What it is to be one of the “working poor”

A news story in the MSM recently brought about a very emotional reaction in me - one I suspect is quite different from the reaction of most.

Link to story and video:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/20/gunman-forces-woman-to-pr_n_327897.html

I felt sadness and empathy immediately. The understanding of that man's desperation to provide for his family is far too familiar a feeling. He honestly felt he had no other choice. Understand I in no way am condoning this man's actions - but the psychology behind them is all too clear. These are times in which every one of our limits are tested, our humanity called into question.

So many of us are living day to day, the thought of having to steal to survive isn't far from reality. I have been lucky enough to scrape by, but that's all it is - scraping by. I don't know where the money to put gas in my car for the next week is going to come from. But today, I made it to work, and so I have that.

What angers me most about any number of issues up for debate in the MSM right now - whether it be health care reform, illegal immigrants, unemployment benefits, et al - is the implication, be it overt or implied, that the poor are poor because of some sort of lack of motivation or effort on their part. That belief is total bullshit. If you have never fallen on hard times yourself, you can never understand what it's like to have to make the hard choices.

My love and I have been together for almost 6 years now, and we have had good times and bad. As he says, "sometimes you're flush, and sometimes you're bust." I was laid off from a job I'd had for 3 years this past April. Thankfully, I found my current job towards the end of May and so only had to endure about 6-8 weeks of unemployment. That doesn't mean that in that time we didn't have to drain both of my 401k's and the bank accounts to survive though. But what of my friends who were laid off that same day and have yet to find employ? I can't even imagine. We both have bad credit, no credit cards that we can use, no rich relatives to borrow from.

I see the looks, get the suggestions - "can't you just put it on a credit card?" or "surely you don't mean you have *no* money..." Yes, that's exactly what I mean. For far too many of us, there is no magic solution. There is no pot of gold. All we have is the hope that maybe something will change tomorrow. I have a good job, I make what is considered a reasonably good salary. There are no "extras" left to cut. And yet here we are, 1 week to go until the next paycheck, having called in all our chips. Title loan places and the like get a bad rap, but without them, we'd be out on our asses. Yes, the interest rates are sky high - but what else could we do?

We have quite a few furry members in our household. One of them, a rescue, fell quite ill last week. Well, I'll be damned if one of my cats dies because I'm broke. So off to the vet we go, writing post-dated checks, praying they'll hold off cashing them just a few more days. She is well now, but we're out another $500 we didn't have in the first place. Our pets being like our children though, I can't imagine the elevated desperation I would have felt had I a sick child - or a child that was hungry or cold or any of those things. So when I go to my employer and ask for an advance on my paycheck and am turned down, all they hear is "give me money" - when they fail to recognize just how humiliating it is to have to ask in the first place. Then we have my ex-employer, from whom we took in the aforementioned rescue cat, on the agreement that he would pay her vet bills for life if we could just give her a home. So we did. And when I called him this past Friday, not only did I get a resounding "no," he had the nerve to tell me to "just put her to sleep." Needless to say, any respect I ever had for this man for whom I'd worked for 3 years dissolved in an instant. The vet bill wouldn't have been anything for him to pay - but clearly he never meant a word of what he said. Perhaps I'm the fool for taking someone at their word - but it was a rude awakening I was not prepared for. And so, off to the title loan place I went.

So for all of those out there who find nothing to say to stories like these other than tut-tutting over our lack of savings and decent credit - fuck you. If you've never had to choose between paying your utilities and having food to eat, you can't possibly understand the choices we've had to make. You sit in your ivory towers and look down, as it is so very easy for you to do, offering your pity - but nothing else. I feel closer to the homeless man on the street than I do my own bosses. We too are only a heartbeat away from losing what little we have left, and so when stories come across like the one I referenced above, I hurt. I know that pain. What I don't understand - and pray I never will - is how any human being can see this kind of suffering and just not give a shit. Layoffs are happening every day, and yet those at the top don't see their salaries cut. Perhaps if it occurred to them that having a job is better than no job at all, shared salary cuts would be welcomed as opposed to flat out not considered. God forbid the CEO not be able to keep up his vacation home or have to cancel that executive retreat. You're the same people that are against a healthcare public option (go to the emergency room! get a job so you'll have health insurance!), or harbor hatred towards illegal immigrants (who after all, are only trying to support their own families back home) or any other class-related prejudices.

