Why the great resignation needed to happen. (And why this is a good thing for the working man.)

I've always had a particular dislike of major corporations in general. I know many of them offer a service we rely on for a lot of modern things, but it's a lot of first world problems. Well I've been watching a lot of essays on the great resignation and what it means. Basically people are quitting in droves, and between that and COVID, there's a labor shortage. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. For a long time workers have been at the mercy of their employers, relying on their paychecks to get by on the day to day. But now that mentality has been upended, completely flipped on its head! Now that there's so many positions open out there, people can actually work for an employer that will treat them right. I've always thought this for the longest time, why should people get stuck in a job that they don't like? Employers should be competing for our work, we shouldn't be competing for their jobs! That way in essence people who need work will find it with an employer that will treat them well and pay them a living wage. The ones that don't will struggle to find workers, so in a way it's making the work environment better for everyone, and we won't be exploited for labor any more. I feel bad that the circumstances leading up to this had to be a pandemic, but it's time for people to really start to re-think how the job market should work. But we still have other problems, too... Despite all this it is still expensive and time-consuming to get an education to get a career. A first step (which I'm sad they never got passed in congress) would be to make community colleges free AT LEAST. It's not the same as allowing people to become upwardly mobile, but it's a good step in that direction. All in all the cost of living is still way too expensive, so hopefully by the time this is all over that will right itself.

On a more personal note I'm waiting for those interest rates to rise, when that finally does happen, I'm planning on buying a new house. Affordable housing is hard to come by, especially where I'm from, and right now it's a seller's market. In time it will become a buyer's market again. Hopefully sooner rather than later, but between that and COVID becoming endemic, once we start getting back to a new normal (because fuck the old normal, the old normal sucked anyway, and the new one is only marginally better), then there isn't a need to inflate everyone's garbage on the housing market.

Well the roommate situation went to shit...

I guess I'm going to be taking a moment to air out some grievances I had with the situation. At first it seemed like it was going well, we had a lot of fun, and he had been helping me out with losing weight (which BTW I lost a ton of weight while I was there, I weigh about 182 lbs, and I can actually fit into a size 4 now!), but a couple months passed and some cracks started to form...

Firstly I was talking to him about a situation where my mom wanted to bring the cat over so I could babysit her. I ran this idea by Chris, and I guess I worded it in such a way where I didn't pose it as a question but more as an informative statement. Well, it turned into a shouting match after he tried to ignore me, and he had made some threats against me and my cat that day, to which I tried to retaliate, but it didn't go well, I'm lucky he didn't beat the tar out of me. It was honestly kinda scary. But then I continue to cook (I was making curry n' rice that day, they have this Golden Curry I like, it's Japanese-style), and he's there helping me like nothing happened, no apologies or anything. Weird.

Fast forward a bit. I got this used car, a Buick LeSabre custom for about $4.2k, it needed a little fixing up, but because of that I got a job at Amazon.com. So one day I'm talking about how my feet are hurting and he mentions getting insoles, and he wants me to go to one of these foot things they have in Walgreen's/Walmart, but I didn't end up doing it, and then he got super angry like he didn't care anymore. So I try to do the mature thing and walk away instead of trying to fight him on it because I know emotions are high, and he starts calling me a pussy, we get into a fight and he's talking trash about my parents. I actually love my parents, they're not perfect, but I have some respect for them, and he might tell you otherwise but they've taught me some things. I'm still actually learning things from my mother, and I've had some conversations this past year that I actually agreed on her with! She knows I need to be independant and has made every effort to help me on that front! (Plus she needs to get away from my Dad, too, he's a bit too controlling, kinda like my roommate was) But anyway, tangent aside, I wait for him to calm down. I try to talk to him, and he still starts cutting me down anyway, it's like he WANTS to have an argument and I don't! I'm not okay with people who feel like they have to raise their voice to make a point I don't agree with! I was honestly thinking of moving out on him that day, but I never even got a chance to bring it up, he just dominated the whole conversation completely, telling me how I'm not living my life (I just don't want to be an asshole with my money, I'm trying to save for a house so I'm not knee-deep into debt like he is...), and how I'm a toddler compared to him. But then suddenly the conversation ended up turning around about my time in Florida. I was telling him about how I've visited Ft. Myers Beach and about the gaming club I was a part of. Well my mom came over and I ended up telling her things were alright, so I ended up staying for a while longer.

