Bottom line: Scott Walker's Wisconsin, Scott Walker's Division of Equal Opportunity. Scott Walker's version of "creating jobs"?
So, I have posted a couple other diaries about my situation. I found a job on Craigslist last October, I was the only person in the entire state of Wisconsin to answer the ad, I was hired and would start the new job making boat covers in Eagle River WI the first week of March.
I had to buy a little house as no rentals at the time allowed cats. I have a 30-year mortgage now.
After three days of working for this place, the manager phoned me (from his home in Tampa Fl) and accused me of any and everything he could think up. He abused me like a drill sergeant abuses new recruits. The guy turns out to be 20-year Army.
He fired me, ostensibly for "lying about being able to use a commercial sewing machine".
To this day that position remains unfilled, while I am trying to pay what bills I can doing the very same boat-related sewing jobs here in Norther Wisconsin. Where the little sewing shop previously had no competition locally now they do by virtue of having brought me 250 miles out of Madison only to fuck me over after three days on the job.
Did the manager find out I am gay? A cursory web search can confirm that while a more persistent search could also reveal my health status.
Meanwhile I have been falling further and further into debt. I am starting to get desperate.
So there is a small sewing shop outside of Eagle River Wisconsin with two people working in it: Cindy, the mom, has run the business for 25 years or so, is 60 years old and wants to retire. The other person is Steve, age 58, and he too is thinking about retirement. I feel comfortable using their real names because the local paper just ran a big article about the shop, and they named the workers. Also Cindy's name is right there in her URL.
As I was told by Cindy, she had been running ads looking for a sewing machine operator for over a year. I found the ad on Craigslist after my own home-based leather biz looked like it was dying. One reason I wanted to shift from self-employment to a real day-job was to pay into my social security payout a bit more before I cannot work anymore. Deadheads selling quartz crystals in parking lots at the Shows do not pay in a lot of money to the government...
As part of her plan to eventually retire Cindy named her son Tim as manager. Tim lives in Tampa Florida and intends to manage remotely. He told me he has no intention of moving back home to Northern Wisconsin.
I didn't care much, I just thought that in a couple of years I would be the only one in the shop, and de facto manager.
I had really hoped this would be a job I could do for the next ten years or so.
So I move 250 miles from Madison to Eagle River, chasing that $12.00/hour Tim offered me. Have you ever moved in the middle of winter? I did, and its no fun at all. I left friends, doctors, dentists, everything figuring with the new job things would work themselves out. Eventually.
The shop opened for the season the first week of March. Before the first boats came in we would wrap up a pile of boat cushions taken in the year before. I dutifully jumped into the job, carefully taking my time with each cushion so as not to screw up the shops' reputation for excellent work.
On Day 2, I fill out the W-2 form for with-holdings. I give them my social security number.
During Days 1 and 2, I come to understand Cindy is a horrible gossip: Steve has COPD and a mountain of hospital bills; the last other sewing machine operator working there was Vicki, Steve's ex-wife who spent most of her time in Rehab, her son Tim cannot sew to save his life, and most curious of all, she has "another son" who is a detective in Las Vegas.
Why should she have to tell me any of that, most of all the part about her "other son"?
The Detective.
This job was becoming a daytime soap.
After only three days of cushions and not getting to boat covers at all (the main point of the job) the new manager calls me from Sunny Florida. He says things no employer should ever get away with. It was painfully obvious he was out of his depth when it came to working with employees as opposed to callously ordering grunts around.
He accused me of lying about being able to operate a commercial sewing machine. The only person in the entire state to answer his ad, somehow I am not good enough?
I've been sewing leather since 2001. I can sew. I own my own commercial machine, Consew 206RB-5. I can take machine & motors apart and put them back together again, and continue sewing.
I sensed he was making a concerted effort to abuse me to the point of my quitting. Everything he accused me of was utter bullshit.
Going to the bathroom became me "disappearing" from my position! I have failed to, on my first days, meet Mom's "average" of 8 to 9 cushions a day!
I'm 53: the youngest person in the shop, and I have to ask Mom permission to go potty?
Mom has been doing this particular type of sewing for 25 years. I can't have a week to ramp up?
The new manager, in Florida, fires me, bans me from returning to the property; my little scissors and seam ripper would be mailed to me, along with a check.
To this day, the position remains unfilled - its still a two-person shop with both people yearning to retire while their new manager basks in the Florida sun.
Had I experienced discrimination? I certainly think so.
I file my discrimination suit with the state of Wisconsin, and of course end up with nothing. This is Scott Walker's Wisconsin, after all.
Stuck now 250 miles from anyone I know, I have tried to make a go if it. During last summer I tried to get my name out & about with the boat crowd, and was able to more-or-less (mostly less) pay the bills. But now winter has struck, its no longer boat season.
My own websites, once a good source of cash flow, are strangely inactive.
So here I am: fairly broke, mounting utility bills pushing four digits, the winter season barely begun. Frankly I am disgusted with the position I am in.
Through out this all, my AIDS Service Organization (ASO) tells me their two lawyers, available to assist their clients facing discrimination, will not be helping me, this is some type of Right-To-Work or similar crap. Two, count 'em TWO lawyers supposed to be working for their HIV+ clients, but not me.
That's the part of this story that really fucking disgusts me.
AIDS Service Orgs making nice comfy jobs for themselves while their "clients" slowly fade out of the picture. I have a few horror stories I could tell, perhaps another diary another day.
So. I now stand before you, hat in hand. A few fellow kossacks have already stepped up and very kindly helped kick off my GoFundMe page, my effort to return to one of my earlier artforms/income sources. Namely, the entire content of a pottery studio offered by a retired art teacher hoping to finance his way into a new medium, glass.
Once upon a time, I paid the bills selling ceramic hand drums!
It didn't provide tons of cash flow, but it helped pay the bills.
So this is the whole point of my diary: I have a GoFundme page trying to acquire a bunch of pottery gear. This would help me as well as the retired art teacher.
I also have a paypal account at patrick@leatherslings.com
So, this is a long pathetic story of a very stupid situation. Thus I stand before you, cap in hand, a last-ditch effort to maybe make it into the new year in one piece. Thanks for reading.