Narcissistic Traits – Just in Case You (I) Forget…

This is from zamoracatalina .  I copied and pasted it here.  She’s dead on and I was blind, blind, blind.  From the git-go.  It can still happen, even when you’ve done your research.  You’re lonely, or have been alone for awhile, a charming person steps up to bat, and BOOM, you’re knocked out of the park by the Narcissistic bat – which, I might add, does NOT feel very good at all!

 

• Exaggerates personal achievements
• Very charismatic or charming at first, but can quickly switch from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde without apparent cause
• Is unable to demonstrate or understand empathy or compassion lacks conscience
• Does not seem to feel real happiness or positive emotions
• Quick to anger/rage or feel insulted or slighted inflicts “silent treatment”
• Denies he/she has issues to work on – sees himself/herself as nearly perfect nothing is ever his/her fault
• Frequently humiliates or abuses others, although he/she doesn’t see it as abuse. Considers most others in the world “idiots”
• Sulks when he/she doesn’t get his/her way
• Exaggerates the truth or blatantly lies
• Does not take criticism well and becomes defensive easily. Is easily hurt and insulted
• Shows no feelings of remorse or guilt for his/her mistakes or the hurts he/she dishes out
• Blames others for all his/her problems or bad luck
• His/her attitude is generally haughty or arrogant
• Hates to stand in line – he/she shouldn’t have to, as his/her time is more valuable than others. Driving is difficult especially in traffic.
• Unable to deal with his responsibilities, this is called a runner. Will run rather than face consequences.
• May ignore you or be indifferent to you for no reason
• Leaves others feeling as though they need to “walk on eggshells” around him

So My Latest Narcissist…

…oh lord, what do I say?  The signs were all there.  He charmed me from the beginning; he was “perfect.”  He was too perfect.  He did everything for me.  Only…something was always not quite right with him and I knew it.  I chose to ignore it.  I was in a financial bind and he showed up at the right time after inveigling a way to actually meet me.

We worked at the same company for 5 months.  I went in as a temp, knowing that the assignment wouldn’t go permanent.  He noticed me from the beginning, or so he says, but waited four days to actually manipulate things so he could come sit and get to know me.  When i think back on that conversation, it was all about him.  He didn’t ask a word about me.

He was charming.  He invited himself on our first date.  I was going hiking and he just invited himself along.  He was so obvious and so “sweet” that I said:  “well, why don’t you come along.”  Turns out he doesn’t hike.  He strolls.  Slowly.  I didn’t find that out until we were at our destination. So we strolled.  He was separated, he said – had been for more than a year, and was filing for divorce by the end of the year.  He promised.  He swore.  He said he couldn’t envision himself back with her.

I believed him.  I wanted to.  I’d been told by all who knew him (and they were all co-workers) that he was a great guy and I couldn’t do any better.  I had a cardinal rule at the time:  Never date a married man, separated or not.  I broke it.  We had a great time.  I suggested we get together again sometime soon. I didn’t expect it to be the next day – which was a monday.

I got home before he left work and next thing I know he’s texting me saying he is 20 min away and bringing supper.  I was very taken aback.  We hadn’t discussed this.  But I thought it was kinda cute (red flags are NEVER cute) and so I told him to come on.  For the next 15 months I had no evening to myself other than Wednesdays when he was “paying bills.”  With his wife.  I questioned it and got a glib response to the effect that they were both still responsible for the expenses…

Uh huh.  I swallowed it.  For around four or five months he was able to keep the mask from slipping, although I saw it go a little cockeyed a couple of times when I asked about his plans for filing for divorce.  He would tap dance around it, tell me he hadn’t thought about it, anything to just shut me up.

He told me he and his wife had lived separate lives for years prior to him telling her he wanted to divorce.  While they lived beneath the same roof, they didn’t share a bed.  Just expenses.  Co-workers corroborated this.  Of course they did – that’s what he told them. I still don’t know the truth of it, but I suspect it.