So, fast forward a bit, again. I got to see this mechanic in Iowa about a possibly oil leak I may have had, but on the way there we noticed some other things. Well, we did some work on the car, the AC is working great now, he aligned the wheels so the car drives a lot better, he cleaned up and replaced the gas cap for me which took care of the emission problem, and also he poured some stuff into the oil tank to seal it. It seems like it worked but I'm still keeping an eye on that, but all things considered he did a good job, and it only came out to be just under $200, not a bad price. Later on, we noticed there might be a bit of a gas leak. He thought the fuel system might have been clogged up, but what bothers me is the check engine light didn't go on. At one point the check engine light went off by itself, and I ran all the lights on the dashboard and the light didn't go out, so the problem probably just about righted itself, and after our mechanic did his work, he reset the light and ran the diagnostics again, everything checked out okay. He was the one who maintained the car, too, so he gave me a list of all the work he did in the form of a previous invoice. Now my roommate wanted me to go get an inspection, and I was cool with the idea, but he didn't have to tell me not to mention it to my parents and take a jab at our mechanic being incompetent just because he's older, it was a completely unnecessary and ignorant comment to make.

The last straw was when I got a message on another trip to Iowa I made. The electricity went out and my roommate was asking me for $1,000 to help him with the electric bill until the loan came, to which he'd pay me back when it came. I wasn't comfortable with it so I ended up declining, but with the way he's thrown out food carelessly (he's had to stop for money reasons but I always thought wasting food was wrong on matter of principle), but then he had an attitude when I texted him back saying not to throw anything out unless I look at it. I know better than to eat spoiled food but there was some stuff ultimately we were able to save. What I don't get is why couldn't he have gotten some ice or something and put it in the fridge/freezer so the food wouldn't go bad? Did he not do the same for his fridge? IDK a lot about how he handled that but I'm surprised he couldn't ask his parents for assistance, I mean his mom's willing to speak to him but he won't speak to her. And I even suggested legal action if ComEd was in the wrong and he did pay his electric bill. I guess he had been behind 3 months or something, but what a mature adult would do is check their statements each month to make sure that everything was paid for. (I mean if they're going to do autopay, otherwise just do it manually.)

So, that in mind I decided I needed to move out. I could've given him like 2 weeks notice, sure, but I was so unhappy with the living situation that I chose to move out as soon as I could. I was planning to tell him in person but he was sleeping mid-day, so I just moved my stuff out and sent him a text because I thought he had the right to know. So he goes off on me, yet again, saying how I'm dead to him and cutting me down like he has in our previous arguments. Honestly it's laughable, if he's the one that needed me so bad how can he say the best we'll be is acquaintances? I guess he was still mad because I was upset with him for narcing on Liz (which, in turn effected my ability to move in with her. The whole deal was I would move in with her and get a job to help her pay rent, I had a crush on her at the time but I think I would've wised up to that and realized she had Reade already, after I spoke with him I knew what she meant when she said his heart's in the right place but his head isn't.), and I ghosted him. But I've had a chance to think about it and I don't think that's what really happened. I tried to give him a call at least once a year, and I remember talking to him from the dorms in Florida, about how I might fix his old PC up, and it almost did happen. I had a spare monitor I could've used, and we had been planning to salvage what we could from the electronics. That and I had my hardware/software textbook from college. I also tried to give him a call a couple years ago since we went to Cubs vs. Cardinals. I can recall more than one occasion where I tried to call him but he didn't answer. I'm not sure now if it was his phone service provider or if he wasn't answering, I know he's avoided answering some people. I was willing to forgive him but he wasn't willing to forgive me apparently, but I can rest assured this time he was the one who dropped the ball. I noticed he's the type of person that runs mouth and starts fights, he is extremely billigerant and self-important. But he also lost his other best friend, too, and he told me about how the last time he saw him he gave him this look like he did something wrong. Now I'm beginning to think he did, but I don't think I'll get the chance to speak to him and get his side of the story. (Either way I'd rather draw my own conclusions in this case than take either account at face value, I'm sure neither side was completely infallible.)

But, after moving out I feel a lot happier. All I can do is take what I learned living with him to try to better myself. Ironically, pursuing my past has given me the freedom to move forward with my life. I'm cutting that guy out of my life. I'll make friends who will lift me up and treat me with actual respect as a human being. I'll dress for the job I want, and conduct myself like a respectable adult. I'll continue to take charge of my health through portion control, exercise, and a good diet.

