Managing life

I am so far past hungry, that my stomach has stopped growling altogether, and has basically said, “Fuck you! If you’re not gonna listen to my growls, then I’ll just have to take more drastic measures!”.

Which, in stomach-speak means: “Commence with the hunger headache!”.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things haven’t been this bad for us, financially, in a couple of years. The last time was when my body forced me to stop working, and we had to adjust to only one income. Once we were adjusted, and had the wheels of our monthly budget greased and working perfectly, things were going fairly well.

Keep in mind, though, our standard of “well” is much lower than the average person’s. We’re poor, and we’re used to it. We go without many things that the average person takes for granted. Going out to eat is a luxury, and usually only happens when we’ve received a gift card to a particular restaurant as a present (xmas or birthday). Going to a fast food joint might happen once a month, and usually only when my Husband has brought home a larger than usual paycheck. That extra 20 bucks is cause for celebration!

Recently, things have taken a much more drastic turn. We’ve been hit with some unusual and untimely expenses. Our aging truck needed a major repair, which cost us $200. Then, it needed it’s yearly inspection, which meant new tires. Usually that would cost roughly $200 per tire, but we got lucky, and a family member had almost brand new tires that he was willing to sell us for $100 total! With everything combined, we shelled out close to $400. But if my Husband intended to have a vehicle to go to and from work, it was unavoidable.

And there went our money for our regular monthly bills. Which put us behind. Drastically. Shut-off notices were sent out by every one of our utility companies. Our cellphones actually did get shut off, for a day. And in order to get caught up, we had to make further cuts to our budget.

Which means a cut in food money, which was paltry to begin with.

And that brings me to what’s really been pissing me off lately. My Husband works for one of the few companies that have not only not taken a hit in this recession, but have actually increased their earnings (at least according to all the news reports). But, apparently, they think their employees are too stupid to understand the financial news, and they keep making more and more cuts, then blaming the recession. Give me a break! Wally-World is raking in money hand over fist!

But if that’s not bad enough, he has a manager who is trying everything in his power to “break” my Husband, by retaliating against him. “Wait, isn’t retaliation against Wally-World policy?”, you might ask. Why yes, yes it is. But guess what – this manager is above company policy. You wanna know how I know? Because this manager was not only gambling on company time and on the sales floor, but he was also drag-racing in the parking lot! When my Husband (and others) turned him in, the manager was fired.

But wait! That’s not the end of the story! This manager played the race card, was re-hired, and re-assumed his original position as the manager over the same people who turned him in and had him fired in the first place! Brilliant move on the part of upper management, huh?

So, how does this manager retaliate? By telling my Husband that he must change his hours of availability to include the weekends, and if he doesn’t, well he’ll just have his hours cut (to show how serious this manager is, presumably). My Husband worked hard to get his schedule the way it is now. So, my Husband had his hours cut. From 40 hours to 32 hours, to be exact. Which means, even less food for our family.

But that’s ok, the last laugh is ours. This moronic manager is forever complaining that he doesn’t have enough people to do the work. Not to mention, my Husband is THE hardest worker they have; he does by himself what it takes 4 other people to do, and he does it in half the time! So, when upper management starts asking why the work isn’t being done, it will reflect badly on the dumb-ass manager.

Isn’t that called “Cutting off your nose to spite your face”?

Maybe this time he’ll be fired and STAY fired! Until that time comes, though, my Husband and I are down to one meal a day, so that we can make sure that my Son can eat three meals a day.

Would it be terribly vindictive of me to go personally thank the asshole manager for my new diet plan?

[For the record, before this ass-hat was a manager, he was a great guy, personally … although he didn’t actually work while he was at work, even back then (which makes me wonder how he got the manager’s position in the first place!).]