Day: October 18, 2006

So the dominoes are falling. The clients aren’t paying. Child support is delayed. The Internet connection is cut off. KUB is going to cut power. Phones are going to be disconnected. The shelves are becoming barren. The car is running out of gas. Oh! The car. Yes. The car keys are locked in the car!

I had an experience a week or so ago. I was at the self-serve checkout of Food City. The person beside me rang her groceries, then swiped her card. The volume on the machine seemed to dramatically increase as the electronic voice chimed loudly, "Welcome EBT customer!" You know. The machine didn’t say, "Welcome, Visa debit card customer to me." Next it beeped then loudly exclaimed, "No qualifying items for food stamps." Something went wrong and she had to run the card again and again. The machine must have given its "welcome ebt customer" message a half a dozen times. The machine seemd to want to punish her for using food stamps by drawing attention to her method of payment. How cruel!

If you have never seen food stamps they are no longer perferated sheets of green stamps. In modern times, it is a credit card with the picture of an American flag on it. Watch for it as you shop. I would guess that about every 4th person in the line is using one.

Noah and I were selling popcorn for the Boy Scouts this past weekend and a college age girl giddily hopped by and struck up conversation with Noah. When he finally tried to close the sale and asked if she wanted to buy popcorn, she held up her red, white and blue card and said, "not unless you take food stamps" then bounced off into the store.

So, as I watch our pantry slowly empty, I begin to wish I had one of these cards. The irony is that we don’t even qualify for reduced lunches at school! Something seems amiss.

As you go the polls to deliberate over whether or not we should legislate who is allowed to love whom, perhaps you should ask how many people could have been fed by the money spent lobbying on such an irrelevant and stupid law. Perhaps our political leaders should be asking, "why 17.2 million people a month are on food stamps?" and would it be better to apply legislation preventing the banks and credit card companies from profitting on the poor because they bounced a check trying to feed their family instead of declaring two people in love can’t marry? Which situation is more threatening to America?

Already, a political action committee funded by a wealthy activist in Bolder, Colorado has given $25,000 to our opposition. [Source]

Do you have any idea what a difference $25,000 would make in the quality of my life? It would be the difference between struggling for the coming decades and being in a position to help others in that same time period!

In good news the interviews are starting to be scheduled. Setting one up for a week to a week and a half from now. In bad news, KUB is going to turn off the power at 5pm tomorrow.

This past Saturday I had a phone interview with a fantastic person from Net Solutions NA. I felt very good about the position and the interview itself. The company founder and I share similar philosophies.

Have I quit working for myself? No! Even someone working a job that they love must occasionally entertain an interview. Until an offer is made and accepted, I still am marketing myself strongly and even if I accept a position a condition of hire must be that I must fulfill my obligations to existing clients. As of yet, I have no offers.

So, when you run out of money and bounce a check, the bank charges you a $35 fee for each overdrawn draft. Typically one leads to another like a snowball running over dominoes. If you are poor, probably with bad credit, and work for yourself, you cannot have a credit card to act as overdraft protection. Society doesn’t permit that. Ironically, if you have money, you can also have as much credit as you like; I know this – once upon a time I was "the credit card kid!" I overheard someone tonight bragging on his cell phone that "I can put my child’s college education on my credit cards." The poor person that is not provided the leniency of credit during their difficult times is further punished for not having money by being charged a $36 per day overdrawn fee by their bank. Quickly, a poor person that has drained their bank account trying to purchase store brand food and necessities can come under the hammer for several hundred dollars in non-tangible fees.

Out of curiosity, I called LaborReady yesterday to see how they worked:

Me: How do you work?
LaborReady: You work today, you get paid today.
Me: Excellent! Do you have any jobs that pay $300 or $400?
LaborReady, laughing: No. Show up at 5am [20-30 minute drive] dressed for construction and fill out an application. At 5:30 we will tell you if you are working that day. Pay is $6 per hour.

$6 per hour! After taxes and cost of lunch, that will about pay the gas it took to get to the LaborReady office and job site. How could a poor person even consider paying the banking fees doing something like that?

Due to the debacle with my non-paying clients, our hosting and many other things were suddenly in danger. A kind soul helped with the hosting situation; however, Comcast decided that we could live without a connection to the Internet. That is like taking away my air supply! Fortunately, a friend has let me move my computers into his business office to allow me to continue my current project. Cathy will return to posting as soon as I get something worked out. Phones are next on the chopping block. So, how does one communicate with clients and arrange interviews without email or phone?