The only issue I care about (Warning - self pitying rant)

[Nimrod]

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm a 33 year old white collar worker, born and raised in America as a good widdle white Christian taxpayer and have as extensive an education as I could afford to get. I have spent the last five years in the finance department of a major corporation. I spend about 45 hours a week there on the average (overtime pay which is likely going away shortly).

Last year my gross income was $26,000. $1000 of that was 3 years worth of stock options that were sold in order to make rent for a month.

For the last three years my company has used the bell curve for giving raises, only giving extra compensation to the top 15% of employees in every department worldwide. The effect of this is only upper management and above get any increase in base wages regardless of how many 5-star reviews anyone else gets.

The rest of us get compensated via stock options, which would theoretically mean an extra few thousand dollars a year. But there are three problems with this:

1) Options don't vest for several years.
2) Strike prices are so high that most of them are underwater 90% of the time.
3) The moment the stock prices began to rise the company put an indefinite blackout on all stocks and stock options held by employees below the executive level, meaning they cannot be touched by us until the company feels like lifting it.

Several departments have been closed. About half moved to India, the other half just had their workloads shuffled to the other departments. On top of this increase in volume, the department I work in has had a 40% reduction in number of employees.

I'm lucky. I live in a rent controlled apartment, so I have gotten by with lot of peanut butter and top ramen. My big luxury spending last month was a ticket to F9/11. By not taking a vacation for the last five years, I have enough paid time saved up to quit and move to another state that has a lower average cost of living (which is happening in two days) and start over from scratch.

Others are not so lucky. A woman in a high responsibility position has a child, cannot afford to leave the company, and lives with 5 roommates just to pay rent. A member of the middle management desperately wants to move his family out of an apartment and get a house, but his income is so low he can't afford to drive a car. Someone else who has almost 10 years of experience is searching for another job, but there just aren't any to be found that are an improvement.

Simply put, I don't have time to worry about Usama cutting my throat in my sleep. I only have enough energy to give a cursory glance to the situation in Iraq, shake my head sadly, and get back to work. I think gays should be allowed to marry if they want to, because it affects me not at all. I feel bad for people in worse positions than I am, but there is nothing I can do about it. I don't really have the time or energy give a flying f^ck about much of anything except paying my bills.

I have one and only one issue on my mind. I am tired of living below the poverty line while Bu$hCo drops millions into the pockets of the same people who haven't given me a raise in three years. I'm tired of having to drop money on dress shirts and ties for work, then have six teeth pulled because I can't afford to have them fixed. I'm tired of my girlfriend having to settle for extra-strength Tylenol when she needs decent care and medication for her horrendous back problems. If anybody asks me what I care about, I usually respond with the fact that in 30 years my 401K and fifty cents will buy me a cup of coffee and (if I'm lucky) half a danish.

I am not lazy. I am not a welfare case. I have never gotten social security or food stamps. I have educated myself and put up with the most godawful workplace situations imaginable just to gain experience and skill sets. I have not been unemployed in the last decade.

Things could be a lot worse for me, but that doesn't change the fact that I live so far below the poverty line that a "middle class" income would be wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.

And I'm mad as hell about that.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. It's Class Warfare.

And THEY STARTED.

[candy]

2. Yes it is a self pitying rant but happily you are doing something about it

You are relocating and have been lucky in that you've had a rent controlled apartment. Massachusetts did away with them a few years back.

Some people always struggle but you're young and have plenty of
time to make changes.

[Nimrod]

10. I AM lucky

...for getting into a rent controlled apartment. Next month I would have been living here 13 years. I'm also lucky that I don't have a family to take care of. Regardless of what the economists say, I can look around me and recognize that I AM middle class, I see about a thousand people a day in worse financial situations than I am. I'm one of two people in my immediate social circles who live with only one other person.

Tell the truth, if I thought I *wasn't* so lucky I wouldn't be nearly as pissed off as I am. I could just snivel about how hard my life's been and not have to recognize that I've gotten a whole LOT of breaks.

Through no fault of my own I'm a white, heterosexual, American-born, educated, employed male. Except for the fact my religious beliefs are severely lapsed I could be the poster child for the RW, falling into almost all the "mainstream" categories that make up the Bu$hCo base.

Spooky, ain't it?

(editted for speeling - thank god for my amrican etucashun)

[wellstone_democrat]

15. Welcome to our world

I have 3 (count 'em 3!) degrees and I make about 10K more than you do. Lucky me except...for those student loans. I figured recently that I make the same, adjusting for inflation, that I did in 1985 with no college degrees. And then I didn't have to work 12 hours a day--I finished work in my middle management cube and went home and forgot about it and I actually had a higher standard of living. I went to movies, I went on modest vacations and the rest of the middle-class fantasy. I also did not live in constant fear of job cuts and MOST SIGNIFICANTLY my medical insurance actually covered most things and was affordable. In 1985 my company paid all of it with prescription and dental coverage. In 2004, I pay 400+ per month for a plan with a high co-pay, no prescription benefits, a "dental option" that is 100.00 per month which no dentist in the region is accepting (they are tired of fighting to get paid) and a fight about every single thing they pay even through their "approved providers."

