Getting Away with It

I have learned about myself in the past three decades, that I have one hell of a moral compass. Oh, I may like to drink, I may like to party, I may keep some questionable company at times, I may even be good at lying to my parents, but beyond that, I have trouble jay-walking. I am honest to a fault. I mean, we all learn to lie to some extent, those little white lies, life would be a whole lot less pleasant without them. And job interviews, not like I'd ever go in one and lie, but it's the same philosophy as being on a first date, right? You sort of omit any details that may not show you in the greatest light. If you have any sense, you're not heading in in your favorite pair of old jeans with the hole in the ass, spouting how trashed you were this weekend. It's that whole dance of not lying, but not telling the whole truth either. Because if you were stupid enough to tell the whole truth, you might as well have stayed home and called the unemployment office. And good luck with that these days. As with everything else, the funds are running dry.

My new job is at a warehouse. I don't actually work in the warehouse, but there is a big warehouse, and walking into the smell of oil and metal in the morning is something entirely new. Everyone there punches a time clock. Oh, I suppose the owners don't. But the people in sales, IT, supervisors - we all punch a clock. Curls, who works in HR, informed me that this is rather atypical. Usually, it would be just the blue collar workers punching a clock. It's gotten me thinking about how people will get away with whatever they can. I do get that, but it still kind of shocks me deep down to know that most people are not as honest as myself. My supervisor has to sign off on the hours I work at home, and it's just not in me to claim hours I haven't worked, though honestly it wouldn't be difficult to fudge. Our blue collar guys are not unionized. I tend to be rather for unions, but having friends who work in HR and growing up with a dad who was a plant manager, I know all too well why so many people are opposed. Because once your in a union, you can get away with just about anything and it's pretty much impossible to get fired. It's frustrating to me. Those unions are there for a reason, because without them, historically the owners have taken advantage of the workers, paying cheap wages and providing substandard work environments. But now with the unions, the scales have tipped the other direction and the workers often use the union to take advantage of the company they work for.

It can be very disheartening, but it seems most people are going to get away with whatever they can. You need to look no further than Wall Street to see the absolute disgusting truth of that these days. Without regulation, CEO's, mortgage lenders, and those playing high and loose in the world of finance, have raped our economy, and our government has let them do it, we have let them do it. I have heard many people asserting on the news that our current financial turmoil is due to misunderstanding of the underlying risks in buying these high risk mortgages, that it's due to incompetence. Bullshit. These are not stupid people with their MBA's on Wall Street. These are the people who are walking away from all of this with a bundle of cash. It does not take any financial genius to know that buying substandard mortgages is a risky business, regardless of insurance or whatever the hell they were calling it. And then, of course, I've heard politicians and lenders blaming the irresponsible people who took out these mortgages they could not afford. Honestly, talk about the pot calling the kettle. But unlike the lenders, who I sincerely feel were smart enough to know what they were doing, who knew that this could only eventually come to giant financial implosion (if I could see it coming, seriously, come on now), some of these people were talked into believing they could afford these mortgages. Others probably knew they couldn't. I really don't understand what they gained, though. They may have gotten to live in a nice house for a few months before they were foreclosed on, but I'm missing where they had much incentive to destroy their credit. Of course, maybe their credit was already in the toilet, which is why we need the damn regulations. It's absolute irresponsibility, to invest so much in people with a proven track record of unreliability. They may be wrong and stupid, but Wall Street is wrong and absolutely vile.

Comments

[Alice`]

My job is broken into hours, too. Works to my advantage though because I get lots of OT....

[Diosa]

Alice, how is it that you're a mom and you have time for OT? I'm struggling to hit 40 hours every week.

[Alice]

I have time to work more than 40 hours because I dont go to school (like you), I only have one kid and he's a toddler - and I don't live with his dad so I dont have him every night.

Hell, all I've got is time. I work for the Ohio for Change campaign 5 hours a week and a local congressional campaign another 10 hours. You want me to come over and do some laundry?

[Diosa]

Alice, I'm not going to school now. I've kind of shelved that for somewhere between awhile and permanently. And at least two nights a week, I don't have my husband. He has a lot of night meetings. I think it makes it worse. I get to do the chauffering to karate, basketball, cub scouts, dinner, homework, baths, lunch for tomorrow, bed time stories by myself. But I guess a toddler only requires half of that.

[Alice]

The toddler has no activities and goes to bed at 7:30, too.

Although we do go to library time on Wednesday nights. That might be over though because they had a firefighter last night and the child was scared TO DEATH

[Diosa]

Alice, my kids NEVER went to bed at 7:30. They're both little night owls if you let them. But they don't get up at the crack of dawn either. Trouble's on a pretty standard routine these days, though. Bed at 9, up at 7. LT's schedule is similar, but he still wants to take a 4pm nap. And if he gets even the smallest hint of a nap, forget it. We battle for hours and I'll fall asleep first.