I think maybe, in response to Ann's comment, that I should 'splain some things. For one thing, her comment (and reading my old posts) helps me see just how much I yammer about money. I think it's an awkward subject, but it seems to me that I should try to find ways to talk about it, not least because it's important in our everyday lives.
Although my day job is low-paying and physically grueling, it IS a job. I could live on what I make, just barely, if I were willing to live in a tiny apartment, have no social life, and eat as cheaply as possible; doing without health care or health insurance would help, too, as would doing without cable/internet and doing without a cell phone. I'm willing to work a second job so I can live in a one-bedroom apartment, go out to dinner or drinks with friends, eat organic (insofar as I eat anything other than meals out or bakery food), have health care and insurance, have an internet connection and cable TV, buy stuff, and have a cell phone as well as a land line. I don't like debt: my only debt right now is my student loan for pastry school, and I pay more than the minimum payment so I can (a) pay it off sooner and (b) pay less over the life of the loan. (If I paid it on their schedule, I'd pay twice the original loan amount--the loan amount plus the same amount in interest--which I think is insane.) That is, though I have credit, I have no desire to use it for material comforts, not least because interest rates are usurious, and I will do without rather than run up consumer debt. (I am not critical about people who have had to use credit cards to get out of jams and then find themselves in an even harder place; I have a parental safety net that many people simply do not have. I am critical about people who pile up debt for big houses, cars, and other conspicuously consumed items, but I may also be overly harsh about that.)
Not so terrible, really, especially compared to most of the rest of the world's population. Relative to what I have earned in other jobs, relative to what people with my level of education and experience can/do make, well, that's a little different comparison.
The other thing about my current situation, and probably the reason I write about this so often, is that it feels precarious to me. I've been getting enough side work such that I feel like I can breathe a little right now, but it's all built on being able to continue all of this work for the indefinite future--which is simply not realistic or pleasant to consider--or on finding another job that is less grueling and pays more--which, as I've noted before, is much more easily said than done. That's the source of the anxiety, I think, and why it shows up in my writing here so much. That is, it's not the immediate lack of money that makes me anxious--I have enough for my current needs and such--it's that I know my current situation is not one that will work for the long term, and my options seem so limited or difficult to attain that I start to worry about what I'm going to do.
It also brings up old crap. When I finished grad school, I was un- or underemployed for more than a year, as I've said here before. Could I have moved back in with my parents, if all else failed? Yup--and that's not an option that everyone has. But seriously; who'd want to do that, at the age of 36? Yeah; me neither. The fear and anxiety (and grief, for an assortment of losses) stayed with me for much of the last 13 years. It abated somewhat, with the last job; even when the company started to fail, I thought I had a partner who would help me as I made a transition to something new. As all of that blew up in the past 18 months, the anxiety has reared its ugly head again, and the particular choices I've made and circumstances in which I have thereby found myself have reawakened the fears again.
Keep in mind that I don't think I "deserve" this or that--job, salary, compensation, material lifestyle, whatever. I think all of us "deserve" work that is valued, living circumstances that are comfortable and free of anxiety about things like food and health care, etc.--me no more or less than anyone else. I'm closer to having a lot of that, because of the time and place in which I live, and also because of the genetic luck of the draw, i.e., I have brains and skills. And, yes, I work hard, but that is by no means either a necessary or sufficient condition. So it's not that I feel cheated, that I've been deprived of something that's rightly mine or something like that, it's that I don't know how I'm going to maintain. I want to create the time and space to do needlepoint, to write (other than to you guys), to make dinner for friends, to sit in a cafe and read a book for fun, without having to worry about anything right that minute. I've had those things before, and I want them again, and instead I'm worrying about paying the rent--not next month, but next year.
Anyway. I need to sleep.
3 comments:
Funny -- as soon as I posed that comment, I thought, That's an odd thing to say.
Talking about money seems like a taboo in our culture. We don't discuss how much we earn, or what determines our income level, or how it's tied to the work that we do or the work that needs to be done, or any of the issues around "deserving" the money we make. It's such a big, weird, complicated thing, which means that it interests me enormously.
I think a lot of progressives (for lack of a better word) see money as a bad thing, when of course it's necessary for survival and, in a substantial way, happiness. Well, not money so much as all the different kinds of security it offers -- but we still have to talk about it in terms of money, because no one "earns" free time or travel opportunities in the same way.
The people who dish out the money that buys the stability in this world generally don't like people like you, or maybe I should say they fear people like you. You want to do good work, honest work, and you don't want to have to con anybody or beg anybody or fight with anybody to get paid appropriately. You want to be valued for your true abilities (not your ability to kiss ass), and you want to know that no one among your coworkers is being ripped off (because that would make you complicit). You are most likely smarter than a lot of the management types you meet, and they smell that taint on you, so it will always be important to them to humiliate you, steal your life by paying you as little as they can get away with, take away your rights and dignity and in general put you "in your place."
I admire you for the career choices you've told about here, I'm sorry they haven't worked out and I hope you get out and find work to do that's worthy of you and sustains you and for which your talents are recognized, because then you'll get what you need out of it, and you can stop sweating the small stuff.
Love ya.
Both of these comments deserve a more thoughtful response than I can compose right now, but I wanted to acknowledge them, thank you for them, and think about them.
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