I was at work yesterday. I am a Senior IS Business Analyst at a good privately owned company in a small town in Central North Carolina. The employees there are mostly local, and are mostly small town conservative types. Good, hard working people with families to feed and lives to live. Some more educated than others, but each and every one shows up there every day for one reason only. That reason is not because it's fun. The reason is that in order to keep feeding their families and providing for them in a responsible manner, not having been born with Silver Spoons in their mouths they have to work for a living. Just like me.
Yesterday, I heard something said during a casual conversation of a group of myself and some co-workers that set me off like a string of top of the line Chinese fireworks. One of our department co-workers is a 50-something teabagging type. He is quite the Obama basher and we spar often enough, although usually just over the usual teawinkie silliness that is easily brushed aside and mocked. But this time, our local right winger went WAY over the line and called OUR fellow tragically unemployed Americans "the funemployed!"
I'm sure that all color had to have drained from my face, because a couple of the other conservative but still thoughtful people in the group were looking at me like something might be wrong. I'm also positive that what was said, in the context of the people on unemployment were enjoying their time off while loafing around on the taxpayer's dime was equally insulting to them as it was to me. You see, there are a shitload of unemployed people in this small town, just as there are in towns and cities, small and large all over this country. Everyone knows of friends and family that are out of work due to the shitty economy that the Republicans left to us. Most of us, whether Democratic or Republican also know that the fact is that the Republicans left us in a world of hurt and that ALL of us working stiffs here in America are just trying our hardest to cope and make ends meet because of it.
So, I went off. I simply could not help myself. No, I did not raise my voice, or become threatening in any way. I went off with a mocking rant that I'm quite sure seared Mr. Teawinkie down to the bone. Well, it should have, but I guess you have to have a goddam heart in the first place to feel that kind of thing.
My response was pretty much as I'm typing below, although I was seeing red and don't remember each word verbatim.
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As if taking in less than half of your original salary through unemployment payments and still having the same bills you had prior to losing your job is just a FUN time, right? I mean, you get to spend your time frantically looking for work so your family can keep their home and do really FUN stuff like eat, right?
Then, to add to that great time that you are having, since you are no longer employed, you no longer have your employers health care insurance. You have NO IDEA how much FUN it is when one of your family members gets ill and you have no way to pay for their medical bills that are piling up on top of your mortgage, utilities, food, clothing, auto payment, auto insurance, and all that good stuff.
On top of that, there is nothing more FUN than feeling the rush of adrenalin that comes with knowing that you've been busting your ass harder just trying to find a job than you ever did when you had one, and then your unemployment payments run out and you have absolutely NO income at all. Your family is looking to you to support them and they are circling the drain with you while the damned Republicans in Congress are worried more about making the President look bad than they are about caring for Americans that have spent their lives working hard to make that American dream come true for themselves and their families.
Yeah, those guys are havin' a fuckin' blast!
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One co-worker said "Yeah, no kidding." The winger just kept quiet. I went in search of blood pressure medication.