having to listen to experiences that completely fail to acknowledge the fundamental differences of our situations makes me cranky. But at the same time, I’m not sure I could handle a tough love of approach where she tells me I’ve made my bed and now I’ve got to sleep in it.

The Evils of Facebook

August 16, 2014Social Mediaangrytisiphone

Theoretically, we all know the benefits and evils of Facebook and other social media websites. But do we? We have entered an age of instant gratification. We want it now, have to have it NOW, or the world just might stop rotating. No one is taught to work hard or wait for their shit anymore. But that’s an argument for another day.

Facebook allows us to “engage” with people from the past and stay in contact with new friends and old alike. What it also allows us to do, is be needy self centered jerks that do not think about others and how our posts affect them. Now I’m not talking about post that concern you supporting your cause. If someone is honestly angry, because you support the “gay cause” or the Tea Party or the Whiteacre Hillbilly Farm, who gives a damn. We are fully entitled to believe what we want and support what we will. I will have more later on the gay cause, it is basic human civil rights people. You don’t stop getting equal protection because you are homosexual.

Anyway, Facebook evils. When you sit around all day, stalking people on Facebook, only to repost what’s happening, you are playing a dangerous game. Recently a good friend passed away, it was a weird medical fluke and she is gone. The worst part of the whole thing is that one of those ”

people”

with too much time on her hands, posted it to Facebook, tagging the dead girls family and close friends. I know what you’re thinking, ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME? Well it’s worse, her dad found about the death via that Facebook post.

The girl that posted the death details had no business posting it on Facebook. She was never good friends with the dead girl. She was just another Facebook friend. Posting girl went too far. The high school class the deceased girl graduated with could have waited an extra day to find out about the death, instead of instantly.

It is ridiculous and pathetic and just plain sad. So for all of us out there, learning hard news via Facebook, please just stop sharing and posting.

Raising the minimum wage

August 15, 2014Current social issuestools in congressAlecto

So, it’s kind of depressing that anyone who makes minimum wage and has to support additional people is living in poverty, or way below poverty if they’re in a high cost of living area. Seriously, look it up, unless you’re single without dependents, minimum wage pay is below the poverty line for the entire freaking country.

Some people are concerned that raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 will hurt businesses (it certainly will make payroll hurt more for a while) and result in job loss (maybe, maybe not, it’s basically speculation at this point).

Maybe the solution is to have this conversation every two years instead of once a decade. There should be incremental raises of the minimum wage that correspond with the overall rate of inflation and growth of the economy. After all if congress deserves multiple raises within a decade, surely the people who are supposed to pay the taxes that support Congressional raises should make more money so they can pay more taxes…. Okay, so that line of reasoning got away from me and came out pro-government instead of pro-individual, but the point remains minimum wage needs to be evaluated frequently.

So, three years after the last increase in minimum wage it could have been increased to $8.50, and then three years after that to $9.75, and then this year to $11.00 without creating an economic “shock and awe” that rattles businesses, and leads to more people being able to buy the stuff that businesses sell on their own dime rather than the taxpayers. So many benefits from having frequent minimum wage conversations instead of waiting until it reaches damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t crisis levels.

But Alecto, didn’t you hear that the economy was bad? Yeah, I did. I lived through it too. And it’s still sluggish, but sacrificing the low income earners is what keeps it sluggish and increases the strain on various safety-net programs. People who don’t make enough money to invest spend all their money on rent and consumer goods. If they have more to spend, money keeps circulating in the economy so businesses stay in business.

So congress, pass a law that requires you to increase the minimum wage every time you increase your own salaries….

Like a Bad neighbor, we’re never there — or over commitment at a national level

August 10, 2014Current social issuesAlecto

The world has multiple humanitarian crises at the moment. There is the fighting in Gaza (when is there not fighting in Gaza?), there is Syria, there is an Ebola outbreak, there is the Ukraine, etc. Then there are the Central American CHILDREN who have risked life and limb, left everything they know and everyone they love, to try to seek ASYLUM here. In our country.

Asylum is a big deal ya’ll, and the most important of these crises for us to address as quickly as possible. Once we develop a plan and solution to provide for these children then we can focus efforts on the next most pressing crises and work our way down the list. These are not divide-and-conquer situations, most of them are unite-and-improve situations.

With respect to the children refugees, I would suggest the solution is not sending them back to raping, pillaging, and drug violence because we don’t want to plant the seeds for a wave of retributive semi-domestic terrorism in twenty years. If we send them back, some of these kids will survive, become war-hardened and focus efforts on those that did them wrong. We don’t need to creat a bin laden-like guerrilla leader on our southern border.

Our entire country was founded and developed by people trying to get away from persecution or war in their homelands. We did really bad things to native peoples in our quest to get away from bad things and create a society that provided safety for refugees whether they’re white, black, brown, yellow, or whatever other shade human skin tones come in. We cannot have a national mid-life crises and say, “I don’t want to do it anymore.” This is our identity and we must continue to provide sanctuary to peoples of different stripes and creeds.