But there's some other things I wanted to say as well. All to often I'd hear about how the elderly have no one to care for them in their late years. I've worked customer service at Wal-Mart and they had this Healthy Benefits program they had. It was a broken system, and I often felt bad for the people I had to deal with. I tried to help as much as I could but there were also cases I couldn't help with, either due to limitations with the system, policy, or just lack of coming to and understanding of a customer's needs. But all too often I'd hear that they had nobody to help with, especially when it came to creating Walmart.com accounts (policy has it that we can't create Walmart.com accounts for customers, often we'd have to try to walk them through creating an account. This is a huge problem for Healthy Benefits customers as a lot of them are elderly, and they often aren't tech-savvy), but I see the situation my Dad is in. I know my mom isn't getting any younger either. People, please take care of your elderly. Throwing them in a home is the worst thing you could do to them, and a lot of these people want their independance (Ruth was actually that way. I feel bad about what happened to her on the house at Denker, I just wish her sons had been there to help her). Please don't rob them of that. Also, please make sure you appreciate your friends, even if you haven't talked to them for a while. Truly listen to them! Catch up to them and see what they've been up to, but whatever you do, don't get money involved. The moment you do that is when friendships could get ruined.

Sometimes even going organic isn't enough...

I just found this investigation into Fairlife Farms and it was horrifying. So, a little background, I've been doing research on brands that are either certified humane or animal welfare approved. Even if you buy dairy, it may still come from a factory farm that abuses its animals. It's something that sadly most people aren't aware of. But you want to see how bad it is? Check this out.

There's multiple organizations out there such as the Cornucopia Institute, the ASPCA, certifiedhumane.org, and GAP (Global Animal Partnership) which list brands of meat and dairy which are humanely raised. I'm not sure which ones to believe. Either that or go vegan, there's plenty of meat substitutes out there now that are really good.

Returning to College

Well, I've made up my mind. I'm returning to college. A part of me wants to get that vocational certificate for cybersecurity, but another part of me wants to study enviromental science at some point. Maybe that's what I'm going to end up getting my 4 year degree for.

There haven't been a whole lot of posts here for some time. I've been keeping a journal and I have to say some of my dreams have been weird. Also I've been looking up addresses I've visited in the past on Google Maps. I think I mentioned Ruth Smith either here or on my private journal, but I remember weeding for her out at the house on Denker Rd. She offered to be my grandmother in the past but I got unreasonably offended by the offer. See, I never knew my grandparents very well, they all died before I was old enough to remember their faces. All I have to remember one of them by was the stuffed Giraffe I kept that my grandmother gave me, but I can't remember if it was from my mother or father's side. In any case, I kept it as a cherished memento. Getting back on track though, when she had that fatal head injury from falling down the stairs, I never ended up going to her wake or funeral...

That wouldn't be the first time either... I never paid my last respects to Louise Newby either. She was another friend of the family. When I was in grade school, I was sick when she came to pick me up because my mom was busy. She offered me some split pea soup but I didn't end up eating it... After that point she got on my case about eating my vegetables EVERY single time I saw her. The last time we spoke was in the hospital. I came to visit her but it was apparent she wasn't long for this world, I had a feeling in my gut about that. But I never went to her funeral either...

One of these days I should buy flowers for both of them. Maybe something that says "I'm sorry." or "I haven't forgotten." I'm no expert in the language of flowers but this is the only way I'm going to pay my last respects to those women who have been there for me when I needed them, whether I realized it or not. It's the least I could do.

I had something else I wanted to write about but I forgot. I did a lot of adulting today and never got the chance to have any fun. But it's too late, I'm already ready to go to bed, this job has me going to bed early in the evening just to keep a schedule. I'm hoping eventually I'll be able to work daytime again, this is going to be an enormous strain on my social life. Anyway this is peace out for now. See you guys on the next post. Maybe my thoughts will be more coherent and not so "stream of consciousness" this time.

... But sleep won't come.

Even though I had read 2 chapters of that book I still found myself waking up at night due to restlessness. Or could it be sleep apnea? IDK, my sinuses are always congested and it seems like it inhibits my breathing quite a bit. But anyway, I read the accounts of Virginia and Delores Waggoner at this point. So now that I've caught up a little bit and remember, the book is about the Waggoner's but per Virginia's testimonial, Ruth Easton was related to the Waggoner's mom in some way. There's some documents tucked away in our copy of the book but from what I can tell we're distantly related to the Waggoners by the Easton family, and the Eastons were related to our family, the Scott family. Scott is a pretty common last name, actually, through my great uncle Delbert's papers, there was a sheet in there about the Scott coats of arms. Which ones are our's, IDK, but if I decide to do a family tree at some point, I will hope to find out.

