notemily:

ultralaser:

portlandsunshine:

notemily:

Ms. Jarrin ping-pongs between resolve and despair. She received her last unemployment check in the third week of March, putting her among the first wave of 99ers. Her two checking accounts now show negative balances (she has overdrafts on both). Her cellphone has been ringing incessantly with calls from the financing company for her car loan. Her vehicle is on the verge of being repossessed.

It is a sickening plummet, considering that she was earning $56,000 a year in her old job, enjoyed vacationing in places like Mexico and the Caribbean, and had started business school in 2008 at Iona College.

Ms. Jarrin had scrabbled for her foothold in the middle class. She graduated from college late in life, in 2003, attending classes while working full time. She used to believe that education would be her ticket to prosperity, but is now bitter about what it has gotten her.

“I owe $92,000 for an education which is basically worthless,” she said.

This is a terrible example of the kind of people we should have sympathy for. This women has a car payment and a monthly cell phone payment that she cannot afford and yet she continues to not give up those nice-to-have but not necessary to live things in her life. she sits on a computer worth at least 200 dollars while she could be using a local libraries computer for free. For TWO YEARS of unemployment and beyond she refuses to give up these things that over that span would have amounted to a relatively large amount of money - certainly enough to extend her job search multiple months.

…

hey look, it’s portlandsunshine’s VERY NEXT POST.

Work sends me to Vegas for this weekend, on their dime, awesome.

I also unexpectedly get a free 60 bucks to spend at a casino while i’m down there in the mail today for being such a loyal customer the last time work paid me to be down there for a week…

Then I found another 8 dollars in chips I never cashed in from the PREVIOUS time I had been to Vegas.

I realize I might go to Vegas too often and yet it still puts a smile on my face each time I go.

OH MY GOD DUDE.  your privilege burns with the brilliance of a thousand suns.

SHE OWES 92 GRAND IN STUDENT LOANS YOU DIPSHIT.  what the fuck, do you think she’s going to be able to pay that back if she takes a part time job at fucking wal-mart?!  a job she probably couldn’t even get WITHOUT A CAR OR A CELLPHONE?

she’s been unemployed for NEARLY TWO YEARS and you’re shaming her for complaining when she hasn’t actually been evicted yet?  like, since when does being on the verge of destitution homeless and destitute not count anymore?  for fucks sake, where do you want her to go, debtors prison?

oh oh, she still has a cellphone?!!  what naked luxury for someone who no longer deserves the middle-class lifestyle!  i mean, yeah, opting out of that will hit her with a $150 early termination fee, but fuck, no sympathy at all.  she should give up her dreams of a decent life and accept the years of menial labor and terrible wages that she tried to escape by going back to school.  if she can get a solid 15k a year job and a $500 a month studio apartment, it’ll only take her about thirty years to pay off her student loans.  just in time for retirement!

meanwhile, you’ll be in vegas!  oh look, ten bucks in your couch cushions!  sweet, your hotel just gave you $60 to piss away on the slot machines AND YOUR BOSS IS PAYING FOR THE TRIP.  call me from the plane, brah!

i’m absolutely astonished that you cannot see that YOU ARE THIS WOMAN before she lost her job.  the idea that if you got laid off you’d move back in with the folks, sell all your nice things, and accept a low-paying job, instead of trying even unto destitution to hang onto what you’ve managed to achieve for yourself financially, is laughable.

SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU HEARTLESS MAN-CHILD.

and change your tumblr name, you’re making my city look bad.

[addendum]

oh man, i hadn’t actually read the article, and obviously you haven’t either.  i mean, just that quote should have been enough to elicit sympathy, but no, it’s actually much worse.

she HAS been evicted, sold her living room set, skipped town, and is living in a motel with like a hundred bucks to her name.  no idea how she’ll pay for another week, eating peanut butter and jelly.  yes, her laptop and car are nice things, BUT SHE HAS NO HOME.

portlandsunshine, do you even have a soul?!

oh the old privilege adage, that and the rest of the ad hominem attacks aside…

I will in no way disagree that a phone and a car are near necessities in the job hunt. a phone most certainly, a car, nearly - especially with the many cases as noted of jobs denying non-car owners from being considered. However one surely does not need a 40+ dollar a month payment - she’s been jobless for two years, more than enough time to have come and gone on a cell phone contract to cancel it with zero early termination fees and time to pick up a pre-payed phone at any store for 30 bucks and if necessary extra time on one to use for job searching.

same goes for the car - sell it and buy a hooptie that will just barely get to and from work for 500 dollars, if it can’t be sold for a profit turn it into the finance company, i’m sure she’s already taken a credit hit and a turn-in is MUCH better than a repo. it’s far better than paying full coverage insurance each month on a car with a monthly payment - that is many hundreds or thousands of dollars saved over two years of unemployment that would have again - got her farther along with less or no income as she now has.

Yes - she has 92k in debt, that’s terrible but she signed up for that debt, she was told upfront how much it was going to cost each semester and she opted to do that. she is now personally liable for that. the easy way out is bankruptcy - the right way back is to smartly and prudently work her way back up to a good job and earnings so she can slowly pay that back.

I’m not being nice or heartfelt or anything to make anyone feel good - the way to get back on your feet is to make deep sacrifices. not cry out about other people not having the same problems. I’ve been jobless before and i’m sure it’ll happen at some point in the future. minimum wage is better than nothing - NO ONE is above working a minimum wage job - it’s the difference between 0 dollars a month and 500 dollars a month if you work half time all month. What does she have to show for that 2 years of unemployment checks? nothing but payments on things that will soon be gone once the bank takes them. This isn’t a horrible catastrophe that knocked her house down, her provider significant other didn’t die - this problem has been growing for more than TWO YEARS for her and she still hasn’t truly addressed it. She would rather hold on to a few things that she truly cannot afford instead of giving them up for a roof over her head - that is childish.

edit: I would agree with notemily’s comments - libraries are cutting hours, that’s fair, the laptop would be a last ditch effort - and you are correct - the adage of walking a mile in one’s shoes always stands - but I always come back to - don’t give people that are in a tough spot in their life sympathy - give them support - a helping hand goes much farther than a prayer. A warm meal or help posting something for sale on craigslist directly helps a person instead of lamenting about their situation on the internet.