Homed.

In college, one of my friends dated a girl named Toria. Toria had a friend named Laura, and Laura could have a bit of a prickly demeanor. There was an epic argument that stemmed from a comment I made to my friend about a pic. I meant no harm, but my friend's girlfriend's prickly friend's protective instincts kicked in and she let loose with a barrage of insults, including this one:

"You should get a cat, so you'd at least have one friend."

A couple years later, I was down and out, staying with my parents in their poor person apartment. It was a bitter cold winter in 2010. One day, I was getting something out of my car, and this cat appeared:

She then jumped in my open car door:

It was pretty cold and I think, more than anything, she was trying to warm up. This cat was homeless. I wasn't doing much better, living with my poor parents. Eventually, my mom held the door open for way too long while bringing in groceries, and walla... we have a cat.

Eventually, my mom pretended the cat was my idea and the responsibility fell on me to look after her.

She's been staying with a friend since June, when I became homeless.  I miss her.

The good news is I got an apartment!  The less good news is that it isn't ready to move in until 11/3.

I'm still about $600 short of my goal over at gofundme.com/samvance 

While I did get the apartment, I still need money for apartment supplies, food, and costs associated with getting all of my things to Columbus from Cincinnati.

I can't wait to move into my apartment, even though it's nerve wrecking because it was supposed to be 11/1, but got pushed back...

And I miss my cat.

The apartment ad:

https://columbus.craigslist.org/apa/5283052742.html

Less Bad Is Not Good

Things are not as bad as they were a month ago. I now have a job that I'm training for. My car has a new battery, a new right outer tie rod, and via a Hyundai recall, a new subframe.

So things certainly aren't as dire.

Through an uncomfortable amount of solicitation, I was fortunate enough to raise gas money to get me to work until I get paid. I also found out on day one, that HR was wrong and my 1st pay will be on October 9th, not October 16th. I also learned that I get an attendance bonus, paid quarterly.

So that's certainly not a bad thing.  Yes, things are better, but they aren't good.

Currently, I commute about 73 miles a day for work, which is too much gas and too much wear and tear on an already worn car. My brakes are fading. I have no savings.

I really want to get an apartment. I'm homeless still, but couch surfing in my sister's basement, so it could be worse...

And this is the frustration. Some people stepped up big and donated so I could have gas money to get to work, but when I tried to raise some money to be able to get an apartment sooner rather than later, it has been virtual crickets with a couple exceptions.

Things are better, but they aren't good.

I'm still in training for a few more weeks. After the training period is over, I'll be eligible to work overtime. Overtime is what I really need, and it would be great if I had an apartment to come home to with a shorter commute to make all the overtime of a peak season for this job(call center) more bearable. Also, if I have an apartment by the time training is done, I'll have more time to work more overtime.

I would love to get some donations toward getting an apartment, which I would combine with my 1st check.

If you wish to help me get a place to live sooner rather than later, just click the link on my Twitter profile or click here: http://paypal.me/poorblog I promise you I'm not some scammer, just a guy trying to climb out of the cellar, find a place to live, and reunite with my cat, Ms. Teschmacher. 

Fear The Walking Zombie Debt.

Any Ohio licensed JD's able to help out with something?  

I'm dealing with Zombie Debt & the creditor handling the summary judgement, National Check Bureau c/o David Bader, is draining my bank account slowly and sporadically, allowing interest and whatever fees he can dream up, to accumulate.

In 2010, this creditor(person who bought my debt) started taking money out of my bank account.  I was able to talk to them and explain that I was in a pretty bad shape, financially, and asked if they could  give some breathing room. I may have agreed to make payments, which never happened, either because I didn't have it or because it slipped my mind completely.

Obviously, I bare some responsibility here, much in the same way that the guy trying to talk the meter maid into 'letting it slide' failed to get back to his car on time. Except, I will say that this firm bought bad debt, they weren't trying to collect money they lent me personally. Inherently, there is a touch of douchebaggery baked into their business model, that is, to exploit the financial shortcomings of others while charging interest and fees.

They probably bought my debt for a few hundred dollars at most, but attempted to collect the full amount of the original debt. I guess, it's lucrative work if you lack all empathy and soul.