That being said I wanted to share an experience I had growing up. As per a previous entry I grew up on the corner of Oak and Simpson. Growing up there was at least 4 notable families that lived near us. We weren't THAT close with a lot of them but I think one of them was running for Governer of Geneva or something. The people living next to us on Simpson were vetrinarians, when we had our first dog, Daisy, he was the one we'd take her to. She was a border collie, I distinctly remember whenever she would bark she sounded like a seal, it was a bit of an in-joke for us.

So I was good friends with a kid named Matt who used to live on what I think was Oak St. It was just a short street and they lived in a blue house near ours. We grew up on a lot of the same stuff though he must've been half my age. What really irks me is that our parents thought the age gap was too great between us for us to be hanging out, but we liked a lot of the same stuff, the Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, that sort of thing, stuff us 90 boys liked. I also remember the people who lived at the house behind our's, they had 2 kids, Sherry and Amy. I was close with the latter girl, Amy. We used to play games like tag, hide and seek, and bloody murder (we'd hang out at the field behind the fence at night, the guy didn't seem to mind, he had all this space in the backyard and we never did any harm or anything). It got to the point where we had a pretend marriage. Well, when I was 10 one day I ended up ditching her during a game of hide and seek, she came in to look for me. I don't remember what I said to her but I remember her crying her eyes out and we weren't friends after that point anymore. It's something I still deeply regret, and IDK what the reason was. I suspect I got bored and wanted to be left alone with my NES. Honestly because of that I'm worried about introducing my nieces to video games too soon, I don't want them to have a similar experience like I did.

There was also some apartments down the way, the entrance was down the street as you get out onto State St. (At least I think it was State St.? It was the one that ran through downtown Geneva, across the Fox River. Further down there's a bridge and there was a bike shop. Mill Race Inn also used to be there). I remember the Strahota family used to live in those apartments, I think I remember one of the kids jumping the fence there from that one guy's backyard. Like we didn't know the guy but he had all this land out in his back yard. The fence there was broken so there was a place for us to slip through from where Oak St. ended. We did visit that place again maybe a few years ago? IDR how long. A different family lives in the blue house it seems, and the backyard, well now it's a park. I wish they would've left the place alone, I miss all the trees being there, it was almost kinda like our little forest out where the street ended.

Further as you went up the street you had the green house where the Millers lived. I knew their son, he was the one that would always come to our house for snacks. They moved away and my parents were talking that he might not live to even be 10 years old, but he managed. I think they moved to Arizona or something, IDR but I think they sent us a picture. It was actually pretty thoughtful of them, it's a shame we no longer have that picture. The kid was heavy and had spiky hair. Anyway that's the neighborhood I remember growing up in. It's crazy how much it's changed. I thought about moving back there, but there's mostly going to be different people living there.

Actually I remember a few other things. There used to be this rumor about some girl we called Crazy Mary who lived there. We'd see her from time to time, she... Had issues. It seemed like she was re-living some moments of her life. I feel bad about the rumors thinking about it, and IDK if she ever got the help she needed for her mental health. She lived on a different road, but it wasn't far from us. You' have to have taken a couple lefts, One off of Simpson and another onto the next road. There was also Brad who I think was a cousin of my friend Chris, we'd sometimes hang out with him. I remember he had a Game.com we used to play with. Looking back that thing was a piece of crap though, it was made by Tiger so that should tell you all you need to know. God, Tiger electronics were everywhere back in those days. Finally there was this one Downsyndrome guy that lived in the neighborhood further down the street. I used to talk to him but my mom didn't want me to, so we grew kinda distant until I eventually ceased all communication with him. Later on in life I met this kid Bryce and I realized he didn't live too far from me. This was at a different school though. We never were close, I remember him reciting old TV shows, but I showed up to his house one day out of the blue because I knew it was his birthday. I found this wind-up Clefairy at Babbages, and we both liked Pokemon so I knew he might like it. Man, even for as shitty a teenager as I was back then I could be a pretty generous person. I consider this to be both an asset to my character and a flaw, my mom often worries about me giving away too much of myself, and I worry that if I'm not careful that generosity could lead to outright enabling. What I need to learn is how to help people without that help becoming a problem. I only recently became aware of it, and it's something I need to think carefully about. Well, I'm glad this post at least turned out to be substantial, hopefully it's a good read, and it gives me a chance to relate parts of my childhood. Maybe later I'll talk about when we lived in St. Charles, there was a small move before we made the BIG move to Iowa, something I was not prepared for. It basically ruined my relationship with my dad for several years.

