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Archive for the tag “generational hangover”

10 Feb 2015
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26) The American Dream is a Prison Cell

Growing up, I was under the illusion that my father was good with money and was conscientious about his investments and what he chose to buy. I learned later on that my father’s motivation was entirely based on my mother’s hormones. He would do anything to assure that she stayed with him, even moving our family when we were better off, financially speaking, to stay and pay off the home we lived in. All of this was hidden from my view; yet, I continued to think that he was making sound choices all along.

As I began attending college, I had to take out student loans, like the majority of other middle class students who were lucky enough to attend college. My primary motivation was that I had to pick something that would land me a job. Survival and independence was the ultimate goal. I often wondered why society calls it education, when the reality is to get a job and serve a life prison of work for pay to consume.

I first majored in Business. Like many young people, I was swayed by the idea that knowing business will be a guarantee to get a job and thus achieve success. As I spent the first year of college in business courses, a great anxiety slithered along the edges of my perception like worms in moist earth.

I didn’t like what I was doing or learning. The language was empty, calculating, devoid of the natural world. Dressing up, making appearances, walking the walk, talking the talk, my soul plunged into the void. Oxygen escaped through my pores every time I opened the doors of the creaking building.

The light disappeared into the polished floors of the hall; every classroom was filled with the templates of PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and cut and paste Word memos with cheesy clipart I had seen on thousands of student flyers stapled onto billboards. Being ‘creative’ was equated with changing the color scheme and typography on your spreadsheet.

Everyone dressed in smart suits and shiny, black shoes clicking as they walked, like the sound of register tape pounding out numbers and dollar signs. Some days, I would stroll down those halls, feeling sick, observing my fellow students regurgitate business principles and economic trends mimicking their pale faced heroes on the trading floor of Wall Street, going blind staring at an endless stream of financial tickers.

scantron

About this time, I saw the film, The Matrix. There was no color to this world, no life in it. After taking a marketing class, I realized that my DNA was fundamentally opposed to everything I was being taught. A storm passed over me, a kind of existential crisis. I tried desperately to study for tests. I was a poor test-taker to begin with. Give me an essay question and I can explain everything. Our tests consisted of multiple choice and true or false questions, just like all of the CTBS tests I took in grade school with many rows of dots on Scantrons.

I was never any good at them. I overthought my answers and had difficulty with the process of elimination. Elimination is waste and in my world, everything must be considered before being discarded. My Business Law professor told me I think too much. I was completely depressed. What can I do in this world that has meaning and real satisfaction? I can’t buck up to make this work without going absolutely mad or becoming a sociopathic asshole.

My roommate, Tracy, was also a Business major. I came home to our apartment in tears. After several cigarettes and a few beers, she pulled out the course catalog and showed me a major I had never heard of.

“I was thinking… you are really creative. Why don’t you see about getting into the Graphic Design program?” she said. “It’s still business oriented because you work in marketing and advertising, but you design logos and other stuff.”

I took one look at the catalog and knew that’s what I wanted to learn. I needed creativity. I needed more than black numbers on white paper. I needed color and hues and tints; I yearned for new ideas, research, strange juxtapositions and conceptual exploration.

Three years later, I was in my junior year in Graphic Arts taking a class on Ethics in Design. Once again, I found myself in a panic, questioning how I would make a living in this field and I began to worry. Even though I reclaimed my soul in the creative element, would I be chained to the whims of business interests, would the color of my world dissolve into oblivion with the incessant needs of my clients to sell things I didn’t believe in?

After all, I would have to engage clients whose bottom lines were engrained in their business plans and the bottom line is all anyone can focus on. Was I willing to sacrifice my creative energy to see it produce another useless consumer product, more waste, more of the same? Was I willing to use my design skills to manipulate the public in ways that inherently were wrong and completely unsustainable?

The answer was – No.

After graduation, I took a retail job as a temporary solution with the hope of planning my next career step. After a year, I signed up for a 401(k) and contributed more than was recommended, having educated myself on money and trying to save more than I spend, once again knowing the future was uncertain and I had to pay my student loans. I subscribed to Money magazine and drew up a spreadsheet, keeping track of my expenses and re-balancing my portfolio every year. I did this for five years, careful to plan everything out, how much I would save and keeping my interest income figures low, just in case. That all changed…

I was clearly the wrong demographic for Money magazine, so I let the subscription lapse. Money magazine was for people who had $5,000 to invest, a mortgage, a kid or two in college, and a nest egg of at least $100,000. Nothing in the articles represented anything I was going through.