In early June(5 years later, I checked my bank account and discovered that $102.55 had been withdrawn by this lawyer and National Check Bureau. It was his bank garnishment in June that led me to leave my apartment. I no longer had the rent.  I'm starting a new job and will be saving to get a place to live, and I'm afraid that he'll swoop in just when I have enough money saved and drain my account. Every time he does this, the court charges $50, which gets added to the 'fees' I have to pay.  I barely have the gas money I need to commute until I get my first check. Imagine if the gas/food money I sorely need is stripped away?

If anyone can, please donate. That money is safe in my PayPal until I need to withdraw it.  If anyone is or knows a lawyer licensed in Ohio that is willing to contact these guys on my behalf and get them to back off or set up some other arrangements, it would be greatly appreciated.

PayPal link: http://paypal.me/poorblog

Dead.

Good news: I have a job offer for the Columbus call center job and I'm supposed to sign paperwork Thursday.

Bad News: I think the starter in my 2001 Hyundai Sonata finally died today and the car won't start.

I don't really have enough gas $ to get back and forth to the new job until I get my 1st paycheck, let alone $ to get a new starter put in.

If I can't get this car started, I can't get up to Columbus, and even if I get up there somehow, I have no reliable transportation to get to the new job.

I really need money to get a starter put in that rusty car. This isn't some scheme. I assure you the damn car is dead at the moment. My dad said to try jump starting it, and maybe then I can get it up to Columbus, but I have no idea if that's gonna work.

This is the reality of poverty. No savings and any small setback can derail an opportunity.

I really need help & I'm running out of ppl to ask.

Next Steps.

As I find myself constantly clawing my way out of the cellar, it becomes difficult to chart progress; a donation helps, but I need more. Getting interviews are great, but they aren't job offers.  Decent paying jobs are great, but I still wouldn't make enough to pay on student loan debt and save for retirement.

Here lately, the victories have come in the form of strategic retreats; losing a battle to save resources to keep the larger war effort going.  My war is constant poverty.  Everyone started it. Crappy circumstances met against a stubborn will to find a job I wanted to wake up every morning for, and this was complicated by a recession, poor money management skills(though a lot of people would fail to save when they don't make enough to live), and an erratic job history.

This war has both humbled me and desensitized me to the ups and downs every person feels in life.  Everything about me has steeped in a dreary grey.  That's great for an English breakfast, but it makes it hard to recognize any crests along the way.

Since my last post, I haven't heard back on the technical writer job. The recruiter never even replied to my emails.  Honestly, I'm used to being treated this way.  My AEP job fell through. The placement agency thought I was a great candidate, but....  I emailed to ask why I was rejected, but they never replied.  They NEVER reply.  Part of me thinks that I have been rejected for discriminatory reasons, which make many employers unable to be honest. But I'm not going to cry discrimination as a white male who did far too much hero eating in his 20's to show off to friends.

That leaves the other Columbus opportunity, which is at a call center for Restoration Hardware, I suspected I had a good chance because the skills test I took went well and the interview I had went great.  At the end of the interview, I asked her if there was any reason why she wouldn't hire me, which resulted in her taking the next 5 minutes to compliment me.  She told me she would send a background check and we would go from there.  I filled the background check forms out online as soon as they were emailed to me and have been waiting anxiously to hear back.

Today, I got too impatient and emailed her for an update.  When she called me back she said my background check had not come back yet.... but she would like to extend an offer contingent on the results of the background check.

Hooray.

It's a criminal background check and I'm squeaky clean, so I'm going take a moment to celebrate.  The job training will start on September 18th, in West Jefferson, which is 10 miles west of Columbus.  I stay in Cincinnati, over 100 miles away.  So yes, I still need donations if anyone can spare them for gas and food money.  Even if this place pays weekly, it will be 2 weeks after September 18th before I get paid at the earliest.

So my next steps are to get enough money to actually make it to the new job, then save enough money couch surfing and working to move up to Columbus.  There's always the chance that I get mixed up with someone else and my background check has some sort of errors on it, but I'm going to try to be positive for a while and hope for the best.

Feel free to distribute the link to this blog if you are unable to donate, Maybe other people who follow you on Twitter or Facebook will be able to  share the link or donate.

Thank you in advance.

Sam.

Fffffffffffffffffff.........

So frustrated right now...

Another seemingly solid job lead has dissolved, just as another promising job lead emerges. I should be happy to have a new opportunity, but this has been happening for months.