Each day, after work, he’d come over, spend a couple hours but was always home by 9.  That must have been just before his wife came home.  She worked a strange schedule.  Then he started spending saturday nights at my house, and when I thought to ask, he said he just told her he was out with friends, and when it got late, he just crashed at whatever friend would take him at their house.  Lie.  Big lie.

He was supporting me, financially.  Groceries, gas, paying bills I couldn’t pay and I had no clue where his money was coming from, until he told me he’d taken a loan from his 401K – and since it went into the joint account (notice he didn’t give it to me to use as I saw fit, even though it was supposedly for ME), and he told his wife it was for a person at work who was in need.  Well, I saw about $500 of the $5,000 loan he took.  His wife spent the rest.  No apologies to me, just anger when I asked him why he’d done that instead of putting it in his own account.  Seems he didn’t have his own account – yet he’d been “separated” for more than a year.

January I caught him in a whopper of a lie.  Big one.  He denied it until I pushed so hard he had to admit it and then it became my fault.  You know how that goes.

That’s when he started withdrawing, stonewalling and gaslighting.  He grew cold and distant and any emotional support I thought i was getting went away.  In reality, there was no emotional support.  HE can’t empathize.  The only feelings he can feel are his own and those are all about how right, good and wonderful he is, so naturally I should have no problem with him.

I won’t go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that he discarded me when he realized I was way too close to the truth about him.  My niece had just died, and this man couldn’t even ask how I was holding up.  When I told him about it (stupid me) he replied “sorry – sucks.”

The following saturday, even though he knew I was dealing with my niece’s death, learning a new job, my mother’s illness, and some other pretty heavy stuff, he texts me:  “I bought a Hyundai.  Here’s the link so you can see it.”

Huh?  Why do I care about his car?  Well, it turns out he felt he “failed me because he couldn’t fix my financial situation.’  (God complex.)  Instead of being a normal person and accepting failure and moving forward or trying a different tack, he just dumped me.  It was an excuse – he wanted me gone – that way I wasn’t a drain on his finances and he could buy a shiny new car.

That night, I was under great duress and I emailed his wife a letter that stated this man had been having an affair with me for 15 months and it included things she probably needed to know if she wanted to make intelligent decisions about her life.  I doubt she heeded them.  He read her email before she did and blew my phone up, frantically attempting to get ahold of me to beg me not to tell her – you see, I’d also said I was mailing a hard copy in case her husband read her email and deleted it.  He rang my phone and texted so much that I had to silence it.  He even drove by my house to see if I was up.  His last text said “Now that you have me at your mercy, I’m begging you to let me tell her myself..”

Yeah. Right.  Like that would ever happen.  So I sent another one, snail mail, to her mother’s address, which is where she’s living.  I have heard nothing since then, and while I’m thankful for the silence, I think the other shoe will fall, in time.  I’m watching my back carefully.

I loathe him; I despise him; he’s a liar, a cheat and a fraud, and I know enough about NPD to know I need to have no contact with this man.  Maybe telling his wife was the wrong thing to do, but at the time, I felt a helluva lot better!  I dunno now.  Hey – maybe it will serve to get them back together (as if they were ever really apart!) and then he won’t be out there hurting other victims.  Who knows – he’s a Narcissist and they always find their supply.

He’ll tell his wife whatever she wants to hear right now – because he stands to lose a ton of money if she divorces him.  She was hoping – for almost three years now – for a reconciliation.  So apparently he wasn’t as “separated” as he said he was.  It’s just that her schedule was wonky and he exploited it to get his supply.

He hurt me badly.  It started in january – maybe before.  I still didn’t see the signs.  I thought he was depressed, I wondered if I was going crazy, I tried to work with the stonewalling and would confront him on the gaslighting.  None of that works.  He’s a narcissist.  I know all this.

