Well, it's been almost 3 years since my last post. I actually found this rant that I'd started back in May 2011 and never finished, so I'd like to go ahead and post it now. I don't have internet at home, but I'm going to try to get this thing going on at least a semi-regular basis again and tie up some loose ends. So, from May 2011, here is a nice, big rant ...
I am Depressed.
I'm not "down" or "bummed" or "blue" or "feeling low." I am out-and-out depressed.
I was originally diagnosed as being "borderline clinically depressed" in 1993, though I believe I've been experiencing this level of depression off and on since at least 1978.
I'm part of one of the last generations to be told to "man up and tough it out." We weren't taught that we were blameless victims...that if we didn't make the effort to behave at school, it was because we needed a 'happy pill'. Instead, we were taught that life is full of ups and downs; that for every joy there is a sorrow, for every high there is a low; that there are certain standards of behavior that must be met in spite of our mood. We were taught that part of growing up and becoming an adult is learning how to move on and function in spite of feeling a bit melancholy. That is why talking about this is so hard for so many people my age. Hell, I may not even post this after I write it.
So, what has me so depressed? It isn't any one thing. Its a whole bunch of things that have been piling and piling up on top of me for quite some time now. Being a very philosophic and spiritual individual, I am constantly self-assessing to determine what I did to get into the situation in which I currently find myself. (Trust me...there is NO ONE more critical of me than me!) Time and time again I come to the conclusion that, short of violating my core principles and going over to the 'dark side,' there is nothing different I could have done to avoid being where I am now. I have even consulted with several different counselors...both financial and mental health...who, after reviewing our actions that led up to the present, have all concluded that we did everything right. What are some of these 'things' we did right? Let's look at a few...
I was even willing to perform manual labor. I applied to four construction companies and two landscaping/lawn mowing companies. Even though I was willing to take entry-level jobs for $2 per hour less than they were offering, I was told in all 6 instances that I was not qualified to either swing a hammer or dig a hole in the United States of America because I was not fluent in the Mexican dialect of Spanish and would not be able to communicate with the rest of the crew.
When I finally got a job offer in September 2010 as a contractor assigned to a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock, performing the job I had last held with them, but making $24 per hour, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, the California-based company who wanted to hire me filed for Bankruptcy and closed their doors before I could start.
Five months (and about 70 applications) later, I received another job offer as a temporary employee making $12 per hour for a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock. I was relieved. Then that company started playing their 800-pound Gorilla games again, leaving all the new-hires hanging by pushing back the start date not once, not twice, but 6 different times. (Even now they are only saying the jobs will start "sometime in June".)
Fortunately, I had started looking again after the first delay, so that I was able to find another job by the middle of April. The only downside of this job is that it is Commission Only and...while my mentors and managers keep telling me I am doing a great job, that I'm doing everything right...I seem to keep finding all the tree weasels who just want to play "let's jerk the sales rep around." I actually had two commitments to purchase from me...one decided to back out and not return any of my calls, while the other actually signed the contracts, then 3 days later started claiming that I somehow 'tricked' him into signing and that I lied to him about everything. Fortunately, my District Manager was there with me to make certain I did everything correctly.
In late 1999, my wife and I determined that our lives were finally stable enough to purchase our first home. We researched, weighed the pros and cons between buying an existing home and having one built, and decided to build. We researched, consulted financial advisors who advised us that we could afford a $225,000 home, then decided to have one built that was worth $125,000. We did the same thing when we decided it was time to purchase a new vehicle instead of an older used vehicle. Basically, we approached every financial decision we made cautiously after consulting the alleged 'experts' and chose to 'buy low' so that we would not over-extend ourselves.
