Because I Deserve It

 

One of my real life nightmare jobs was working in a company that engraved parts. It was a very small shop with usually six employees. The male to female ratio was five to one. It was a breeding ground for misogynistic behavior. The owners were a married couple where the male usually strolled in around ten, while she came in every two weeks to reluctantly pass out paychecks. Every time she entered the building one of the engravers would put on a Barbra Streisand tape. They hated Barbra and they hated their boss. When the two were not around a special tape cassette was put in the boom box. The songs were sung in a country type genre, but the lyrics were unbelievably disgusting. They were songs about incest, and bestiality and beating the wife. That's what I listened to as the assholes chuckled. I hated every second I was there. Plus, I was barely able to pay rent and buy groceries. One of the young male employees recently had a baby who was born with cystic fibrosis. One day a coworker walks up to me and says, "We're all contributing $20 to the cystic fibrosis foundation," then stood there waiting for me to pull out of the air $20. I didn't have $20. I didn't have one dollar. I was counting the days to payday to buy bread and milk. I wanted him to go away and I said maybe on payday I can give something. Then I sweated out the next five days. How do I get out of this? I should have said, "Fuck you, assholes. You treat me like garbage then you want me to be a part of the team when it suits you!?. Go fuck yourselves." Naturally, I didn't say this. I caved and handed over $20. I ate crackers and "borrowed" food from my parent's refrigerator. It's not the first time I had been coerced into some money contribution at the workplace, so it truly ticks me off when I read stories like the one in the advise column, 'Asking Eric,' where a woman claims a coworker is asking for contributions to her honeymoon fund. She says she deserves a honeymoon and wants people she works with to foot the bill. 

When I think of that money I was pressured into giving, I don't feel too angry because it was for a good cause. But paying for your honeymoon is laughable. People have absolutely no shame now. They want what they want and expect others to oblige. I have a niece who is the laziest person I know. She complains she never has money. Well that could be because she quits a job after two weeks because it's hard. Boo-hoo. What really killed me is her mother, my sister, was going through a really rough time. She had been walking on a fractured foot for weeks because she doesn't have insurance. Finally she had to stop working and ask for help from family. Her daughter in the meantime is on Facebook asking for contributions to a concert she wanted to attend. Oh, enough for two people. She certainly wasn't going to go alone. 

GoFundMe was a good idea meant to help people who need help with medical bills, or just enough to get back on their feet after some traumatic event. It's not meant for vacations, honeymoons, concerts or dinner at Chez Paul. I guess if you have zero insight into what a piece of shit you are by asking people to pay for fun times then I hope receiving crickets as a response wakes you up. 

Stop asking for money, people. Sheesh.