Life's Little Injustices (Take XIV): "Nobody Takes Them On"

<:Company Town (Cover)

By Madeline Ashby>

Company towns brim with their own distinct rhythms, though not always for your benefit. The latest reminder, for me, came during my weekly Tuesday trip to the bank, to withdraw my $200-plus weekly transcription money that helps (just about) tread water at the moment.

Here at this branch, you'll always see a new face, and this Tuesday's no exception. In this case, it's a mid-sized woman with reddish-blond hair, tortoiseshell glasses, close to my six-foot height. "Oh, hi," I tell her. "You must be new. You here to stay, or on loan from another branch?"

"No, just started, so this my second week."

"Well, hello from the rest of us," I said, and handed her my withdrawal slip. "Where are you coming from?"

Her mouth froze into a taut, almost-there smile. "Well, I used to work at SpinStream, as an intellectual property attorney." (Reckoner's Note: In this case, a mystery corporation of international repute that produces all manner of stainless steel dryers, refrigerators and washing machines, among other home appliances.) 

"Okay, so what happened, then?"

She walked to the drive-up window, to pull up my account, and get the money out of the drawer. "Well, I was there for almost 10 years. Then I got this notice. They were rolling our department into another one, so I was getting laid off, essentially, and oh, yeah, here's your severance." 

She walked back to her booth, and passed out my bills: fup, fup, fup. "Funny thing, though. There were five of us in that department, and we all got that notice. We're all over 50, too. Imagine that."

"Well, you definitely don't look it..."

"Thanks."

i tucked my bills into my wallet. "Well, I know these things are moonshots, but did you check with a lawyer, and figure out your options, if any?"

Her almost-there smile froze back into place. "Oh, yeah, I talked a couple. Nobody takes them on." She paused for effect. "Nobody. And it's not like I can go back, because there's one firm in this town that handles intellectual property, except..."

Now it was my turn to fill in the blank. "It's run by our former mayor, who basically is the firm."

"Exactly." She needed. "But that's okay. I like this job better now, anyway. Less drama." 

Really? I wondered. I sure hope so. As of mid-September, she's still here, so time will tell how her experience works out.

But fall I could hear, as I replayed the conversation, over and over in my head, were the sounds of good old boy back slaps, followed by the metallic clink-clink of golf clubs and wine glasses, as yet another sweetheart deal roared to a giddy conclusion, amid the anticipatory thrum of a town power broker's cellphone stirring to life, throbbing with the promise of yet another hustle beckoning over the horizon.

Like I said: company towns hum with their own distinctive rhythms. But not for the better, and never for your benefit. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before Pullman's Ghost Eats Your Soul....

...Just Kidding, Boys 'n' Girls)

ARS Technicia: You Want Some Weird Futurism?

Start Reading Company Town:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/06/company-town-is-one-of-the-weirdest-science-fiction-novels-of-the-summer/

Life's Little Injustices (Take XII): Two Lives, Interrupted

<Photo/Collage: The Reckoner>

<i.>

36 Years (& Out)

I'd just finished a hard day's night of proofreading, which happens to me every couple o'weeks, I've worked with this client, a local newspaper publisher, for a dozen years now, so we've got the routine down. This week, we spent an hour or two going over the latest edition at 2:30-ish, then adjourned, for various boring reasons, until 11:30 p.m. 

Some editions take longer to sort out than others, so we didn't wind down until 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. ... which is when the usual small town gossip creeps into the conversation. My client asks, "You heard what happened to Lady B?"

"No," I responded. "Not good news, I take it?"

"She put it out on her website about a month ago," my client said. "She got pushed out the door at the radio station, because they want to hire younger people, and pay them cheaper."

"No surprise there, I guess. So what's she say, then?"

"Well, she's found some other lower-level job, and she's barely making it. She almost lost her house, but managed to save it. She's really depressed."

"Gee, I can't imagine why," I said. "Well, guess I'll have to check that one for myself. Goodnight, then."

"Goodnight." Click!

The minute we hang up, I head to Lady B's website, where (sure enough) she's posted her account. She recounted watching her station's "money-grubbing management" methodically run off other older (now ex-) colleagues, and replace them with younger people, part-timers, or nobody (as so often happens). Lady B thought her lengthy tenure would ensure a place on the payroll, but, of course, that assumption turned out to be mistaken ("the only job I ever had").

