It's been a hell of a last 8 months.
Perhaps you've been spectating. Perhaps you've been so fully ground up in the gears of this economic apocalypse that there's no one around who can relate.
Me? I don't know. I've had my taste of it.
It started 8 months ago.
It was bizarrely quick. In a flash my boss and the HR person came in and told me that budget cuts had eliminated my position. There would be a meeting later that day informing everyone of the layoffs that had happened (I wasn't the only one). Any questions? If you can be gone by noon that would be great. Yes you can come in this weekend to pick up some of your larger office items.
Sigh.
To the jump.
Doing design for a non-profit is not so profitable even in the good times. In the bad times? Well thank god for unemployment. It was my one question to my boss actually. "What about unemployment?"
"We will do everything we can to make sure you get all you're entitled to."
The timing actually worked out well though, as a few months after I got laid off, my one investment (got out of the stock market years ago), a 4-plex (4 unit apartment building) that I own had a unit go vacant and it needed a ton of work. I bought the place almost 2 years ago, and it saw years of neglect before it ever saw me. Of the 4 units, 3 of which I'd overhauled, this last unit was the worst. 2 months of full-time work. At the time when I should have been spending as little as possible, I was forced to spend. A lot.
A lot of money, and time. The money I didn't really have. The time I did.
Time to listen to the news. Time to hear the Presidential race come to a close. Time to hang drywall and mud and sand. Listening to Sarah Palin talk about how I wasn't a real American.
Peeling out layers of floor and rotted subfloor, I heard I was lazy.
Tearing out and rebuilding door frames, I was a socialist.
Installing a new tub surround, I wanted to punish hard work.
Trimming out windows, I'm spoiled.
New countertops . . . scraping and repainting every kitchen cabinet drawer and door front, I wanted a nanny state.
Running the ducting for a hood vent, I was suffering from a mental recession.
Contorting myself in highly imaginative ways, all to install a new tub drain. I heard "Joe" the "Plumber" tell me how I wanted to punish him.
A new kitchen sink, I wanted America to fail.
Fuck.
And time and time again, I wanted one of those Republican fuckers to materialize in front of me. Hammer in my hand.
Sigh.
I had a lot of time to think of my dreams. I thought about my girlfriend's small business.
What was that? We liberals hate business?
Fuck we ARE business.
We want to punish hard work? What the fuck do you think I'm doing?
Two months later, just as I finished the unit, a friend of mine offered me a job. The November's unemployment numbers had just come out, I think it was 425,000, or something like that.
"I think I can get you a job."
"I'll take it."
But it wasn't design. It wasn't what I had gone to school for. Gone BACK to school for.
I'd be changing light bulbs. I'd be fixing things. It was something that I'd always been good at. It was a job.
Fast forward 3 months. I'm still working.
My girlfriend? Her business of 13 years? 10 employees?
She had to lay off 2 people. Everyone's hours are cut. Health insurance is gone. She's no longer taking a salary. I'm working whenever I can.
You know the whole Jon Stewart v. CNBC thing? My favorite part actually happened twice. First part, near the end of that first segment, Jon Stewart levels at the fawning "reporter" and Ponzi scheme "billionaire" guy and simply says, "fuck you!"
The next one is when Jim Cramer tries to weasel out of having been so utterly wrong. Jon Stewart again takes a deep breath, and says in the voice of someone so sick and fucking tired of being told that he's wrong when he's been nothing but right, "fuck you."
To all those Republicans out there who continue to live under their fantasy that they are somehow the real Americans, that somehow they're the ones who've sweated and bled and made this country, while we liberals have somehow just been cashing our trust fund checks . . .
With all due respect, which ain't much.
Fuck you.