Fuck a Bi-Weekly Check
Sorry I’ve been away so long.
I forgot to mention that I currently reside among the ranks of the jobless, if you want to define a job as 40-hours away from home each week with 15-20 hours of commuting thrown in.
Yes, I was shown the door this spring along with several hundred others by my last company after 6 years of service. So I’m getting state-paid retraining in web design and development and marketing management from a local college. The end result will be the award of two "certificates," the newest craze in low-cost credentialism. I’ll need them, ‘cause it seems that glorified liberal arts Bachelor’s Degree I earned 26 years ago from the Big State School in the South ain’t worth squat today.
They say the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting a different result. This is why I don’t want do go back into a corporate job on a full time basis. For what? So I can get my hopes up that this could be THE JOB and possibly be downsized once more? Look, I’ve been downsized and/or otherwise forced out - oh, who am I kidding? I was fucking fired — from three positions in the last decade.
I’m collecting unemployment for the third time in my life and it’s about to run out. I’m hoping to go a freelance/consulting life by working through a corporate entity I created a few years back.
I really don’t care what the employees of the client firms will think. Why is this black man here? Yeah, I’m here temporarily. You got a problem with that? Oh, I’m undercutting your precious position? Take it up with your fucking management. Get out of my face.
It’s time to face facts — these white-run corporate entities you all work for don’t want to hire anyone full time anymore, and that’s fine with me. I’m just here rolling with the flow. And it’s a well known fact that black men don’t do well as employees in white-run companies.
I think I’d like the idea of working on one project for one client firm and following the project straight out the door once it’s done. Collect my cash, take a few days off, go to the next gig, whatever it may be. Benefits? The Spouse is a teacher, one of the few public sector jobs still offering good benefits, including health insurance, so we’ve got that covered.
My thinking shouldn’t come off as all that strange. We African Americans were entrepreneurs by necessity back in those bad old Jim Crow days. Today, most of us believe we have to have biweekly checks from the white man in order to keep up our showy, highly leveraged lifestyles.
This mindset is an unfortunate outgrowth of our unique history in this "great" country of ours. Other immigrant groups come here of their own volitions and seek economic freedom. We native-born descendants of kidnapped Africans-turned-slaves, on the other hand, have instead sought political power, but much to the detriment, I believe, of our ability to attain some measure of economic parity.
Anyhow, this consulting firm I signed with earlier this year following my layoff called just before the holiday weekend about a one-month opportunity with a client. It’s in the DC area. I’ll find out more later today.
Peace out.
I’m pleased to hear that you’re marching to the beat of your own drum right now with your consulting business. As each day passes I find myself plotting an escape from the corporate rat race.
Thanks, K. Do all you can to try to establish yourself in your own thing before you find that special brother and produce the kids. Also remember this: Network, Network, Network. It’s not what you know, and it’s not even who you know. It’s who knows you.
Peace,
Profunksticated.
Comment by K. — September 5, 2007 @ 12:11 am
Hi I just read your story. Ok, I don’t want to start a world war III, but using excuses like that, gives you no sympathy in my eyes. I’m sorry, but shit, my husband is white an electrician who has been laid so many damn times I lost count. He collected and at one point it ran out and had no income coming in. So please forgive for having this attitude. I mean seriously, what happened back in the day did not happen to you, it happened to poor innocent people, which is now our history we talk about in schools. It shouldn’t still be an excuse used for people like you in this type of situation. I mean give me a break. Just get over that shit!! Maybe if you stopped to think about it a little bit, it’s the economy and its hurting the best of us. Us hard working people, not just africian americans, everyone, all races. It this the anger you want your children to reflect, to be mad at the white man who owns a company. No, you want to raise like a man, a hard working man, and to believe in achieving all his goals. You don’t want him to grow up angry at every race and nationally that walks around him, especially this day and age. Sir your attitude for not getting over the past history, is the reason your future isn’t being accomplished the way you want it to be.
First off, Chrissy, thanks for visiting. Wow, your comments! Where do I begin? Keep in mind I wrote this post nearly a year ago, and yes, I was plenty pissed off. I had been laid off several months earlier. But I believed at the time I got caught up in some political turf battles; I tried to do my job to the best of my ability and it didn’t matter.
I’m not mad at whites who own companies. I do, however, get annoyed at the attitudes that are projected within these organizations regardless of who runs them. I believe Corporate America has devolved into soulless profit seeking entities that have abused their workers over the past three decades with help from the conservatives who run the government. Life within companies has prompted me to set a goal, which is to become a consultant and work for these firms on a project basis. I truly believe I’d feel more in control of, if not my work, my life.
You say you’re married to a white man. I’m going to assume you’re black. I believe a person can marry whoever he or she wants. I don’t hate white peopler. And you say your husband is an electrician who has been laid off many times. I would think with his skill, he should have no trouble starting his own business and calling his own shots. Electricians are in always in demand, am I correct?
And as far as history, I think the reason that blacks keep bringing up the past is that those who forget it are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately, there are still blacks in America who remember the days of segregation and Jim Crow and aren’t gonna let white people off the hook that easily. They believe, rightly or wrongly, the minute you let up, they’ll find ways to return to those bad old days. I wasn’t around for those days, but I sense some of persistent negative attitudes toward us.
I hope I made some sense. Please look around this blog, on which I bring a brutal honesty. Again, thanks for visiting and don’t be a stranger.
Peace.
Comment by Chrissy — August 21, 2008 @ 1:14 pm