Lesson learned:  You can still get caught in the trap.  There’s a lot more to the story, but I won’t tell it.  It’s not worth telling.  He’s a liar, a cheat and a fraud and if his wife has any sense (and I don’t believe she does) she will divorce him.  My guess is, though, that she’ll take him back because he’ll be so contrite after being caught.  Things will roll along very well for a few months and then the monster will be back for her.

At least he’s out of my life.

Suicide is NOT Painless

A very dear and young family member of mine committed suicide during the early hours of this morning.  I’m so sad.  She was diagnosed bipolar after she joined the military at age 21.  She was given a medical discharge and the next 8 years consisted of medicaid doctors adding one medication after another.  For years, she had a sink-sized tub full of pill bottles of medication that she took daily.

I often thought the medication was what was causing her psychotic breaks.  She was on so much stuff, with so many contraindications and although I attempted to explain this to her caregiver and to her, everyone simply trusted the doctors knew what was best.  She was on anti-psychotics, anxiety meds, ADHD meds, sleep meds, and every kind of mood disorder medication you can think of.  She took them religiously, believing they helped her.

I believe they killed her.  Big Pharm made a fortune off her.  And now she’s dead.  Is it the medication’s fault?  Who knows.  All I know is that at the end, she chose to overdose.  She certainly had plenty of pills to do it with.

Smart, kind, loving, funny, incredibly intelligent,  clinically depressed for certain, but bipolar?  I can’t say that I agree with that.  I’m no doctor so I had no credibility when I presented my research.

She loved rocks and minerals.  I was working on a suncatcher for her, using an aquamarine crystal I’d dug up from a mine – it had too many fault lines to cut for gems, so I left it whole and was slowly incorporating it into a design that would give her rainbows on her walls.  Now it will be hung at her memorial.  I hope, wherever she is, that she can see it.

RIP, my beloved niece.  You will be greatly missed.

This photo is for you, because I know you liked it.

Emotional Constipation. NPD? Maybe.

How long can a narcissist keep the  mask from slipping?  The longest I’ve seen is about 4 months, but there are moments during that time when I’ve thought I saw part of his face twitch and slide a bit.  Yup, turns out I’ve got myself someone who seems to fit  many of the diagnostic criteria for NPD.  

I’m not certain about it and I don’t want to “label” just yet, and besides, I’m no psychiatrist, but there are signs and have been signs for months.  I’ve been seeing this person for 15 months.  When we met, he told me he’d been separated for a year and was planning to file for divorce at the end of 2012. 

As a hard and fast rule, I have never dated any man who was simply “separated.”  He had to be divorced.  For more than 2 years.  I broke my rule.  I’d heard from mutual acquaintances how great this guy is, how horrible his marriage (24 years) had been and what a douche his wife is.  I was told I “couldn’t do better.”  

For the first 4 months, I believed these statements.  He was kind, loving, giving but he was also smothering me.  We had our first date on a Sunday and were supposed to go hiking.  When we got to the mountains, I find out he doesn’t hike.  So we walked around the lake, talking, etc.  I did notice he wasn’t much of a nature boy.  I’m a nature girl.  Still, I figured I could work with that – and I could and can. 

On Monday, I left work, came home and started cleaning the bathroom fan filter.  I get a call that says:  “I’m 20 min away.  Whatcha want for supper?”  I freaked.  On the phone.  His response was to simply say:  “My car just pointed itself in this direction.  No worries.  I’ll bring supper.”  We’d made no plans for Monday, he’d said nothing to me, and I’d counted on an evening alone.  Yup – I let him come over.  New relationship and all that.  RED FLAG! He just assumed I’d be okay with it.  I wasn’t okay with it but I didn’t say anything.  My bad.  So, every day thereafter, with the exception of Wednesdays, he did the same thing.  Came over, brought food, gave me grocery gift cards (I was trying to make ends meet on a low-paying temp job), gas cards, killed all the weeds outside, painted my bathroom, painted my kitchen, cleaned, did laundry, and was all-around wonderful.  Only he never asked me if it was okay and I thought I’d won the lottery and felt as though I’d have the money taken away if I challenged him on his ever-presence.  So I stayed mum.  I’m not so healed from NPD after all, am I?  I don’t seem to recognize the red flags when they’re ON my face, smothering me!