Last week, I was certain I would at least have 1 job offer this week, but this week, I ended up with none.  Next week I fully (perhaps, fooly) expect at least 1 job offer.

In June, as I was staring at an empty refrigerator and an empty wallet, I debated the offer to leave my apartment to stay with a friend because I was certain I was close to getting a position.

I wasn't.

People respond to my plight as if I'm lazy. I'm not.  I was raised hauling in firewood, and shoveling hog manure since I was in the 5th grade.

I'm not good at the easiest to get jobs. Perhaps the catalyst responsible for me starting Poor Blog was when I went to work at Amazon a couple years ago to get off of unemployment.  I knew it would be hard, but I had to do something.  I was so bad at the grueling warehouse work that after two days, I was laid up, unable to stand, other than to slowly and painfully shuffle my feet, for two days.  I wasn't lazy, I was terrible at that sort of work.

People keep suggesting things in the key of 'why don't you just...' and you can fill in the blanks with serving, cooking, and other restaurant work. What those people never believed or listened to was that I did apply for those types of jobs and never made it past the interview. I'm always amazed at people that can just go out and get one of those jobs in a couple days and start the next week.  If I got the dishwasher job or the chicken restaurant job, I probably wouldn't have done much better than I fared at Amazon.  I could suffer through hard, physical labor when I was younger, but now, I'm just too terrible at it and my back and feet are too weak.

So even if I were hired for one of those jobs(and I have applied for them), I probably wouldn't last very long.  Instead, I try to look for work that compliments my skill set.

I find good positions in chunks. Usually, there is a job I really want, but my skills may be a little low and my prospects aren't as high. Another job fits my skills well even though I wouldn't prefer that work as well as other types of work.  A third job is some customer service type job that I have done a version of in the past and that I'm a mortal lock for, I perceive as a fallback position if the other two fall through. Then, all three positions fall apart.

This has happened several times since January; it may be happening now.

I hope not.

I lost the Sam Adams position and the same temp agency that sent me to that interview, called me about the opportunity at Sugar Creek Packing.  I didn't know this at the time, but they already knew I wasn't getting the Sam Adams job when they called about the Sugar Creek job.  I only found out after my Sugar Creek interview, when I called Lab Support to follow up on the Sam Adams job. Today, Lab support called to talk about a lab tech position they thought I would be interested in. Suspicious, I asked about the Sugar Creek job, and sure enough, they already knew I wasn't getting it.  When did they plan to tell me?

I had a good interview for a call center job in Columbus yesterday and earlier this week I applied for another Columbus call center position.  The former could be viewed as the safety pick, the fallback choice.  I have an interview next week for a technical writer position here in Cincinnati as well as an open house in Columbus for that second call center job.

I would love to get the technical writer job, but even more than that, I would love to not have all my job leads fall apart.

I had a few big donations last week, but that is all going toward gas, food, car insurance and rent for my possessions sitting in Public Storage.  If anyone reading this hasn't donated and wants to, or knows of someone who can donate, please donate or pass along the link to this blog.  Even if I get hired next week, I'll still need money to get by until I get my first check.  Every little bit helps.

Thank you.

Good News & Bad News...

Well, the last time I posted, it was out of desperation.  My beloved Late 2006 Intel iMac was dying. It stopped conducting heat properly and the soldered on graphics chip was throwing all sorts of graphic 'artifacts' on my screen. The computer would only run for about 10 minutes at a time in most cases, and that was the real problem.

I'm unemployed and still looking, although I was fortunate enough to gain some experience in freelance writing.  Most job applications were filled out online, and obviously, ALL freelance writing is done online. If my computer was only going to run for 10 minutes, then there was no way for me to apply for jobs or continue creating content to attract more freelance writing assignments.  So I took to the internet to try to raise funds to replace my computer.

The response was somewhat cold, to say the least.

I got a grand total of ONE PayPal donation, for which I am eternally grateful, but $30 isn't enough to replace my computer.  I got several negative remarks about what they called Twitter begging and also a scam.  I was hurt, embarrassed, and still very much screwed. Due to a tax refund, my rent was paid through March and my utilities are paid through February, but without a full time computer, my chances of getting hired on somewhere was practically zero.