Try walking a mile in our shoes. They might be well-worn, but we're still walking.

what i learned in crazy school

I believe that true closeness between people relies entirely on our willingness to be open. I also believe that in order to throw off the stigma attached to mental illness; we must share our stories.

- You have the ability to change your life by "reprogramming" your thoughts or "inner dialogue."

The mind is a powerful thing. If you tell yourself you will fail, you will fail. But if you say to yourself - whether you believe it at first or not - yes, this can work, I can do this - you will notice over time that changing a negative thought into a positive thought becomes a much less conscious effort. You may just realize that you've been doing better at work, or your relationships are better. When you think positively, and fight those negative thoughts, it affects not only how you feel and look at the world, but you are also putting out much more positive energy - and others pick up on that energy.

- How do you change a negative thought to a positive thought?

Visualization and practice. To explain further, I'll just tell you what I do. The first thing that pops into my mind when negative thoughts start to creep in, I imagine a big red stop sign that I hold up to block the thought. Then I imagine a large tidal wave coming in and pulling that negative thought back out to sea.

- We all want love and acceptance without judgement. Group therapy (under APA guidelines) serves this purpose very well. it's a safe place. We only know first names - or whatever you want us to call you, if you choose - and we all understand that this is a sacred environment where we can say anything, and know it's okay.

But the strongest thing I took away from group therapy - 2 weeks of it - is that the human experience is universal. Hearing thoughts I have had verbatim out of the mouths of complete strangers shattered my shell of self-pity. Suddenly I felt connected with these people - "hey, it's really not just me!"

So over two weeks, with group members moving in and out as each of our two week outpatient treatments began and ended, we opened ourselves up to each other, little by little. Under the supervision of a therapist, we were allowed to tell as little or as much as we wanted. And this was so important because we were all there because of a very personal reason.

Mine? I was on the verge of going off the deep end. I wasn't respected at my job. My bosses never had the balls to tell me where I needed to improve - they thought I should just "know." They did things behind my back to let me know in the most passive-aggressive way possible, that I wasn't living up to their expectations.

After all that intensive therapy, my depression had finally begun to lift, and I decided I was done with that agency. Life is too damn short to work for people who don't respect you or give you any opportunity to show your skills.

Years later, I continue to draw on that experience - and I'm a much healthier person for it.

Twitterholicism

Finally got around to customizing this thing a bit. Having fun with my Tumblr acct (see the link under 'follow me').

I do have interesting things to discuss, but (and I'm not complaining!) work has really picked up lately, so I'll post as time allows.

- L

the success - and probably, invention - of social media is owed to socially challenged geeks

I personally have suffered quite a bit of anxiety over impending social interaction in my lifetime. I've learned to deal with it, but I know it's a very common problem for those of us with a turn towards the techie to be a bit shy - and some of us, to the point of losing relationships that are important to us because the thought of calling them on the phone makes us nervous. But hey, wait! Email's great, but what if we could just update some personal status message, and all our friends could login, check it at their convenience, and we can respond or not - again, at our own convenience. That's the key - not forcing us to feel on the spot. We need time to think about how we would best word our thoughts.