Fast forward to the end of 2012.  No divorce papers filed.  Can’t get an answer from him as to why not.  That’s when I find out he’s moved back into the family home, but she’s supposedly moved in with her elderly mother who needs care.  He’d moved back in 2 months prior and hadn’t told me.  I have no clue when she moved out.  Even now, I don’t know. 

When I asked him about the divorce he would get angry and withdraw.  He’d stare straight ahead, drum his fingers on the arm of whatever piece of furniture, and say something like:  “I’ve answered that question a thousand times already and I’m not answering it again!”  Well, no, he hadn’t answered it even once.  He’d tap danced around it, ducked and weaved, side-stepped, and changed subjects with lightning alacrity.  

The “discussions” begin – but they weren’t really discussions.  I’d talk and he’d get pissed off.  He’d tell me to get off his back.  He’d throw out some reason or another why he hadn’t filed for divorce yet.  His final reply about it was:  “I’m afraid to, okay?  You happy now? You just emasculated me!” 

Um, no, I didn’t.  I deserved an answer and that answer isn’t and wasn’t good enough.  By this time, I’d become dependent upon him for financial help.  I’d been laid off again and unemployment wasn’t paying enough to  pay bills.  He would make my car payment, pay my electric bill, pay my phone bill and buy food.  I’d do the rest with my UE check.  

Life begins to hammer me.  Lots of crap happened – temp job started; temp job ended.  Was told I’d be hired at one job after leaving on a friday and by monday I was unemployed. Unemployment screwed up my benefits and I didn’t get paid anything for almost 2 months.  Nothing.  Dept of welfare screwed up food stamps and those were a month late. They cut me off for July stating they never received “appropriate” documentation of my income.  Yeah they did.  My state is staffed with incompetent idiots.  They received it more than once. I gave up on them. 

Then my timing belt broke and took out a lot of engine parts.  New engine to the tune of $1,824.  There I was, totally dependent up on this man – no money, no food, no transportation.  Do you think he offered to help pay for my vehicle repair?  Nope.  I was totally dependent upon him for transportation.  Why would he help me become independent again?  He would bring food, but nothing healthy.  Even after telling him I can’t eat certain foods, he ignored me.  Just brought what HE wanted. 

Then we got in a huge fight and he decides not to tell me he’s volunteered for the local fireman’s carnival for three weekends in a row.  We didn’t spend much time together as it was – he was over almost every evening after work, but would always leave by 9 because he had to go home and get his “shit in a pile.”  Yeah, it’s a pile of shit, all right. 

So silly me, I go out and buy a couple of books on male/female communication – give one to him and I read the other one – this was prior to the carnival.  He’s had that book for 3 months and hasn’t cracked the binding.  He SAYS it’s because he doesn’t want to take it in the house since “she” might find it.  WTF???  Excuse me???  

I was still unemployed so I gritted my teeth, knowing I needed this man’s support. I still do – just started working again, but I’m no where near being back on my feet.  I hope to be there within 3 months.  Meanwhile I’m making nice with someone I don’t even want around me anymore,  Luckily for me, I don’t have to make excuses for not wanting to sleep with him.  It’s been too hot to sleep in my bedroom upstairs and so I’m sleeping on the sofa or an air mattress in the a/c in the living room.   He’s noticing something though because he’s trying harder these days to be super nice-man again.  I’m not buying it.  He sees his supply diminishing and knows there is no one else to get it from, so he’s trying to reel me back in.  Keep in mind, and I didn’t say this up front,  this man is extremely inexperienced with women.  He’s spent his adult life married to the same woman and if I wrote his life story here you’d understand why I totally believe him when he says he never cheated on her.  Ever.  Anyone who knows him will back that up – while it hasn’t been impossible for him, he has spent his married life caretaking for a woman who has had illness after illness after illness and once she got better, she refused to work.  He’s spent his adult life working extra jobs to support her and the two kids.  He pays almost all the bills, even though on Jan 1, (she’s working now!) they agreed to split the bills exactly in half. Almost immediately his wife’s mother needed round the clock care and so his wife couldn’t work full time.  So he’s paying everything again.  I tried to explain to him what was going on, but he doesn’t care, won’t listen.  Why?  BECAUSE HE’S NOT GETTING DIVORCED.  EVER.  He hates his wife, and he did finally file, but she’s contesting and he’s just ignoring it.  He won’t ever go through with it. 