So that's how she found herself escorted off the premises, during the first week in January ...without a chance to say goodbye to anyone, let alone a going away party, nor even a token recognition for her service. The stress associated with such a sudden, drastic loss of income has left Lady B racked with anxiety, depression, and shortness of breath. If it weren't for her son's support, "I'd have immediately moved away," she writes. "I feel so alienated here now."

And that's before we get to the people who melted away, once the word got out -- who only befriended her, apparently, "because of what I did for a living,"  as Lady B writes, leaving a potential support network shredded, without a second thought. "We're talking about losing a lifetime. And I'm still broken." Having been voted off the island myself a couple of times...I can relate, to put it mildly.

What's really disconcerting here is, we're talking about someone who's well-known locally, who's emceed at beauty pageants, and served as grand marshal for this parade, or a judge at that cooking contest, things of that nature. One time, Lady B gave a presentation to our depression support group: just one of many projects on her day planner, it seemed, that she did without fanfare.

Obviously, if someone like her isn't secure, nobody is. But, then again, I find myself thinking -- Trump's words to the contrary -- America won't make itself great again, until we embrace we start lifting each other up, and embrace that idea once more. Until that day arrives, we won't even be middling. Or something like that.

<Photo/Collage: The Reckoner>

<ii.>

Dumpster Dive (Take I)

The next night, I found myself driving back from a music rehearsal, heading back to my apartment complex in the kind of frigid, unforgiving weather that only the Midwest can dish out.

I swung around the corner of our building, and the dumpster behind it. I noticed a bicycle leaning against the dumpster. Two or three plastic bags crammed with returnable pop cans were tied to the handlebars. I spotted a larger garbage bag sprawled across the top of the dumpster.

Just, then, a young man began hoisting himself out of our dumpster (which had only been emptied the day before). He wore a knit cap and a plaid Carhartt jacket. He didn't look a day over 30, even if the black patch of five o'clock shadow creeping across his face seemed to suggest otherwise.

Not wanting to spook him, I looked away, and rounded the corner, following the oval drive to  our building. I parked in front of it, and began hauling out the groceries.

Just then, the young man shot around the corner. He briefly waved at me, and I waved back. Hope his haul was good, I told myself. Only yesterday, we'd had a brief outburst of spring-like temps in the 40s and 50s. He must have gotten most of it then, I thought, since we'd fallen back today into our familiar teeth-chattering mode (high of 20 degrees, real feel, 10), so I'm sure he wouldn't have found too many cans then.

I wondered how often he plied his trade. The scene reminded me of a comment made by the guitarist of a certain well-known '60s proto-punk band, on his efforts to get a record deal on his own recognizance: "Whenever I actually get these guys on the phone, they're always saying, 'Wow, cool! It's great talking to you!" Then came the punchline. "But you know how it is. It's a young man's world."

Which world? I wondered. And what kind of world is this, anyway?

Not that I had time to ponder the point. Tonight, the world of transcription awaited me, and I'd need to rack up X amount toward my weekly goal ($200, $250-plus and up), in my never-ending quest to make that monthly nut. So hustled inside, with two or three grocery bags in my hand. Duty called, I guess. Or something like that. --The Reckoner

The Vanishing Male Worker

The Vanishing Male Worker

"Working, in America, is in decline. The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent. More recently, since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too. The United States, which had one of the highest employment rates among developed nations as recently as 2000, has fallen toward the bottom of the list.

"As the economy slowly recovers from the Great Recession, many of those men and women are eager to find work and willing to make large sacrifices to do so. Many others, however, are choosing not to work, according to a New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll that provides a detailed look at the lives of the 30 million Americans 25 to 54 who are without jobs.

"Many men, in particular, have decided that low-wage work will not improve their lives, in part because deep changes in American society have made it easier for them to live without working. These changes include the availability of federal disability benefits; the decline of marriage, which means fewer men provide for children; and the rise of the Internet, which has reduced the isolation of unemployment.

"At the same time, it has become harder for men to find higher-paying jobs. Foreign competition and technological advances have eliminated many of the jobs in which high school graduates like Mr. Walsh once could earn $40 an hour, or more. The poll found that 85 percent of prime-age men without jobs do not have bachelor’s degrees. And 34 percent said they had criminal records, making it hard to find any work.