In July 2002, a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock...more specifically, an insecure, weaselly sales manager with a Napoleon Complex (his previous team called him "Lord Farquaad" behind his back!) at a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock...decided to terminate me for being "unable to work within the dynamics of the team" I created. I did not make that up. What is in quotation marks is the actual reason for termination on my separation papers. The truth of the matter is that his job had been offered to...and turned down by...me three times before they put him in charge of our group. (I basically told the Powers-That-Be that I was infinitely more principled that the corporation, that one day my principles and the company's would come into conflict, that I would always choose to be honorable and true to my principles, and that my honor would not allow me to accept a position unless they understood and agreed that I could manage the group under my principles and not the company's. They declined. Three times.) Lord Farquaad never got over the fact that he was technically the fourth choice for the position (me being the other three!), that Directors and VP's would actually bypass him and come directly to me with their questions and requests because I was the principle Subject Matter Expert in that field within the corporation (he actually scolded a Director for doing that once, only to have the Director take him into a private conference room for a conversation. I don't know what the Director said to him, but when they came out, Lord Farquaad looked blushingly chastised and suddenly took an early lunch), and that I was so thorough in documenting everything that he made himself look foolish once when he tried to 'trip me up' by claiming I had dropped the ball on a project, only to discover that I could produce archived e-mails showing that not only had I kept him apprised along the way, but that he actually gave me his blessings on what I had been doing.
The reason this is in the Finance section is that this termination came on my second day back from vacation. It was the first time in my adult life that I'd taken the family on a 'traditional' two-week vacation. My Mother's side of the family had a large family reunion out in California in June 2002...the first big, comprehensive one since 1976...so my wife and I piled everyone into the mini-van, picked up my Mother in Oklahoma, and drove out there. I'd planned it out so that we could see some of the sights along Old Route 66 on the way out, visit with my brother, his fiancée, and his son in Las Vegas, and even stop at my Father's birthplace in Western Oklahoma and try to find the family cemetery. It was a wonderful but tiring trip. Before we decided to take this trip, my wife and I had sat down and gone over our finances with a fine-toothed comb to make certain once again we weren't over-extending ourselves.
Basically, we had both made economic mistakes in our youth and had worked diligently between 1995 and 2000 to overcome and correct those mistakes. We were determined to not repeat those mistakes. Ever. Plus, I grew up in a family where my Father was able to hold onto money the way a nail holds Jello to a wall. We determined that we had everything sufficiently under control so that we could afford to almost max out our credit cards on this trip, then be able to have them completely paid off within 8 months. So, off we went.
Obviously, being terminated my second day back threw a wrench into this plan. While I was looking for a new job, we eked by through cutting back on daily expenses and paying only the minimum due on the credit cards. The latter, of course, is a sure-fire path to economic oblivion.
Being as disgusted as I was by large corporate sales and sales support, my wife encouraged me to return to one of my original passions: the restaurant industry. I've always wanted to (and still do!) own my very own casual restaurant and inn...something along the lines of a modern student hostel meets the Prancing Pony Inn from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'd managed a couple of pizza places in my youth (late Teens/early 20's) but felt I needed more experience with every facet of a restaurant. So, with my wife's encouragement and blessings, I got a job as a waiter at Cheddar's.
Once again, we are still in Finance because this decision had a major impact on our household income...and our ability to repay all the debt we'd incurred on the family reunion trip. When we both worked for a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock, our adjusted annual household income was right at $77K. Once I got back to work (I was hired in December 2002, but the restaurant didn't open until late January 2003), our household income hovered right around $41K...only 53% of what it had been.
When I interviewed for the wait staff position, I was up front about my desire to work my way up to management, and eventually own a place of my own. The management at Cheddars not only supported and encouraged this, but what they saw in me during my shifts led to me being promoted to Server Shift Lead and Server Trainer in less than three months. It was hard work, but I was really enjoying myself. The Executive Chef had even, as we say here in Texas, "taken a shine" to me and was teaching me some of the kitchen tricks. Things were tight but good.
Then, I re-injured my left knee. I wrapped it, tried working with a heavy-duty ribbed brace on, but I just couldn't perform the job any longer. I had to resign and find something else. This was October 2003. Needless to say, Christmas that year was a bit thin.
By March 2004, I had swallowed some of my angst regarding corporations and begin applying for customer service positions. I applied to Kelly Services for one of those jobs. They informed me that, while the job for which I'd applied had been filled, there was another one they thought I might be good for and asked if they could submit my name for that one. The next day, I received a call that Dun & Bradstreet wanted to interview me.