So the biggest upside for me personally of Facebook (and to a lesser degree, LinkedIn and MySpace) is the ability to keep up with the lives of some of the people that mean the most to me. A lot of them are friends from high school, college or old jobs who I'd probably have lost touch with long ago if not for social media.

everyone has a celebrity best friend.

well, I know I speak for the ladies on this subject - the basis of our interactions is empathy, so its only natural that part of our many daydreams is the one where we're having a cup of coffee with our celebrity best friend, gossiping like the old friends we are. See, we've been friends since *before* she was famous, (or perhaps we met by chance at a bar near some movie set) so she sees me as someone who keeps her grounded. And she's so real! Isn't it cool that we know the *real* her?

so it goes in my mind when I watch an interview of Kate Hudson. She seems so real, and very hippie-ish like myself. I could totally chill with her, light one up, and have a girlfriends' bitch fest about divorce, men and the annoyances of being famous (well, just her on that last point). She'll call me from set, and I'll hold my phone up so my friends can see "Kate Hudson" on my cell phone screen.

i don't care what anyone thinks, i want britney to succeed

It's not just for me, it's for all of my fellow Southern girls, the smart and the bless-her-heart-dumb alike. Even if Brit were a rocket scientist ('cuz God knows she ain't), as soon as an exaggerated diphthong comes out of our mouths, they assume our IQ drops at least 20 points.

The girl does make me angry sometimes though - like when she uses the "but we're country!" excuse. I let loose an involuntary "uuuggghhh," watching her blow an opportunity to actually break, not live up to, stereotype.

I digress. Once her mental health issues became apparent last year, I started looking at her in a different way. A girl in a strange town, family on the other side of the country, trying to find some semblance of stability and a family of her own. I know that feeling all too well.

I, too, rushed into a marriage. And as the child of divorced parents, you're that much more determined to "succeed" at marriage. Granted, Britney's parents have only recently divorced, while mine have been divorced since I was 12. But her fresher pain only drove her that much more intently. *She* proposed to KFed. I planned my own proposal, down to the ring style and location. And we found men willing to go along, whatever their motivation. I wanted children, my ex didn't. He too preferred to lay around the house while I worked, while accusing *me* of being materialistic.

The moral of the story is the same - turn a girl's world upside down, especially a Southern girl whose family is always top on the priority list, she will grasp at the first chance for anything that feels familiar, comfortable and stable. Marriage, with its predefined societal roles, feels safe - the parts we are expected to play are already known to both partners. And what are you supposed to do after you're married? Have babies, of course! And then we'll have the happy family we always wanted because, damnit, we learned from watching our parents mess it up.

Only, we didn't learn from it. What we learned was what we saw. Our blueprint for adult relationships was imprinted from those childhood observations.

The Britney I see now is in a place I also know - on the other side of divorce, but in control again, on the uphill climb. The light is in her eyes again, her determination is back. She's survived some very real pain, and she's ten times as confident for having those experiences. Maybe it's time she revisited her song, "Stronger," for a grown-up remix.

I also went through a mistake of a marriage and the inevitable divorce that followed. But we learn that we create our own stability. We as strong women can buy our own homes, secure our own lives, earn our own money - and enough to live on.

I feel that in my own life, I have finally found the person I was always meant to end up marrying. He saw me through it all, and in going through it all, I saw what I really wanted in a life partner.

I hope Brit has learned some of the same things. And I hope that now that that first marriage, and all the expectations attached to it, is over, she'll be freer to choose someone for exactly who they are, not who they may become or what roles they're willing to play. As my own Southern momma says, "just because a man asks to marry you, doesn't mean you have to say yes."

But the next time it happens, and you know its for real, the yes will probably pop out of your mouth, with surprise and genuine happiness. Not because you're playing a part in a play you've written or because you're trying to hurry your life along faster than you should - but because you've found stability *and* love.

a portrait of the artist as a young woman

Once upon a time, I was excited about my chosen career path: graphic design. I see that freshness, that wide-eyed the-world-is-full-of-possibilities look in the eyes of our interns. Just so excited to have their foot in the door at a prominent agency, it never occurs to them that their enthusiasm will be reduced over the years to merely a get-this-shit-done-and-off-my-desk attitude.