"The resulting absence of millions of potential workers has serious consequences not just for the men and their families but for the nation as a whole. A smaller work force is likely to lead to a slower-growing economy, and will leave a smaller share of the population to cover the cost of government, even as a larger share seeks help.

“They’re not working, because it’s not paying them enough to work,” said Alan B. Krueger, a leading labor economist and a professor at Princeton. “And that means the economy is going to be smaller than it otherwise would be.”

Read this one carefully: it's the New York Times, the economy is NOT recovering from the Great Recession when most of your population is unemployed fools! You ever notice that constant discrepancy in our news? The elites who manage our news, see this as business as usual. The article is cloying in it's acceptance of this as the norm.

Notice the age of the men with no jobs, begins at age 54. 20 years ago, they were the 34 year old and below crowd being labeled as "slackers". They are Generation X and the millennials! That is the thing being ignored in this article.

Did the Baby Boomers not retire? One chart I saw accompanying this showed the over 55 and above crowd, as having good jobs unless they had retired already. How come Generation X hasn't been able to move into those jobs of people who were more numerous? It blows my mind. We are playing big time for the selfish Baby Boom generation who have 47 times more the wealth.

Look at that poor guy in the picture, he is probably living at home with his Mom! One sees this so often now, shamed 40 and 50 something people living at home with their parents.

The job system is failing when a man can't even get a job to support a family. This came for the ghettos first and now it is across the spectrum. Get in a time machine, what kind of country do you see when a man can't get a job. They don't marry, don't have children unless they are illegitimate, can't buy a house or build a community. When you have nothing but low wage work, your life is reduced down to survival, not building a future. The future will suck, and the blame for this will lay at the feet of the greedy who have destroyed livelihoods for millions--The Squawker

More Advice For Fiftysomethings: Ramen Noodle Nation Primer #2

See the Frustrated Fiftysomething Guy,

Who took the President's other newfound piece of advice:

"So nobody will hire you?  Start your own business!"

Funnily enough, the unemployment counselor said the same thing.

Suitably encouraged, Frustrated Fiftysomething Guy

Dumped whatever he hadn't spent from his 401K,

Into his own hardware store downtown.

He splurged on a splashy grand opening party,

Took a crash course in social media,

And talked up his new venture every chance he got.

Now, fast forward six months later:

The customers aren't kicking down the doors,

Because they can't afford so much as a circular saw.

All those 20 and 30 percent off sales didn't help, either.

Now, Frustrated Fiftysomething Guy is falling behind on rent,

Owes money to his suppliers, and can't afford to advertise.

At this rate, he'll probably close his doors

Before the first anniversary passes.

By the time he's done, Frustrated Fiftysomething Guy

Will have burned up the remainder of his 401K,

Without any immediate hope of paying

All those back taxes and small business loans.

There's one silver lining, though...maybe he can spend

The last night's take on a Consolation Pub Crawl

With all the other Failed Entrepreneurs

In the neighborhood.

Let's face it...how many more backyard bakers,

Carpenters, haircutters or mechanics

Do we need right now, anyhow?

Nobody's got the money to hire 'em!

--The Reckoner

Advice To Fiftysomethings: A Ramen Noodle Nation Primer

See the President giving an interview.  

His brow wrinkles with concern.

"When you lose your job in your 50s, it's a lot tougher," he admits,

"Because a lot of employers say to themselves,

'Well, I might have to pay those people more...'

No kidding, Sherlock!  So what's the answer?

Well, how about doing a little retraining,

Preferably for an industry that's hiring now?

Don't get too picky, though: on average, older workers

Stay idle for 60 weeks, versus 38.5*

For their younger, (presumably) perkier counterparts.

OK, maybe that's why all those "WE BUY GOLD" places

Are making so many inroads throughout Small Town USA...

Along with the payday loan outlets, bingo halls

And fast food franchises!

Next time you see Mom, Dad, Grandpa

Or someone else in your immediate family

Sweating away for minimum wage, tell yourself:

"It's a dirty job, but at least they get to do it."

Then pray like hell it won't be your turn some day:

McJobs are pretty unforgiving places for atheists.

  --The Reckoner

(*Source: American Association Of Retired Persons, Public Policy Institute)

To anyone who ever read  -- and dug -- MAD Magazine's 

primers of the '70s...this post is for you.