I started as a Kelly Temp at D&B April 2004. This took our annual household income back up to almost $52K...about 67.5% of what I'd been making in the Spring of 2002. D&B quickly recognized my capabilities and began giving me more and more responsibilities. They liked my work so much, that they actually flew me to the main facility in Bethlehem, PA to be part of a project team that was revising customer service policies and procedures to make it more streamlined for customers. By March 2006, they had hired me as a regular D&B employee, made me a group leader and department head of the Winning Culture initiative, had me training the new hires, and gave me a raise so that our annual household income was now just under $59K...about 77% of our Spring 2002 level. Then the Universe decided it hadn't dumped on me for awhile.
As part of my training on how to create DUNS Numbers and business files, I had created (at the instruction of the person training me) a dummy file for practice. Unfortunately, I'd used real information about my wife's home cosmetics/skin care business when creating this dummy file. D&B did...and still does...have an almost obsessive approach to data accuracy and integrity. I have no problem with this. It ensures that the data they supply to their customers is the most accurate and trustworthy possible. Part of this includes regular security reviews of the data to weed out bogus information and to make certain no D&B employee is colluding with a business owner to skew the report on that business. I unknowingly ran afoul of that obsession with data security.
To make it easier to manipulate my dummy file, I had placed myself in it as the President of the company. During one of the security reviews in late May 2008, a red flag went up when it was discovered that one of their customer service group leaders was listed as an executive in a business file he'd created and had been updating. When I explained this to my immediate manager and our Senior Manager, they were relieved that I was still as honorable as they thought I was, but sad that company policy required that they terminate me since part of D&B's obsession with data accuracy and integrity includes a Zero Tolerance Policy when it comes to even the appearance of impropriety. Fortunately, the Senior Manager had some leeway in the company's policies as to how I was to be terminated, so he put down that my official reason for termination was "Laid Off."
This brings us back to the present: almost 155 weeks since I was "Laid Off" from D&B. Between 2005 and Spring 2008, things were still tight but we'd made some headway with repairing our financial situation...even though we got zapped by several medical issues during that time. In 2008 alone, our out-of-pocket medical expenses exceeded $12K.
Part of the problem was that, when I lost my job at D&B, we were in the middle of a medical issue with my wife. She had been diagnosed with her issue and surgery was scheduled while I was still employed. Even after I lost my job, I'd managed to confirm that my medical insurance was paid up and good through the end of the month. At the last minute, the hospital rescheduled my wife's procedure due to a scheduling conflict with one of the surgery team members. Since everything had been diagnosed and approved while my insurance was still in force, it didn't dawn on me that I needed to re-confirm with the insurance company. In August, about 6 weeks after the procedure, we were informed that, because the procedure was performed the week after my insurance expired, it was not covered and we would have to pay for the entire thing out of pocket.
This led to another blow in our financial situation. After conferring with a financial advisor to whom we'd been referred by our credit union, we completed and filed forms that were supposed to allow us to take a medically-based emergency early disbursement from my wife's 401K with no tax liability or penalties. In March 2010, we discovered this was not true. Apparently, we had received some very bad advice from this so-called 'financial advisor.' The IRS decided we owed them approximately $4200 in past-due taxes, interest, and penalties for this early disbursement. We tried to find the person who had advised us about this, but he seems to have vanished from the face of the Earth. Neither the credit union nor a professional organization for financial advisors have been able to determine this person's whereabouts. In the meantime, the IRS began to garnish my wife's wages, convinced that we could live on only $769 per month...in spite of the fact that we showed them documentation that our bare minimum monthly expenditure on our mortgage and utilities was $2200. Oh, and by the way, for every quarter we did not pay this tax debt in full, the IRS added additional fines and interest that amounted to about 22% of the outstanding balance. By October 2010, this tax liability was still over $4000, even though the IRS had been taking about 58% of our monthly income and applying it to the debt.
They weren't finished with us, though. They decided that we hadn't filed our tax returns for tax years 2002 through 2006 and decided to file them for us for those five years...at the highest tax rate available. By the time they were finished with us, the IRS had decided we owe over $90K in back taxes, interest, and penalties.