Don't get me wrong - every now and then a project comes along that does genuinely excite me. I get fired up, thinking of all the innovative ways I can solve the problem before me.

And then the reality of the situation begins to unfold: balancing creative direction from multiple superiors, pushing the design further and then praying that the account executive has enough gravitas to sell it. If it's sold, yay! But if the client can't see the forest for the trees, or if you end up with an AE that rolls over to every nonsensical client request, its back to square one. That enthusiasm starts to fade as your ideas are chipped away at as though you gave the overall design and the clients' marketing goals no thought at all. "Why did I even bother going to college, again?" we start to ask ourselves.

Or perhaps the issue isn't with the client, it's with your particular agency structure. [Sidenote: It's absolutely ludicrous that there is no course in college teaching how an agency works. But that's for another post.] Maybe you have too many cooks in the kitchen. Or an anal retentive traffic department that withholds jobs in an ego-centered effort to manage everyone's time or be "helpful" by trying to keep you from feeling overwhelmed. Or AE's who take it personally when their job has to be put on hold for a "more important" client. It just happens, and it's not up to us (the art directors).

And as for feeling overwhelmed? Welcome to life as a creative in advertising. There seem to be three types of creatives: those who ended up in it because they're good at the software and are there to make a living. They're great production artists and can churn out jobs like a champ. Or perhaps they're ladder-climbers, as were so common in the booming '90's economy - it's all about the recognition, the money and building the perfect portfolio that will impress the next largest agency on your list - client best interests be damned. They're so convinced of their idea that any attempt to offer constructive criticism, direction or critique is met with stubborn resistance. "The client just doesn't get it." Well, yeah, that happens. It's part of advertising. So get over it. It's not a personal insult to you as a designer, it's just the client's preferences. Sometimes it's worth fighting for, and sometimes you just gotta let it go. Those times suck, but choose those battles wisely.

Then there are the ones like me - the genuinely passionate and frustrated designer - valuing the balance of design and its integrity with what will produce the best results for the client above all else. I'm not motivated by money in any way beyond being able to pay my bills on time. In fact, I take it as an insult when the promise (often unfulfilled) of more money is supposed to make me jump up and say, "well, why didn't you say so?! Now I really care about this job!" Sure, I'd like to make more money, we all do (to unintentionally quote Ms. Sally Struthers), but only because I personally am constantly struggling to make ends meet, and choosing which essentials I can live without until the next paycheck.

We may tend to push ourselves further as designers, but we also make ourselves physically and psychologically ill with our obsessive perfectionism and tendency to work ourselves to death. Then, because of our role as the work horses of the agency and the low to mid-level pay that goes with that, we take on freelance projects for crap pay because, well, how am I going to get to work without gas money?

On the odd occasion when our artistic abilities are honestly appreciated by your co-workers and clients, its like a drug. "Tell me again how fabulous that web site is!" We need the approval like we need oxygen to breathe.

As adults, the people we look up to in our careers become almost parental figures; their praise feeding our drive to keep putting up with the day-to-day bullshit for the promise of more of these artistic victories. We once again regress to become our 5-year-old selves, handing our crayoned vision to our parent, waiting excitedly for the loving praise of our talents that was surely to come. As much as I hate the phrase "like mother's milk," that's exactly what is was, and what praise from our contemporaries continues to be for us as grown-ups in the workplace.

For those who have still managed to keep your passion after a decade or more in the industry, I envy you. I do still have the love of good design in my heart, but it's a struggle to keep frustrations from overwhelming that love and killing my drive.

And for those just starting out - still bright-eyed with excitement, your worlds and lives still brimming with a million possibilities - hold on to that feeling for dear life. Write notes to yourself that you'll read years later about how happy you are to be doing what you're doing, learning what you're learning. We're sensitive people, creatives, and we need to remind ourselves of and focus on our passions to have balance in our lives. Don't let the man get you down.