Juanita Lunchbucket blues, part deux

Francisco Goya, Execution of the Rebels - How much can we take?

For those that are going through lay-offs, job cutbacks, you have a friend.  I’m in the same struggle as you.  This is an extremely personal post, if you don’t wanna read, keep moving to the other great posts.

Remember when I got laid off, thanks to the October bailout & stock market collapse?

It happened again – yesterday in fact, and today was my last day.  Not just me, the entire staff except for the the owners (this was a small business).  I was working PT, while also doing an online course for state certification in a supposedly recession-proof industry, working at this small business and making minimum wage salary plus commission.  But in order to make that commission, you need a state license to do that.  It’s an insurance office that specializes in Medicare Advantage plans (Part A & B – plus D = Part C, aka Medicare Advantage Plan)  It rolls up Medicare (Federal), prescription coverage (Part D) all into one.  And if you’re of lower income, it rolls up your Medicaid too.

Mind you, I am a “creative classer” – aka, marketing/advertising/media professional.  I’ve been freelancing for about 6 years, with some concentration on the Health Insurance industry (I have other “concentrations,” but I won’t get into that now) and up until late 2006, I was doing really good.   I could pay my bills & do what I need to do for the FAMILIA (Puma Cub & Grandma Puma).  I even got to volunteer for Puma Cub’s school teams & activities.  Something a single working mom can’t do.

Well after the October 2008 fiasco – I started PT-ing just to try to cover basic necessities (my nest egg flew the coop),  hoping things would kick up and get better after the election.  Then I got sick.  Here I am, needing insurance- mind you, and I’m helping people worse off than me (disabled & seniors who need food stamps, lower co-pays for their doctors & medications),  to get something back for all the years they’ve busted their ass for in their working years.  Despite my illness, I kept working because I had to, giving my all and learning the trade that could be paying the bills for a while.

Not anymore.  Everyone from the cleaning lady, bookkeeper, receptionists, everyone – GONE.  Just like that.   Medicare cut back on the payments made to sub-contractors (private insurance companies and subsequently, independent agencies) which in turn, had to cut back personnel or absorb the cut until things balance out with the stock market.  The owners decided to cut personnel, aka, me and everybody else.

So what to do?  I can’t push for more child support – ex-hubbie is miraculously cooperating lately (which he wasn’t for 9 of 11 Puma Cub’s years) but it’s not enough.   During my 3 month PT, I’ve helped seniors & disabled people get the most out of their hard-earned working years, (which what the gov’t and their insurance company SHOULD DO since they are being PAID by the Federal Gov’t to do for them when Bush Privatized Medicare),  get the most out of their Medicare.  After learning exactly how much money goes into each recipient of Medicare, how much the state gives for low income cases, I KNOW UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE IS A POSSIBILITY in the United States.  But that’s another post to be written.  I’ve been a passionate advocate of this, BTW…but you all know this… moving on:

For the first time in my working single mom life, today I applied for Food Stamps & Medicaid- because for the first time, I have no other alternative.

I cried my eyes out while doing it.  I’m from a strong Amazonian stock of proud working immigrant people who never asked anything from anyone except to work & give the best we got for a living wage, but what else I am going to do?

I have a kid to support and a disabled senior under my care.  Under more normal economic circumstances, I would have a little $ put aside for a couple of months and hustle for that next gig – which always came through (thank God/Goddess).  But there’s no more bustle in the hustle.  There’s no money to hire a person like me.  There’s hardly any opportunities in Tampa for my skill set – and most of the money I’ve made in the past 5 yrs has been through NY, DC, CA projects that I get through my marketing network – who are suffering just like me.  Hell, even Checkers is on a waiting list.

So to all the O-bots that bullied, cheated and pushed their way to elect a MFer that doesn’t know shit about nothing – FUCK YOU.  We had that person that can save this economy – that can give both domestic and foreign investors 10 BILLION times more confidence in investing in domestic industry and services to pump back the stock market.

We could have had that leader who had the plan to undo the damage – SHE had the Solutions for America, for the invisible fuckers like me and the millions that are getting laid off and fucked up the ass thanks to Bush 2.0 just so you can expiate your nascent liberalism, while the rest of us BEEN fighting for the rights of everyone here in the US for decades while your asses were being wiped  and powdered by your moms or nannies.

BUT NO.  You had to have your fucking President Obama, come hell or high water.   Guess what – I ain’t seen a damn change, except for the worse.

In the meantime, I have HOPE, not in the mass merchandised Obama kind, but that whatever protects me, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, Yahweh (MadamaB, the Bat-Mitzvah is on!), Santeria Goddesses, Ancestral Spirits, that my world turns back to the ordinary and simple kind where I work and I am paid what my work is worth.  Where I can buy my Puma Cub that extra treat due to a good report card (she wants to be a scientist!) and put some away for her college education, where I can send my mom on a well deserved vacation once a year to Dominican Republic to be in her hometown where she was born during the colder winter months so her arthritis doesn’t fold her in half due to the pain.  Where I can make a living and have that satisfaction of participating in this great nation that opened its arms to my parents.

Here’s a song I heard this morning on my way to be laid off.   I’ve always been a Duranie since Planet Earth.  Normally Simon Le Bon is not making any kind of sense except in a sexy kind, but this hit home today- and I cried my eyes out.

What is happening to me crazy some would say
Where is the life that I recognize, gone away

And I won’t cry for yesterday, there’s an ordinary world somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world I will learn to survive

We all have to learn to survive while we strive for that Ordinary World we once had.

UPDATE: NEW LINK FOR VIDEO