So, how stupid am I?  Pretty stupid.  I’m in too deep and I’m attempting to extricate myself. At this point, 15 months later, he tells me he can’t provide me emotional support (yeah, like he ever used to????) because his “tank is empty” from all the time he spent caring for his unappreciative wife.  

I don’t feel sorry for him.  I’m not going to kick myself anymore.  I’m just working toward extrication.  It ain’t easy.  After this, though?  I’m probably done with relationships.  I can’t seem to pick a man who is good for me.  I thought this man was, since after 3 years of not dating and just taking care of ME, we met totally by coincidence.  I wasn’t looking and he wasn’t either.  (so he says.)  

Used to be I could do no wrong.  Now, I’m just another harpy like his wife.  No – he’s never called me that name, but he’s articulated on many occasions that his bad behavior and negative reactions to my needs are due solely to spending “the last 20 years dealing with that shit.”  Uh huh.  And he was a pastor, too.  Oh yeah.  You read that right.  

He says he does what he does because he loves me.  I’m supposed to be totally happy with financial support, food I can’t really eat, and his presence a couple hours a day.  I’m not ever supposed to ask about the progress of his divorce, or anything that might upset him. I’m supposed to just be a good little mistress, sit down, shut up and smile.  Tell him how wonderful he is.  Oh, and I’m also supposed to make him “feel like a man.”  I got told recently that I don’t do that enough.  He told me this in the middle of my most recent layoff, when I was freaking out about money, and was having other issues that I needed help with. He didn’t help with any of them – he simply intimated he wasn’t getting enough sex or home cooked meals.  He hasn’t had any since.  He’s not happy about it. Gosh.  

I’ll get out of it.  I just need to get all my ducks in a row and very coldly and calculatingly use him for what I need until I can move on.  If he won’t talk, won’t be honest, expects me to read his mind, won’t divorce, yet expects me to always be there for him – he can sleep in the bed he’s made for himself.  

Wish I had time to tell the entire story.  It’s a tale.  I don’t have the time,  though.  

And while I do have empathy for anyone who is primary caregiver to an ailing family member, the fact is that it’s not my fault he never sought help; it’s not my problem that he allowed her to drain his “tank” and it’s not my fault that I’m a normal woman who would like a man who interacts on a normal level, emotionally.  This guy is about 14, emotionally.  I already raised one teenaged boy.  Not raising another.  What’s galling about it, and I know better than to write this because it’s normal N behavior:  he would say he’s been nothing but fantastically wonderful to me.  He can’t look in his own mirror.  What he’d see would be too much for him to process.  

Oh – and when he and his wife were splitting up he agreed to counselling. He says he went to 9 sessions and walked out on the last one because each session was all about what he was doing wrong and how he’d treated her like shit.  Well, if you’re close enough to smell that it’s shit…(and I am!)