I wanted a journal for Christmas.

I didn't get one but to be honest Livejournal IS a journal. I'm glad it's still around but is it just me, or are all the options in Japanese? I actually studied it casually in my early college years. I was a big weaboo, not gonna lie, but I learned to read Katakana and Hiragana. I have a huge textbook of Kanji that I got from Barnes & Noble, never finished it or properly learned Kanji subjugation. Japense is such a different language from English but I digress.

So, I'm starting to post stuff on there that only I can see. Something to keep track of my thoughts, for the sake of my mental health. Maybe it will help me clear my head, but I'm struggling with feelings of guilt. I don't want to get into the "why" here, but there's a reason I've lately been blaming myself, I feel like I handled the situation horribly. How do you convince someone who has been in constant pain and suffering all their life that life is worth living? Basically what's bothering me is I felt like I handled my relationship with Liz as a friend poorly. I DID try to bail her out the time she shoplifted from Target but I couldn't do the same for Reade, we would've just been fortunate that his case got thrown out if Liz had stuck around for just a little longer, then this would have all turned out alright. Like maybe I shouldn't have gotten involved. Come to think of it IDK if I even knew where she was going when the car crash happened. It was her brother Jim's car that she crashed, I can't even imagine how awful she must've felt about that. There's just so much I didn't know about her life's circumstances, I was poorly equipped to help her out despite my immense desire to do so. But in the process of that I think I may have been bad for her. It's like I'm re-living certain moments of my life thinking of what I could've done differently to prevent this from happening. I could also be overthinking it though, but I still feel horrible about it.

On another topic though they say everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame and I've had family members that have had their's including my father. He was a train driver for Union Pacific, back when they were Chicago Northwestern. The guy hated unions mainly due to union dues, and I guess they had a strike once. I still feel like unionized labor is better than the alternative business model we have today, ideally how a union should work is that people can set their own wages, and if working conditions are bad they can go on strike. That's how it SHOULD be, workers should be able to demand good pay and good working conditions, but I guess in practice there are flaws that need to be worked out. No system we've come up with so far is effective, and hypercapitalism is the worst of it. But that's a whole different can of worms. Going back to the driving trains thing, he drove a train through the set of F.I.S.T. which is ironic because it's a movie ABOUT unionism. I wonder if there's more of a story behind it? I should ask him about it sometime.

Aside from that though I'm related to the Easton family. My dad had a cousin named Rex, I remember we went to his house one time, he had it pretty good. He had a trampoline in the backyard and a Sega Genesis, I remember playing that thing in his house while he was entertaining my folks. I had nearly beaten Sonic 2 that day, everyone was impressed by how good I was at it. But again, I digress. Point being there is a book that documents that side of the family, and they mention the birth of the twins, my fater Don and his brother Jon. The book is called Ten Sisters, it's about this custody battle. I hadn't read much of it but my sister has a copy of the book and she's letting me read it. So, that's what I'm going to be reading tonight to help calm my mind down. I also get a chance to learn about my family in the process.

One last thing before I end this post, I expect posts to this blog are going to be more infrequent. I need some time to write in my journal, too. The stuff I'm okay with being public will be posted here. I'll keep the private stuff for Livejournal. Good night for now.

Making up for lost time? Who knows...

I went for a walk to clear my mind after yesterday's mishap and it occured to me, sometimes we treat animals better than we treat each-other. Think about the type of relationship a person has with their pet, if they're a good owner then of course they love their pets unconditionally. And the pet, too, will treat its owner with the same. As I was perusing my FB I saw a video of a cat being dragged away from the grave of its owner. IDK if it completely understood, I think the cat just wanted to be close to him. In another instance it was a dog trying to comfort his owner as paramedics were trying to help him, they had to blind the poor thing so the paramedics could do their job. Talk about loyal...

Here's the conundrum, people don't tend to treat each-other with this same unconditional love, and if they do it's very rare. But then you look at groups of animals and they're kind of the same. More often than not if you get a group of 2 or more female cats in the same room they may fight unless they've been around each-other for a while. Cats are very territorial and independant animals. Animals of the same type (even us Humans) are hardwired to communicate in a certain way, it's how we're hardwired and how we organize. But the bond between us and different species of animals is so perfect it's surreal. I guess it's a little bit saddening that it's so difficult to find that with other Humans.