I know we still have a lot of former San Bernardino County Jobs and Employment Services Department Employment Services Specialists reading the blog. How many of you remember the days before TAD decimated our department when we went through programs to help make us better employees rather than destroy our ability to get our job done?   Anyone remember the poverty training we had to go through?  Somewhere I still have the book describing the survival skills necessary to be living in a lower-class situation, a middle-class situation, and an upper-class situation.

Do remember the questions we had to answer?

• Do you know how to get the executive membership at the country club?
• Do you know how to keep your laundry from being stolen at the laundromat?
• Do you know how to pick a daycare center?
• Do you know the time of day stores deposit their expired food in the dumpster?
• Do you know how to get your child into the most exclusive private schools?
• Do you know where the food banks are located and when they give out food?
• Do you know how to hire a maid?
• Can you tell the difference between silk, linen and cotton and how to care for each?
• Do you know how to get your children to fall asleep when they are still hungry?

And many more.

That book has been on my mind lately as I have had to learn skills in recent months I never in a million years thought I would ever need to know.  No, I’m not dumpster diving, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck and robbed Peter to pay Paul.

When I made it to the hospital on the January 1, I hadn’t eaten in four days.  This time it wasn’t because there was no food in the house, but rather what was there was nauseating.  However, the food in the hospital was even worse.  I’ve learned that even when one is starving, sometimes one can’t eat what is offered.  I ate almost nothing while I was in the hospital.  I had such bad hunger pains, but the food was so disgusting, I couldn’t even try to get it down.  I was dizzy and weak the whole time I was there.  So when I hear of dumpster diving, I cannot even imagine how hungry someone must be.

As I stated in another post Hartford is messing with me again.  I haven’t had a regular check on schedule since December 14.  I’m not complaining as there is now plenty of food in the house, I now have running water and electricity and in comparison to many, I don’t have it bad.  But it does get frustrating when one is used to a certain standard of living and that standard has been cut by about 75 percent.

Today I had to get to my group, which is a 150-mile round trip, had a gas tank on the wrong side of empty, and exactly six dollar sand some change in my purse.  So I had two items that I needed to return to the store and returned both, which gave me an additional $14.  I knew that would barely get me to my appointment.  I had a few pieces of scrap gold in my drawer, and after group, stopped off at the pawn shop in San Bernardino.  I got enough for them to get me enough gas to get home and back to group tomorrow.  By that time the banks will be open and I can cash the two rebate checks I have in my purse, which will get me through the rest of the week if Hartford, once again, doesn’t bother to deposit my check.

So is this meant as a “Woe is me”?  No, not at all.  Although there is an aspect of it that makes me angry, in mostly makes me feel triumphant that despite all vindictive, dirtbag administrators we have running this county who take such pleasure in toying with and destroying the little people, I can still survive.

I told my doctor my story today.  I asked for nothing.  He handed me an off-work order for another 45 days.  I didn’t even want it.  But I thought about it all the way home.  I thought about the fact that the county wants me to commute 3.5 hours a day, they want me to do so without even letting me have the pay due to me meaning I have absolutely no way of getting to the job whether I want it or not, and they want me to word side-by-side with the bastard who started this whole thing for me 6 years ago.  After all, with 900 county offices and hundreds of vacancies, there is not a single other job site they can place me at. I know when I’m being punished.

So, instead of paying me to be a productive employee, they prefer to pay me to sit at home.  Of course, as my doctors and anyone who knows me knows, what they really are doing is trying to drive me over the edge because I’m anything but a stay-at-home kind of person.  But it gives more fodder for the lawsuits.  It amazes me anyway.

But in the end I still feel triumphant.  The county hasn’t gotten me to kill myself or to quit.  So I celebrated with something I really didn’t have the money for but have been craving for weeks but really didn’t want to spend the money for–a single scoop of Rocky Road ice cream on a sugar cone at Rite Aid.  They are on sale this week for .99 cents.  I had just enough change in my purse.   Gosh did that taste heavenly!  Life is good.

Anyone beside me remember when they were a nickle a scoop?