Four years later and an economic upheaval in 2008, I began to focus less on money, and yet, I saved it because I needed to sustain myself even though I knew the system was absolutely screwed. I began to downsize my living to the bare essentials. I stopped servicing my car and driving only when I absolutely needed to. I became more reliant on my computer for communication than my phone.

Now, my lifestyle is still at bare minimum. I have enough money for my creature comforts; coffee, cheap wine and $1 books at the library bookstore. I pay for a phone I hardly use and pay off my credit card each month. Debt is my enemy; a prison cell and I’d rather just go without, not see my friends, not drive anywhere. I write every day, I read every day and I hope every day for a revolution of consciousness.

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Posted in Gen-X Philosophy, My X-perience, Riot Grrrl Rants and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
15 Dec 2014
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23) Mortgage Meltdown: A Gen-X Survival Story

Elena was a hotheaded Italian woman in her late 30s. She dressed in breezy skirts, high heels and several layers of makeup darker than her neck, giving her the appearance of a mismatched mannequin. Elena was my boss. We specialized in “expert negotiation and arbitration of credit problems.” I was 21 and this was my first real job.

I worked in the office alone for two weeks while Elena was on vacation. Before she left, we reviewed several credit reports left over from the previous Director, who took cocaine lunches and quit without notice. He used Wite-Out over the bad stuff and faxed the changes to his clients. While Elena was in Florida, I contacted 150 clients to convince each one that we would service their files without the use of Wite-Out. Naturally, I was quite relieved when Elena returned.

We were a two-girl office under the umbrella of New England Financial Corporation, a company based in Riverside, California. NEFC was a fly-by-night that sprung up in response to the mortgage crisis in the mid-1990s. The small brick building lined with purple pansies was like a Norman Rockwell painting, a pretty front to hide reality. The economy was in the dumps and consumers were under water with their mortgages. NEFC offered a solution – for $2,000 they would short sell your home and guarantee no impact on your credit.

The atmosphere in the office was fairly casual. One day I walked into the storage room to retrieve a file. The Executive Accountant suggested we close the door so we could be alone, exploding in giggles. Earlier that week, he brought his newborn son and glowing wife into the office for show-and-tell.

It was worse when he was around the General Manager. They tossed out sexual innuendos, convulsing like Beavis and Butt-head until Elena would curl her lip and displace their comments with a sarcastic punch. Luckily, for us – our office was relocated.

The new office was on the 2nd floor of an attractive business suite in Grand Terrace. I loved my job. I wrote business letters, mailed dispute forms and kept the office organized. Every 20 minutes Elena would go outside to smoke, combing through the pages of credit reports, leaving behind red-kissed cigarette butts like dead soldiers on a battlefield.

Within five months, we made good progress on our client’s files and received few negative calls. The company partners offered to put me through paralegal school.

Then, one day in early April, Elena received a phone call from NEFC. They fired their secretary, a bulbous breasted young woman who would talk about Endometriosis while dropping salad in her cleavage on our lunch break. I was called in to take her place. Elena was pissed. We had a ton of work come in – all failed clients of NEFC – no charge. She was pissed about that, too.

“Why don’t you buy yourself a bottle of Wite-Out, Mike? I can’t remove your mistakes,” said Elena, slamming the phone in its carriage.

Reluctantly, I drove to the Riverside office. The last time I remembered being there, employees would stroll by on their way to the copy machine, shoot the breeze and watch the O.J. Simpson trial on the TV next to the coffee machine. No one was around upon my arrival. The constant ringing of phone calls from desperate customers infiltrated the building. The General Manager told me to take messages. I was the only person answering the phones. One client received a 1099 from the IRS moments after waking from a stroke in the hospital. He owed $42,000. Others had similar stories.

“Sir, I’m so sorry,” I told the man, “Unfortunately, there is no one here that wants to talk to you. I recommend that you do whatever you think is necessary to take care of your situation.”

On April 13th, 1996, the day was warm and sunny when I pulled into the entrance to NEFC. Several white, unmarked cars were sporadically parked in front of the building. I parked and walked down the pathway to the door. Two men with bulletproof vests greeted me. One tall, stone-faced man was from the California District Attorney’s Office and the other, from the Employment Development Department.

“Do you work here?” the DA guy inquired.

“Yes. I answer the phones,” I said.

