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>

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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

Life's Little Injustices (Take XI): "Hey, Where's Mike?"

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Something seemed wrong lately at our friendly neighborhood Spartan grocery store. The rhythms of life seemed, somehow, a little bit off. I'd noticed it building, slowly but surely, over the last couple weeks. The standard employee banter had lost its usual edge, or even seemed a tad forced, at times. The eye contact became more hit and miss. But those weren't the only indications, as I quickly discovered.

Before long, odd little signs started popping up at the checkout lanes: "WE ARE SORRY, BUT WE CANNOT ACCEPT WIC OR BRIDGE CARDS (Reckoner's Note: for food stamp recipients) AT THIS TIME. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE." Soon enough, we'd end up feasting our eyes on this little gem: "21 AND OVER IS THE LAW! YOU MUST SHOW ID WHEN PURCHASING ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES. NO EXCEPTIONS!!"

How odd, I told myself, since 21+ is the gold standard in most jurisdictions nationwide? Or is somebody trying to underscore something that we already know? What gives, exactly? 

I got my answer soon enough, on my nightly trip to score a two-liter or two of Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi.

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I found myself standing behind a gent with his own modest haul of beer -- a six-pack of something or other, if I recall correctly -- and assorted snack food items. Suddenly, he popped the question: "Hey, where's Mike?"

The cashier furrowed her brow. "What you do you want with him?"

"You know, Mike," the customer persisted. "The guy with the shirt and tie, carrying the big, oversized cell phone..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," the cashier responded. "He was here 10 years. Well, he's not here anymore."

"Really?" The customer frowned. "Why not?"

The cashier sighed. "We got bought out a couple weeks ago, by the son of the current owner." She explained that his father wanted to get out, retire, enjoy some well-earned rest, that type of thing.

The customer jerked a thumb at the signs. "Oh, and that's why you can't take..."

"Exactly."

A-ha, I thought. They're transferring the license owner to the new regime, which is why the food stamp cards are on hold for awhile.

"Okay, so what became of Mike?"

"Well, whenever a new owner comes in," the cashier explained, "they typically prefer to bring in their own people, new blood, whatever you call it. The only way that Mike was gonna stay here, they told him, was that he'd have to start over..."

"Wow!" The customer sucked in a breath or two. "You mean, he'd have to go back out on the floor?"

<iii.>

"Pretty much, that's what it would have meant." The cashier frowned. "He didn't wanna do that, so that's why he's gone."

The customer finished counting out his change. "Man, that sucks. I liked the guy."

"Well, that's what's happened," the cashier sighed, a little harder this time. "Anything's possible when a new owner comes in. Right now, there's a lot of changes going on..." She gestured toward the signs. "And we don't know yet what's gonna happen."

"Wow, that's too bad." The customer finished scooping up his change into his pocket, grabbed his six-pack and snacks, now safely tucked into their cheap plastic bags, and walked out.

Within a minute or two, I followed out the door. I thought about all these times that I'd seen Mike, who presented the upbeat facade of the local store manager better than most of his cohorts I'd seen. Then I thought of him coming home, and breaking the news to his family, a forty- or fiftysomething-plus man effectively hearing, "Sorry, kid. Time to start over." 

Most likely, I'd never see him again, unless he found a similar foothold with the competition...Aldi's, Martin's, Meijer's Walmart, take your pick, you name it, there's quite a few locations...another domino rolled over in the never-ending quest for corporate profit.

I couldn't shake those images out of my head for most of the week. --The Reckoner

Resilience is Futile

Resilience is Futile: How Well-Mean Non-Profits Perpetuate Poverty

"We all began speaking in her language: protective factors, asset based organizing, personal resilience. We started to absorb this woman’s idea that changing people’s behavior was the solution to their problems, which meant absorbing the idea that people’s behavior was the source of their problems. But I knew at the core of me this was false. The problem had never been that I didn’t know the right number to call. It’s a lack of resources that produces a lack of resilience, not the other way around."

Too many poverty programs claim that "good behavior" will turn people rich. They are wrong. Sadly there are entire programs being written where they claim the poor are poor from something they are doing "wrong" instead of being poor simply because they lack money. --The Squawker

Just Get a Job!

This one made me laugh, but there is sad truth in it---The Squawker

Throwaway People

Throwaway People

We have too many in this society.

What does one do in a society where you are told YOU DO NOT BELONG and ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE A LIVING for the most minute of differences? I faced this when I got sick, said illness denied me high paid enough, sustainable employment which made the health problems worse. I have seen so many talented people set aside via the bean counters. It's a travesty. Right now we have a growing underclass of all kinds where they know they do not belong.

Sure, I am disabled myself, but I am thinking of past days, where one wanted a community to have some loyalty and you were willing to give the same loyalty back. Where has that gone? If you are a little different, too smart, too slow, too old, too young, not conformist enough, not thin enough, not mainstream enough, today they don't seem to want you. I suppose some of us become experts at finding outside niches but I wonder at a society where it seems that out there only a growing number of people are being deemed "acceptable" for employment. Sure, they will make the "everyone needs education" claims, but we have the most educated society ever, no what is happening is a new class structure where only those who are already well heeled, connected and have the right looks and attitudes need apply. The "owning class" [see below] is tossing the rest out the door.

Both I and the Reckoner have pondered the reality of how many soul-less minions behind desks have determined our reality with the very economic foundations of our lives determined based upon their whims.

The other day I saw this quote:

"The problem is not work. Work is FUN when you do it for yourself. Work can be rewarding and you feel proud of your accomplishment. Nothing feels better than taking a well deserved bath after a day of hard work and then eating a comforting supper.

No, the problem is employment and job hunting. There is no dignity for the worker and job seeker in the process. Work has been hijacked by the owning class and has been rebranded as “employment”. They are not job creators, they are work usurpators.

If the capitalists, the owners and the rulers were not in the way, anybody could immediately pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. The fact that you need to be hired before you can do any kind of productive work is the problem that must be ended. Nobody should have to sell himself or herself before he or she can contribute to society."  

One thing I ponder is how much human potential is being thrown out the door, as these employers tell endless lines of people they are not a good fit. Some may contribute via writing or volunteer work and unpaid activities, but how many are being denied decent livings out there, because of the blockades put in their way? When did human beings become mere commodities?


I find the whole hiring process to be more about weeding people out rather then finding the "best"or allowing people to contribute. The other day I was talking about this with a friend when people lived in communities lifelong and when there were family and other long-term ties; things were far different, in terms of business decisions. One's community was taken into account, the extreme "free market" types will never discuss how those farmers they praised for so much self-reliance, worked together to raise barns and more. People worked together, and I am not talking about the controls of Communism but SPONTANEOUS relationships and interactions, ones formed by God's creation not directed from above....

I tend to think people were seen even differently. It wasn't all about fitting in and SELLING yourself to those who may NOT BUY. It was about being alive and being part of a community.--The Squawker