Extra, Extra, read all about it...the economy still sucks. Didn't need to hear the latest "unexpectedly" bad news from the Labor Department about a new surge in
unemployment filings to know just how many of us are hurting, and how
badly.
No, all it took to "rub it in" was a trip to my local Home Depot here
in Southeast Florida - a trip I made with some degree of trepidation.
As a middle-aged, self-employed guy with a family, I've suffered the
slings and arrows of this economic meltdown, trying to keep my video
production company going, trying to keep the old head above water -
even as my crazy, inflated mortgage sank right under it, just like it
has for so many others in Florida and nationwide.
So when my wife and I decided we couldn't put off replacing our broken,
unusable garage door any longer, I headed off to Home Depot in search
of a sale - and an increase in the credit line on my Home Depot credit
card, which would let us pay this big ticket item off over a year, with
no interest.
Long story short, I squeezed in on the last day of a 15% off sale -
whoopee - but couldn't squeeze even an extra dollar of credit out of
them. The wonderful gentleman working with me on the order - let's call
him Robert - hung up the phone on the credit department and shook his
head. "Been happening an awful lot" he said, looking into the distance through smudged glasses and scratching his balding head.
Unable (unwilling anyway) to wait any more to have proper access to our garage and its - ahem
- "significant" amounts of stuff, my wife and I stitched together a
Plan B on the phone, while Robert waited patiently. We were finally
able to lock in the sale price of about sixteen hundred bucks -
including installation - for our new gateway to whatever the hell is in
that damned garage.
It took quite a while to get the details of the order squared away, entered into the system, printed out, and when we were done I smiled and thanked Robert for his time, patience and effort, joking "That's why they pay you the big bucks, right?"
He chuckled and shook his head again, leafing through the ridiculous pile of paperwork this order had generated. "Yeah, right, twelve bucks an hour"" he muttered.
"Really? How long have you been here?" I asked.
"Almost two years."
I looked at this tall, athletic, tired-looking older man, probably pushing sixty years old, his lively, intelligent eyes peering up at me now through those foggy spectacles, a sad smile on his flushed face.
"Are you able to get by on the twelve bucks an hour?" I asked.
"No. But I'm lucky, I'm single now...and my brother helps me..." Long pause before he looks down, shuffles pile of papers and says very quietly, "But I still just had to take most of the money out of my retirement accounts to pay all my bills"
I didn't say anything. I wanted to say, "I'm sorry to hear that", but I
couldn't quite get it out - and wasn't sure he wanted to hear it anyway.
After a few moments of silence, he looked up at me again and continued.
"I came out of school with a degree in Political Science - lot of
good that did me - then I went back and got an MBA, a Masters in
Business Administration. Finally got a good job at Northern Trust Bank.
Five weeks before I would've been vested for my pension, they fired me.
After that, forget about it...age discrimination, a guy in his fifties,
forget about it...damned banks"
I felt like I could jump in now. "I know, it's incredible the way the big banks and corporations just keep sticking it to us and getting away with it..."
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