Regrettably, I am not an accountant, nor am I naturally organized. My filing system is rather simple: I keep things in boxes with other things from around the same time period. When this time period is 3 years old, I move the box or boxes out into the garage where I forget about them. This is why I haven't been able to find all 5 returns for the years in question. Additionally, I had thrown out some boxes that had been ruined by cats two or three years ago, and I am afraid that the 2005 and 2006 records were included in one or more of those boxes. Because of this, I am now having to manually recreate my returns for those two years.
In the meantime, everything caught up to us early this year. Wells Fargo decided to file for foreclosure of our home loan, so, on February 28th of this year (2011), we were forced to retain an attorney and file for Bankruptcy Chapter 13. We've managed to work out a budget and repayment schedule with the Bankruptcy court, but it was contingent upon me starting that $12 per hour job with a certain large global computer company based here in Round Rock by the end of March 2011, so we are back to struggling on ridiculously small amounts of money again.
Oh, I forgot to mention that, when October 2010 started, we had 3 vehicles in the family...nothing fancy, all 3 had over 100K miles on them, and one had an overheating issue, but we at least had basic transportation that got between 24 & 30 miles per gallon. In the middle of October, the one with over-heating issues finally gave up the ghost. I got $200 for it from a scrap yard. In February, my daughter's car was impounded when she was arrested for a traffic violation. For numerous reasons, she just let them have it and never tried to get it back.
So, we were down to a single vehicle. By this time, we were putting about 2400 miles on it per month. It had just started to make a knocking sound and I had stopped in at a repair shop to see if they could diagnose the problem. They couldn't get to me until 2 that afternoon, so I said I just need to run one errand, then I will have the van back to the shop. It never made it. The engine froze up on the way to the errand. I actually got $500 from the scrap yard for this one.
This left us vehicle-less. We managed to scrape together $500 dollars, and I began talking to the used car lots, looking for basic transportation and someone who would work with us. The only lot who would was Drive Time, and the only vehicle they had that we could get for a $500 total drive-off was a 2008 mini-van that gets only 19 miles per gallon. Now that we have a single vehicle doing what 3 used to do, and now that I have a job that has me visiting customer sites all over Travis and southern Williamson Counties, we are putting almost 4000 miles on the van per month...that's $700 - $800 per month in gas! (Right now, it is sitting on an eighth of a tank, our checking account is almost $500 over drawn, and between us we have all of 37 cents.)
And, on top of everything else, we've spent over $3000 bailing our daughter out of jail several times since 2009.
No...there's no financial stress in our family. 8^P
My wife's issue that led to surgery in the Summer of 2008 is much, much better since that surgery. Other than that, she is mostly dealing with the seasonal allergies that have plagued her most of her life and a hereditary problem with high blood pressure.
My youngest daughter continues to suffer from undiagnosable chest pains. These pains began about 7 1/2 years ago...early in 4th grade. It started as a minor but sharp pain, accompanied by a shortness of breath. It quickly grew until it was mimicking the symptoms of a heart attack. Over the last 7 1/2 years, we have taken her to a Pediatrician, two Pediatric Cardiologists, one General Cardiologist, a Thoracic Surgeon, a Psychologist, a Psychiatrist (these two in case it was psychosomatic), and an Osteopath. Not a single one of them has been able to identify what is causing these pains...in spite of the fact that she was hooked up to portable EKG machines for 30 days at a time on two separate occasions. So far, while they have been unable to say what it is, they have conclusively determined that it is not her heart, the musculature wall around her rib cage, or in her mind. The Osteopath is currently treating it as a possible lung/respiratory issue. In the meantime, my baby is subjected several times a week to crushing pains in her chest that are often bad enough to drive her to her knees. Her only option is to basically "just let it pass." We have standing instructions that, if she experiences a pain that is worse or different than usual, we are to immediately take her to the ER so they can at least make certain she is not having a heart attack. We have been in ER's a total of 3 times in 2011 alone (so far).
to be continued
Until then, best regards...
© James P. Rice 2011, 2014
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