(FYI- GJS is me.)
For sure, many Americans will have personal feeling about Trump’s shutdown of government functions in pursuit of his vanity project wall. IMHO, you can’t broadcast to the nation that, “I’d be proud to wear the mantle…shut it down for border security…Won’t blame it on you,” and keep carping that the other side isn’t negotiating.
Whatever slick remarks I’ve EVER made about Federal employees, being held hostage to one person’s massive ego goes against the basic tenets of ‘serve and protect’ the people.
“Good enough for government work,” was a phrase my Dad never liked, for fairly obvious reasons.
The government paid him decently and on time; it put four boys through college, and he retired at 59, taking a ‘silver bullet’ combination of years of service– including Navy hitch– and age. Nobody EVER expected the U.S. government could be in the economic fix it seems to constantly battle now.
“No, but I know where you can get a bunch of $6,000 toilet seats,” was my brothers freestyle response to people he spoke with about his Army Audit job.
I got a job offer two weeks ago, right on the screws with doing what I truly wanted to (content creation vs. writing), decent bucks and benefits. I do NOT judge the value of benefits lightly. I’ve had a new knee for just over a year, and I’m thankful as hell for the ACA/Obamacare that made it possible.
On a very real Bottom Line, I’m still antsy waiting for the okay to come in and do paperwork because of a background check, mostly because it’s a situation that I have no control over, and there’s always some holding of breath at times like that. There’s nothing negative to be found in such a check, but you can’t SPEND a job offer, y’know?
Having just turned 62, I guess I’m officially semi-old, but there is no tuition due for kids anywhere, no car payment, and certainly no mortgage. That’s a biggie for sure–I’ve lived with a brother in other half of his house for a couple years, and he *knows* I pay the rent off the top of whatever I bring in, and a share of the phone/cable is usually on time. Insurance and gas, yeah, I got that. Groceries, just mine. I’m not getting bounced if the next period for rent is a little late. All I’m concerned about is how soon the situation moves forward with that background check– its only been two weeks and I’m staying positive.
I read a piece on Facebook where some bozo threw down on ‘unnecessary individuals’ whose duties (Army mostly) they took up easily and did in far less than full time job as a Fed employee, and while that came across as a planted comment from one of those ‘bots (they ARE still screwing with us folks), some fat in Federal employment is neither here nor there about 800,00 hostages and the economic stress that puts on them AND this country.
I hope we comp a hundred dinners tonight. We’ll have done something positive. Getting the call for my paperwork, I certainly wouldn’t mind hearing about that today either. Or tomorrow, or even Monday.
Please, not later than that.
My church social-community group is having a Pierogi Dinner tomorrow, and we’ve reached out to appropriate people about giving free passes to TSA employees with ID and their families. We have always told people at successful Oyster Roasts, fish frys, and during 33 years of Christmas tree sales that the $$ raised stays in Charlotte, and we’re proud of that. Yes, the last couple years we’ve sent contributions (for the beverages we provide) to Eastern North Carolina and a small parish in Houston after huge flooding, because they know who truly needs a couple hundred bucks to survive a situation dumped on them. If we make less of a profit on this event, no problem, the piece we’re breaking off to give some families an evening out with good food and people is being applied in the strongest possible way.
Waiting like this isn’t the worst situation I’ve ever been in. During the Great Recession I survived in retail for seven years, and while the pay sucked, I still drew a check. I can’t imagine how many of my peers with kids in college and mortgages did it, I assume they stole from their future to pay bills during an extended period of hellish stagnation. That old bat in charge of Commerce Department saying without blinking that he can’t understand why furloughed Feds are going to food banks when they *should* be able to get loans against back pay that will (absolutely?) come after things are settled, has to get most of those 800,000 people as mad as it does me, and I technically don’t have a dog in this fight.
This situation is so obviously WRONG, because holding 800,000 people’s lives in the balance is only the tip of the economic iceberg. The whole mentality seems so skewed to screwing, with total tone-deafness to understanding the unreal stress this WORKING WITHOUT PAY brings. (Which butthead said they are *volunteering*?) All those people probably get the money later, but holy pierogies! Batman, there’s no good reason that all of us are suffering because ONE PERSON and some attending enablers are blaming “the other guys” for a political intransigence–nay, a HOSTAGE situation– over a singular point (the wall), that so many were famously and regularly told would be paid for by others.
I hope we comp a hundred dinners tonight. We’ll have done something positive. Getting the call for my paperwork, I certainly wouldn’t mind hearing about that today either. Or tomorrow, or even Monday.
Please, not later than that. My brother deserves a couple bucks from me soon, even if he KNOWS what I’m waiting for.
CDTalent Enterprises 