Many people, well intentioned as well as trolls, suggested I use the computer at my local library. In a pinch, sure, but as the sole means of marketing myself to employers? No. My local library is the Main branch of the Cincinnati Public Library, located on Vine Street downtown.  I would need to take a bus there, which costs $1.75(exact change only) one way.  That's $3.50 per day in exact change to use the libraries computer for a limited amount of time.

Lucky for me, my sister agreed to let me use one of her families laptops. So the good news here is that I now have a laptop to work from and apply for things from. My sister lives 100 miles away, so it was going to take a 200 mile road trip to pick it up. 

My car is also in bad shape, though, and loses coolant every time I drive it.  My dad arranged for his very kind Korean mechanics to take a look at it.  They discovered that my head gasket was partially blown and that was causing my radiator to overheat and boil off the coolant.  It's a 1997 Dodge Stratus and the cost of repair is barely worth the value of the vehicle.  Besides... neither myself nor my family have the money to get this done.

So I drove back to my sister's house, very distraught about my situation. I was so riddled with despair that I accidentally locked the keys in my car when I got out to collect my laundry and my borrowed laptop.

Eventually, I got AAA to show up and get my car door open, so I could drive me and my defeated car home.  I now have to factor the commute into any job I take, since my transportation is no longer reliable. 

So this time next month, things may really start to come undone as I won't have my car insurance funds I need for the automatic withdrawal, then I won't have the electricity, then the internet, then the rent.  Food and gas money will probably dry up before that.

Hopefully, I can find a job before then.

Bootstrappers.

When you stick out like a sore thumb, everyone becomes a hammer... I know that is a horrible mixed metaphor, but that is how I feel.

As my story got out there, I received more than PayPal Donations and kind words of encouragement.  I've been getting lots of annoyed responses followed by advice that usually starts out like this:

'Why don't you just...'

Some of them tell me their own experiences where everything worked out fine in the end, and I get the sense from their stories that there is a little revisionist history going on.

I get a lot of what I call, 'Bootstrappers'. These are people who start at self sufficiency and work backwards from there.  If you try, you will get a job... If you just make the effort, you will get hired... You just need to get off your ass and pound the pavement... Just take any job that comes along!  Go flip burgers!

A lot of the hasty responses followed a tough love approach, as if the only reason I am not currently working is because I don't want to and this guy is going to get real with me and they're the one that's going to step up and tell me the hard truths that these other pussies are too afraid to tell me.

Bootstrappers.

First off, no job is easy to get right now, even though the labor market is slowly improving, it's still multiple applicants per job.  Another thing that people don't consider is that it is possible for a job to pay too little to except.  Sure, $7 or $8 an hour is $7 or $8 an hour more than what I currently make, but if the hours max out at 28, then I'll barely have enough to make rent, let alone food and utilities and fuel.  If the schedule changes every week then I can't hope to get a 2nd job to add up to enough money for just my basic bills.  Sure, $170 a week after taxes is $170 more than I make now, but it's still less than what I need to live on.  The utilities still get shutoff, even if I have a little money.  I would still get evicted, eventually, even if I had only some of the money.

I'm not exactly living high on the hog, either... except this week where I literally slow cooked a pork shoulder to eat on all week... a weeks worth of food that would not have been possible had it not been for my friends getting me Kroger Gift Cards for Christmas.  Thanks, guys.

I have internet, which despite what some bootstrappers say, I really do need for applying to and following up on jobs.  Obviously, I have electricity, and my heat/water is paid with the rent.

The only thing extra that I have is an $8 per month Netflix subscription and wow, have I got some fierce blowback for that.  Most negative comments go right at the Netflix first.

That's how it is when you're poor though.  Bootstrappers have to believe that you are only poor because of your own personal failings, otherwise, their worldview kind of falls apart.  If you buy anything other than flour, eggs, milk, and maybe a chuck roast and potatoes at the store, you are living it up in the bootstrapper's eyes.

Your life is not permitted joy if you are poor.  Poverty, according to the bootstrappers, is a punishment.  Poverty is for the losers of capitalism and social darwinism.  Not being homeless and a bowl of gruel is all the poor deserve in the eyes of the bootstrapper.

So people pile on and it wears heavily on me.  My back strains from the weight of a world that owes me nothing and sees no reason to help someone who obviously can't help themself.