 

So, I found a new job…

…and was notified today that I’m not a felon so I can go to work for this company.  It’s a contract-perm position, as are almost all positions these days.  Last one of those I had, the company worked me through my contract, said they were ready to hire me, had all the paperwork ready and they’d see me on Monday.  That was on a Friday.  I got a call that evening from my agency that my “assignment had ended.”  Turns out the company had no intention of hiring me and only told me so to keep me in my seat, and at my computer.  They just put another temp in there.  It wasn’t a performance issue or an attendance issue or a personality conflict.  It was that the company didn’t want to hire a permanent person, thus incurring the costs of benefits and a higher wage.  So they strung me a long with promises of permanent employment until my 580 hours were worked through, and then threw me out like so much garbage.

Enter offer number two.  Just got it two weeks ago and background check came through clean today.  Of course it did.  I knew it would.  Last week, I emailed my agency rep to let her know I have a doctor appointment on June 24th.  I specified in my email that I wanted her to know in advance of starting at this company so that they would not start me on the 24th of June.

Guess what folks? Yep.  She called me today to tell me I have to start on the 24th.  When I mentioned my doctor appointment her voice went from light and airy to ugly in a blink.  My doctor appointment was going to cause “huge issues” and I knew from her tone that if I didn’t reschedule it NOW, the offer would be withdrawn and they wouldn’t work me any more.

This is what you do when you’re unemployed.  You take what you can get because you HAVE to take it, and I have serious doubts about the company I’m going to work for.  They are punitive with their employees.  I know this for a fact because a good friend of mine has worked for them for 10 years and has spent 7 of those 10 years stressed beyond any capacity I could understand.  He needs to work, so he stays.  He stays because he is a field rep and doesn’t have to go in and sit in a corporate office chair and spin on command each day.  He stays because he is 60 and is virtually unemployable.  He hates it.

So I call this “incident number one.”  I’m told if I keep the doctor appointment I had trouble getting scheduled in the FIRST damned place, that I won’t have a job, only I’m not told that in so many words.  I’m told it will be a “huge issue” in an ugly tone of voice.

Can’t wait for “incident number two.”  You know it’s coming.  So do I.  Someone won’t like that I’m quiet and keep to myself, or if I attempt to “assimilate” someone else won’t like that.  It’s the life of a temp – you get fired for breathing.  Don’t ever believe you fit in anywhere at a company if you’re a temp.  You are watched, evaluated, and criticized about anything and everything.  If you eat at your desk, because everyone else does and you only have 30 min for lunch, you’re penalized because only “employees” can do that.  More than one post-it pad on or in your desk?  That’s theft, you know!  Wear the wrong color shirt?  That’s inappropriate.

I was lucky today.  I was able to reschedule my doctor appointment.  But tell me – is it appropriate, right or in anyone’s best interest to force me to trade health care for a JOB???   Is it legal (probably it is!) to imply that someone will have an offer of employment withdrawn if that person has notified her agency of a doctor appointment well in advance of employment?

I’m here to tell you, after almost three years of this bullshit:  Don’t trust your agency, don’t trust Corporate America and don’t trust your co-workers.  Do not trust anything your own eyes can’t see or your own ears can’t hear.

And off I go, to lovely evil corporate america, again.  Wonder how this one will work out.  And if anyone has the temerity to tell me I have a bad attitude, I suggest you get yourself unemployed for 3 years and then after that same time frame has passed and you’ve been passed around like a corporate whore from one company to another that makes you promise after promise and then shits all over you, to then post here about my attitude.  Jus’ sayin’.

And Now for Something Completely Different…

…or not…

My last letter to Congressman Shuster received this reply.  So, is he inundated with email, is his inbox full, have the many thousands of his unemployed constituents decided to email him or…has he blocked email from google?

Any one of those scenarios is possible. Stay tuned for further updates:

 

 

 

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE.

Delivery to the following recipient has been delayed:

     Shuster@housemail.house.gov

Message will be retried for 2 more day(s)

Technical details of temporary failure: 
The recipient server did not accept our requests to connect.

People are so afraid of Socialism because…

…of the Marxist tradition of socialism following capitalism into communism.  I dunno – is Sweden a communist country?  Not last time I looked.