A suited man with a clipboard took my name and instructed me to go into the conference room. We were kept for 5 hours, interviewed by the DA and EDD personnel as a group and individually. By the end of the day, four locations in Riverside County were raided and over 100 files confiscated.

I was escorted to a chair in the conference room and sat back to watch the show like a cat on a limb with coffee in hand. Two NEFC partners and the General Manager were sitting at the long conference table. They looked like prisoners facing a firing squad; their impending doom was palpable. Dark, wet circles formed under their arms and the ceiling lights reflected the sheen on their creased faces.

After the interviews, I was released. I was dying to talk to Elena and drove to the other office. When I walked up the stairs, Elena was walking out carrying a computer monitor.

“Get out of here,” she growled. They were raiding our office, too. Not wanting to go through a second interrogation, I walked past the broad window of our office and down the other stairwell. That night, Elena came back to the office and stole some furniture, a phone and a fax machine. She asked if I wanted to go with her and take some items as compensation for the paychecks we likely wouldn’t receive. I declined.

I never acquired my last paycheck. During the months that followed, I returned to my previous job as a part-time cashier at a gas station. I had to move out of my apartment. I stayed with several friends, sometimes sleeping in my car before my shift. Two years after, I left Southern California and moved to Oregon.

I learned a lot during those 8 turbulent months at New England Financial: always keep your nose clean, if a co-worker asks you to sit on his lap – it’s called sexual harassment, you can live on bananas and Top Ramon, beware of businessmen wearing tropical shirts and never mess with an Italian woman who has a twin sister.

Courtesy of Newspapers.com

29 Aug 1993 • News Record, North Hills • Pennsylvania • Page 43 | Courtesy of Newspapers.com

REFERENCES:

Company Profile for New England Financial Corporation. Updated 17 Jun 2014. Wysk.com Web. Accessed 19 Jun 2014.

Harney, Kenneth. Washington Post Writers Group. Title Transfer To Avoid Debt May Bring Tax, Credit Woes. The Seattle Times, 12 Nov 1995. Seattletimes.com Web. Accessed 19 Jun 2014.

Mulligan, Thomas S. ‘Credit-Repair’ Firms Raided in Riverside. Los Angeles Times, 13 Apr 1996. Articles.latimes.com Web. Accessed 19 Jun 2014.

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Posted in Gen-X Culture, My X-perience and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,
17 Sep 2014

17) My Car Ate My Homework

I was in my sophomore year in high school in 1990. We had an open campus back then. At lunch, hundreds of starving teens descended upon the fast food establishments of the land like caged chickens, pumped full of hormones and suddenly set free.

The unbridled rage of rabid teenagers instilled terror deep in the bones of every underpaid college student working at drive-thru windows within a 10-mile radius. Panic materialized as the scream of hundreds of rubber tires chaffed against asphalt, like a thousand growling hydrogen bombs.

Rotting orange

We piled into convulsive, exhaust-spewing vessels, stereos blaring an angry bile of anarchy and destruction: mini trucks vibrating base from wolfers giving nearby earthworms an erection so intense their heads implode like cherry blossoms in April, the pavement blisters in the sun, sports cars without mufflers set off car alarms and dogs’ ears bleed in backyards where pretty rhododendrons wilt all over the Inland Empire.

This hearkening of affluence summoned the lunch-hour, sending chills down the spines of every doomed restaurant manager, the whites of his eyes reflected against the name badges of his cooks hurriedly preparing to satisfy the beasts at their door – my friends.

My small, insignificant tribe of 20 nihilistic Goth-types piled into our own belligerent vessel: a white Toyota pick-up, blaring the flamboyant verbiage of Oingo Boingo’s Only A Lad out of the cab windows, open wide for maximum effect through the smog-filled particles that lodged inside our ears as our asses slammed against the truck bed going over potholes and railroad tracks to seek out large slices of pizza, luxuriously drizzled with ranch dressing poured to capacity on paper plates.

For 45 minutes, we were free: free to roam, free from indifferent parental units, free to inhale the corporate seduction of Camel cigarettes, free to make out and then, like reluctant slaves, we were forced back to the hive, wheels screeching, circling the parking lot to find an open space and finish off our last two classes for the day.

And then, I got my own car… Counter to all that I was supposed to do, my car took possession of my soul and drove me to imaginary places: silent mansions, dark places, crumbling architecture, antique leaning willow trees. The bamboo whispered stories to the wind and I listened and walked and walked, seduced by the ghosts of pungent orange groves and time disappeared among the smells and sounds of the orchard. I walked the trails that wandered in secret pathways throughout the Kimberly Crest Mansion, one of the oldest buildings near our high school.