But I'm lower than my own self dug shovelfuls should account for.  The world fines poverty with exponentially worse poverty. I pay what I can on utilities and I don't just fall behind on what I owe, I have fees added.  I don't compete with people who were just out of work, they get the interview first.  My poverty isn't merely the sum of my misfortunes, there's an added multiplier that makes things exponentially worse.

My misfortunes gain steam and attract other misfortunes.  Car trouble get's patched by friend-of-the-family mechanics who do just enough to keep it running while my family tries to pay the bill.  Family members try to help out, which puts a strain on them.  If they have the misfortune of being short on their own meager funds, then they can't help.  Some friends get tired of your complaining and unload on you for a simple facebook status that didn't warrant the response you got.

It just all piles on.

The month is almost half over.  No February rent. No car insurance that is due in a week. Getting pretty low on food.  What am I going to do, have another Twitter-Thon to raise PayPal donations?  How many times can I reasonably expect others to help?  I'm in a pretty low place right now and I really don't know if I can climb out.

Dreams & Ambitions.

During this whole ordeal of not having rent, I mentioned in a tweet to Chris Hayes that, I too, had dreams and ambitions.  The perception, which I feel is woefully undeserved, is that poor people are rudderless, lazy, and don't want to improve their situation.

That just isn't true.  I do think many poor people reach a point where being poor for so long has sapped their energy.  If you treat someone like a prisoner, they will begin to act like a prisoner. If you treat someone like they are not good enough, then eventually, they will begin to believe it.

Someone on twitter asked me to 'sell myself' to him before he would consider donating.  It felt a little demeaning, considering the guy only had about 70 followers and less than 900 tweets to his name. Of course, I was begging for money...

But I do have dreams and ambitions.

Ultimately, I would like a creative career.  My strengths are in retaining technical knowledge, coming up with ideas, writing, editing, and saying inappropriate things.  Ok... not sure if the last thing is a huge selling point, but I my speech is not muted by fear of ridicule.

My education is in the food industry, operations management, and food science, so I feel I should try to incorporate that into my career.  The 2 directions I come up with is R&D and marketing. Both are what I consider creative careers. I like thinking about possibilities, brainstorming... meeting, I love meetings.  I like environments where I can display my thoughts on a particular subject.  

When I watch shows like All In with Chris Hayes, I imagine myself on the panel, adding my two cents to whatever is going on in the world.  Of course, that seems a lot less likely.  The point is that I like to think about an issue and offer my analysis or solutions. As far as that goes, I don't have a preference between doing product development or proofreading a weekly grocery ad.

GREAT NEWS!!!  I have hit the amount of money I set out to raise - $1,040!  That amount is what I need to cover December and January rent.  It was a colossal effort that has left me very emotionally drained.  I was raised(mostly) on a hog farm, living in an old farm house with a wood burning furnace and no indoor plumbing, so asking for help is not very easy for me.  

I honestly don't know how politicians maintain sufficient guile to continually fundraise.  

A big thanks to the following for RT'ing my tweets:

Chris Hayes - Being mentioned on his show was huge.

Ed Schultz  -  Many RT's came from his followers.

Keith Olbermann - Honestly, nobody increased my page views more from a single retweet. That man is a force of nature. MSNBC should regret losing him.

Lawrence O'Donnell - Big fan of his. His RT garnered page hits and much respect.

Ana Marie Cox - Not only did she RT, but she donated as well. Someone get her a show! My cat, Ms. Teschmacher thanks you...

Tracy Clayton a.k.a. @BrokeyMcPoverty

My next step is to call up the building manager, Rick, and see if he'll stop the eviction if I give him all the rent.  If not, I'll have to take the money I raised, and scramble to find another apartment.

Last special thanks to my great friend, Shane Chaney.  We grew up in the same town and now live 1 street away in the Clifton neighborhood in Cincinnati.  He has bought more dinners for me than I can count, and thanks to him simply being there, I have maintained my sanity.  He also loaned me the money for November's rent, which I hope to pay back sooner than later.  

Shane is an accomplished freelance Audio/Video engineer who can think fast on his feet, direct, and consult on anything from home theater set up to coordinating sound/video for a major convention. 

If you need someone that fits that description, please look him up.

Thanks to everyone.  I'll update you all with what the building guy says later.