 

so·cial·ism

[soh-shuh-liz-uhm]

noun

1.

a theory or system of social organization  that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

Right now, I think I’m probably a pretty big proponent of socialism, practiced for the good of all.   It’s been successfully practiced for millenia.  The ancients practiced it.  Cro-magnon man HAD to practice it to stay alive.

The image of America, land of plenty, is long gone, yet it’s still perpetrated by our gonzo government.  Funny, I don’t hear of a helluva lot of Swedes seeking asylum in our “land of plenty.”  Hmmm – can’t remember the last time I met a Swedish illegal.

I know someone who has a family member who moved to Sweden years ago.  She’s married and has a child there.  She wouldn’t come back here on a dare.  Not for a dumptruck full of American dollars.  Why?  Because Sweden takes very good care of its citizens.  They CARE.

That’s what’s lacking in America.  CARE.  America is about greed.  It’s about making sure no one has something bigger, better, stronger, faster, or more expensive than you have.   As I write this, I’m wearing a hairband that is 12 years old, a tee shirt bought at goodwill 6 years ago, a brown cashmere sweater given to me by a family member who had it for 40 years prior to giving it to me, jeans given to me by a friend who outgrew them.  My laptop sits on desk purchased secondhand, my lamp was purchased at a thrift store in NH 8 years ago.   I don’t care about things.  I care about living well and decently.  I care about my quality of life.  Having the trendiest, hottest new “thing” doesn’t factor into that equation.

When are Americans going to wake up and actually SMELL the (overpriced and not very good) coffee they queue up for at Starbucks????

This Guy Makes a Great Analogy

Read this post Company Hiring Practices.  This guy is right on the money.  Fascism here we are (I’d say “here we come” but we’re here already).  How long before they herd all us undesirables into “work camps?”  

That’s not sarcasm or a joke.  It could very well be a reality where all of us who are unemployed are forced to take jobs which we are physically unable to do (manual labor for elders, etc), particularly if some of these “job creation” programs get off the ground.  How long before we’re told we must give up our lives as we know them, move to some location dictated by the government and work 12-14 hour days for minimum wage (or less?) simply so our government can smile, buff its buttons and say “see?  we’ve created jobs for so many!” 

Meanwhile corporations will continue running amok, and know what?  It may not be in my life time, but what is going to happen is that corporations will continue with their “streamlining” to the point where they no longer have a population who can afford to purchase their products.  They will go down. The day is coming when Mr. CEO with his conspicuous consumption will be in a labor pool right along with the rest of us.

Revolution is in the air.  I suggest our government regulate corporate America NOW.  It’s the only way to avoid having “we the rabble” rising with our pitchforks and and marching on Washington. Most of us would do it peacefully but in every crowd there is a “rabble rouser” and the idiocracy that is our government still refuses to take the blinders off.  Well, blindsiding is one way to get someone’s attention, huh? 

So Today…

…I heard from someone who has never been unemployed in his life and who is a successful businessman that as a “hiring employer” he doesn’t want to hear from a candidate that they are accepting “government assistance” if they are currently unemployed.  He won’t hire someone who says they are on unemployment. 

He stated that he’d rather they lie and say that while they are currently unemployed due to no fault of their own, they are living on their savings and retirement money.  Excuse me?  They’ve paid into a system that is there specifically for their use should they ever need it.  Why should they go through their savings and retirement FIRST, thus creating a situation of possible total impoverishment when the time comes for them to retire? 

I’m still awaiting his reply to my query as to why he won’t do that.  Film at 11:00 or whenever he replies.  IF he replies.  Snort. 

Karma is a Beautiful Thing

I won’t name names or speak to situations but I will say that there are some who just keep building bad karma for themselves.  It’s always amusing when their own karma finally runs them over and they drag themselves up with a look of surprised outrage on their faces.

I heard something today that, had I not already believed in karma (you get what you give), would have convinced me beyond all doubt.

It took a coupla years but the wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round…