I still have a better life right now than so many others on and off DU but I think that to be honest many of us in the US need to take a look at the downward spiral of expectations. So many of us assumed the responsibility for "retraining" ourselves rather than "whining" about lost industries and their living-wage jobs. I'm still trying to see what it is we got for that. Stability? Security? Parity with a job that in 1985 was "nothing special" and whose skills were earned on-the-job? Nope, just survival and we are being taught that we should endless announce we are lucky to have that precarious existence.

I don't know what to say other than --- here, at the very least, you have company and sympathy for your desire to change this reality. "Self-pitying?" So what, sometimes the situation calls for a bit of self pity. Welcome home to DU.

[candy]

16. Your description of yourself is a description of my 3 sons--

although 2 of them have families.Two are Kerry supporters and 1 is a Bush supporter----go figure!

Good luck!

[truthspeaker]

3. GOP: take your tiny tax cut and like it!

What do you want to do, deprive the CEO of your company from buying a fourth Range Rover, a third vacation home, and breast implants for his mistress?

[skippysmom]

4. Thank you for this

Unfortunately, this is reality for more and more Americans.

[WilliamPitt]

5. You work in an advertising agency, right?

They pay shit.

A few more clues and I can guess which one. Do you handle large boats?

[Nimrod]

11. Nope

Not going to risk legal problems by naming the company I work for, but I will say they're pretty damn high up on the Fortune 500.

[mike_c]

6. it's called wage slavery, and contrary to #1's comment...

...Bushco did not start it, but the self-styled corporate oligarchs have certainly prospered at everyone else's expense during the Bush administration. Changing the suit in the Oval Office is unlikely to change your situation, however.

Slavery is slavery, no matter how it's imposed or maintained. It was a situation similar to yours that led to a major life epiphany for me-- as a wage slave the only commodity I possessed and could bring to the market was MY TIME-- in short, I could barter a portion of my life and little else. Selling short on one-half to two-thirds of your waking life is not a good bargain, my friend. No amount of economic necessity should be worth it-- you'd be better off delivering pizzas part time and using the rest of your day looking for a better gig.

Get out now. Don't look back.

[John_Shadows_1]

7. Welcome to DU, ....

..... your story sounds a little like mine - the only thing I want is National Health Care - and I do think it's a human right.

[Blue-Jay]

8. Sound like the coal industry from last century.

Can't afford to stay, can't afford to leave. If you're lucky, maybe they'll open a "company store" where you can make your Ramen purchases.

Good luck. Do all you can to get the hell out of there. Do not let them steal your dignity.

[nickinSTL]

9. yes

I'm working 2 jobs. Have a college degree, and at my primary job, make less in gross pay than the original poster.

I'd be doing ok. Not great, but managing, if my fiancee hadn't been out of work for 3 years. Oh, yeah, the economy's just great, Mr. "President". She's interning for a company right now, and if they hire her, she might make less than half of what she made as a computer programmer. Ten years of experience, and she couldn't find ANYTHING. Nothing in IT, and no one with crappy jobs wanted to hire someone so 'overqualified'.

[Nimrod]

12. Overqualified

overqualified: OH-ver-QUAH-li-fied (adj.)

1: Too intelligent to tolerate the amount of feces we expect you to ingest at this job.

[nickinSTL]

14. HA

yep, that's the truth

[proud patriot]

13. Welcome Underground

A lot of us are in the same boat .
I don't work and am a Homemaker by
choice because my son has emotional
problems and goes to a special needs
school set up for a small classroom
setting . He is flourishing now and
it is looking really good for him
to be back in the mainstream by jr. high.

I live in the SF Bay Area and we rent a home
that my grandparents own . We have gone from
over 35,000 a year to around 24,000 . Yes we
would have more money if I worked outside the home .
But My son would suffer tremendously if I weren't
here for him everyday . It a choice of priorities
for us .

My husband and I own our own business , we just
started it this year becuase the company my husband
worked for broke his contract . While working for someone
else he earned 30% of his repair price . Now we
earn it all . This also has given him the freedom
to be with his family more freely and set his own
schedual . We have had to start from nothing and build
a customer base and really only have 3 bread and butter
accounts . Word of mouth is starting as we just got
2 calls last week from neighbors of past customers .

My husband and I work very hard and have not been
unemployed we take what we can get , I am thankful
my husband has a trade skill of removing Dents with
tools he made with his own hands .

My son has medical insurance through healthy families
of California , Thank god for that , with his issues
we just couldn't afford the $500 a month for therapy
and medication . Both my Husband and I are thankful
we are both healthy , or at least we believe we are healthy
(I haven't been to a doctor in 5 years) We do not have
Health Insurance even though it is a high priority for us .
Just as soon as we can pay rent ,Eat , and have $300 extra
to afford health insurance we will get it . Hopefully
our health will hold up .

Hope is on the way with Kerry and Edwards

Our business Will flourish when America can afford
to fix their cars , we are more than willing to work
hard for our dream in fact we want to work hard for it .

We deserve our dream we have earned it .

[candy]

17. We all grew up poor in the depression and didn't see much---

improvement until the fifties. You are living the way everyone I know lived in those days.

You just keep plodding along,that's it. There are no guarantees in this life,but hard work and persistance will pay off.

Good luck!

[proud patriot]

18. Thanks for encouragement

I'm thankful for all I have and know many
who have much steeper challenges than I .