Kimberley Crest GateThen, as if my manual stick changed to automatic, my 1966 Volkswagen Beetle drove along, running parallel to an old cemetery with tall cypress trees and then on up to a place called The Point. It was here that I had a bird’s eye view of the universe; it was a haven for solitude and reflection. It was a place where a troubled teen could experience suicide without actually doing it. It was the ideal space where I learned to think, to feel, to reflect  – all of which are necessary in a world full of complexity.

It took another year to get my HS diploma. I learned on my own, to think for myself in a world of contradictory claims and incentives that don’t make basic sense. I learned to look on a level above the tree line, to watch, listen and absorb all the moments in my life and in high school. I found that everything I ever needed to learn was inside as long as I took the time to listen… on top of a hill… in silence.

The Point

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03 Sep 2014
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13) Letter to Neil Howe

The following letter was sent to Neil Howe, author of several books on America’s generations including The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy – What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. Mr. Howe was kind enough to suggest that I might want to start my own blog if I planned to write “on an ongoing basis.” I thought it would be appropriate to share my letter with you.

Dear Mr. Howe,

I am in the process of writing an important article on Generation X and my personal experiences with the job market as it is today. I was hoping you might be able to give me some advice on where I might place it. I thought it would be a great piece for Forbes Magazine because it is an important statement on the generations and Gen-X in particular.

As a writer studying Generation X, I feel my voice is a unique and important one. I am a single, un-married female turning 40 this year; the quintessential latchkey kid with no prospects of a career other than as a writer.

My hero is Mark Twain and three big brothers raised me: Depeche Mode. My parents were of the Silent Generation and I am a latter-day-Xer, an outlier of the X generation. The fact that Mark Twain shares my generational experience upon learning this from 13th Gen, it further deepened my love for him and the reason I gravitate to his ideas. I always wondered why I loved the works of Virginia Woolf and Hemingway; discovering through your book that they are kindred spirits in another “lost” generation.

At 40, I have no children, no family and two houseplants. I live with my aunt, who I am grateful to every day for loving me and providing a roof over my head. I had a retail job of 7 years, at which I quit a year ago when I had several panic attacks and hit a wall. I made  $11.25/hour, which was comfortable for me. I didn’t care about the money, but the hours kept going down and I felt constantly abused by angry customers, too much product on the floor and worrying that I was alone at night at the cash registers in a gigantic store where anything could happen and did.

Nothing in college ever prepared me for this type of environment and I had to wipe my self-esteem off of the floor every time I left the building. Luckily, I found an online writing gig for 6 months. At first, there was plenty of work and I scraped by, cutting back on everything I did and savoring the small savings I had to get me through the year. Unfortunately, the work was sporadic and eventually dried up and I had to take my unemployment. Thank goodness for that!

I don’t mean to put all of this on you; however, I know that you understand our generation and what we are going through. I am extremely grateful to you for what you are doing in studying the generations and the importance of this information as we are in truly challenging times.

I thank you for your time and look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Latchkey Lisa

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Posted in Letters, My X-perience and tagged , , , , , , ,
26 May 2014

02) Turning 40 in 2014

I am 40 years old this year. I am just beginning. Seeds of cynicism have grown into clear and determined purpose…

Everything I have experienced is akin to waking up from a generational hangover –familial obstacles, false starts, occupational upheaval, delusional relationships and the constant interruption of WTF moments. No kids, no marriage, NO – to all of it.

When I turned 18, I believed that whatever happens, I must be held accountable – every mistake, every decision, every vote, every relationship, every failed opportunity. I adopted a three-part view of existence: the world I was born in, all that came before me, and my own life. This was the world I was born into…

40 years ago, the Rubik’s Cube debuted on the market pissing off all normal people except for those kids who would eventually become affluent in command line prompts in MS DOS, the Watergate scandal was in full swing as my mother put the groceries away and descended upon the hospital to bring me into the world, owners of automobiles were lining up to put gas in their tanks if they were lucky enough to find a gas station that still had gas, Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, was on the printing press and women everywhere retired their wire hangers to the closet upon having access to legalized abortion.

Tricky Dicky

President Richard Nixon gives his resignation speech from the Oval Office at the White House in Washington D.C., on Aug. 8, 1974. Photo by: NBC NEWSWIRE/GETTY IMAGES, courtesy of mysanantonio.com

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