We need to find ways to provide these children refuge with good shelter, healthy food, appropriate clothing, competitive education, and due process of law. We need to bring them into the fold and make them part of us. They’re children. Really brave children. Don’t punish them because they’re only children and can’t yet fix them problems in their home countries. They need our help. And they need it now.

When in doubt, go ahead and hit them with the bat.

August 6, 2014Uncategorizedangrytisiphone

Like most of us here, I am an over extended thirty something. Part of my over-exertion is my need to continue to participate in competitive sports that I am far too old and far too angry to be playing. Recently I started a new job, working my ass off to get “where I want to be”. The new job is a wonderful move for me and for my future. However, part of that new wonderful job, is working real hours, you know, 8 to 6 without a lunch break. Today, after working those real hours, I was needed for a sporting event. We will call this sporting event, softball. I am a fairly important player on a co-ed team. This “team” includes my husband, sister-in-law (SIL) and SIL’s husband, among other friends. For the most part, the entire team includes a bunch of jackasses reliving a college /high school dream that didn’t come true.

At one point tonight, I said I wanted to celebrate our losses with a cupcake everyday for the next week. My SIL, who was a good friend, before she became my sister-in-law, commented that cupcakes are a lot of calories that I shouldn’t be eating, because I really couldn’t afford to get any larger. For reference, I am 5’7″ and 145 pounds. She is probably 5-10 lighter. It was a shitty snide comment that was inappropriate on so many levels. And really truly pisses me off.

Shortly after this lovely interaction with my dear friend, her husband decided to teach another player how to “shot gun” a beer. As you might assume, my first reaction was WTF who doesn’t know how to shot gun a beer? But anyway, as I was trying to clean up and pack up bats, balls and mitts, these two lovely gentlemen were attempting to shot gun their beers and kept sloshing beer on me. When I asked them to move, it was more shitty comments about how I knew what they were doing and I could have moved before they started.

I should have just hit them with the bat. . . all of them, every single one.

Debt sucks

August 6, 2014Current social issues, DebtAlecto

Debt collection is a frustrating endeavor. Whether you work in the business of collecting debts, or you are a person who is believed to owe money, frustration abounds. Heaven help those of us who actually owe money and hit hard patches that make repayment difficult.

In this post I’ll talk about the debtor perspective. Full confession, I’m not perfect and I’ve overextended myself. With the help of a consumer credit counseling agency things are getting back on the right track and the creditors are getting paid because I want to honor my obligations. Maybe if healthcare were more affordable in this country (and education), I wouldn’t find myself in this boat because I wouldn’t have delayed paying off credit cards in favor of medical bills, but that’s another post for another time.

In spite of my admitted lack of perfection, in my 10+ years of being a debt-carrying credit card user, I’ve never missed a payment and only been late three or four times (and not even by a full 30 days). But last month, the payment on one credit card was underpaid by $6 due to an ongoing miscommunication between the agency and the creditor. Because I’m on a plan, I no longer submit payments directly to the creditors, even in the face of such errors. Since July 28, when I received the email from the creditor alerting me to the underpayment, I have received 23 phone calls to try to collect that money ($6). The agency has called the creditor and worked out a solution to this situation and the money will be in their hands on Friday, but the calls keep coming.

23 phone calls for one $6 shortage on one account.

I can’t even imagine how much the stress level would increase if you multiplied that 23 phone calls by all the accounts I have. Some people reading this may be thinking, “that’s what you get for {being overextended} {being a lazy bum} {being sloppy}.” I’m just a microcosm of our society though. And generally speaking, I’m one of the lucky ones. I went and got those degrees that are part of the “pathway to prosperity.” I’ve got decent jobs that pay well (could be better but it could be worse too).

I heard an interesting story on the radio today about the recently publicized statistic that nearly 40% of credit users have debts on collections. According to the program’s speakers, companies buy overdue accounts for pennies on the dollar in exchange for the right to collect the debt. However, the original creditor makes NO guarantee that the information they are providing is accurate. Thus, collectors are calling people claiming they owe money. Many do, but many don’t because it’s already been paid, disputed, or discharged in bankruptcy. Good people are paying money they don’t owe because they are sick of getting 23 phone calls in a week. Good people are paying because they can’t figure out how to solve the problem. Good people are paying because they can’t afford a lawyer who might be able to figure out how to clear up the errors.

Hello from Tisiphone

August 3, 2014Uncategorizedangrytisiphone

Tisiphone from Greek mythology was one of the Furies. She was the one who punished crimes of murder; parricide, fratricide and homicide. Parricide — the act of killing one’s parents. Fratricide — the act of killing one’s brother. Also, along the lines of killing one’s parents. . . patricide is the killing of one’s father and matricide is the killing of one’s mother.

When I picked this pseudonym, I didn’t really know what Tisiphone meant. Thank God for Wikipedia. Oddly, the pseudonym very uniquely fits me and my beliefs. Looking forward to sharing my rantings with the world.

Cheers,
~T~