An even bigger SOAP BOX!

So once again it has been a few since I have posted anything but I really am trying to make things happen...promise! 

We have moved to a new place the old place could not decide what our rent was supposed to be each month and each month it was something different, we now live close to Hilliard in a very nice and quiet community, no more neighbors fighting all night, and no more hearing our neighbor thunder across the floor at all hours of the night.  RJ seems to be much happier here as well and we have a beautiful lake view. We downsized as the economy and my job seem to push for we are now in a one bedroom apartment but it is very nice. I will post more about it in the next blog but for now on to other issues!

I have been working a lot and it seems if I am not working I am out doing something to keep busy, I have decided recently that I will go back to school, I am not sure exactly where I want to go or what I want to major in but I need to decide soon.  I got my FAFSA finished and my EFC is 000!  YAY that is a little light in the tunnel, but still a little lost on my direction. Part of me says go to a school like Bradford of Columbus and get a certificate/diploma in an area that I am interested in and the other part of me says to go to CSCC and get some core courses out of the way and get a degree from a college, I am definitely looking at the financial aspect as well since I cannot afford much of anything out of pocket for it right now.

I am considering a major in Political Science but I also would like to maybe get a Bachelors in Business Administration or maybe go for computer sciences and do something with computers the ideas are up in the air right now. I do know that I want to get out of restaurant management, the pay is just not there and I do not think that my heart is in it anymore.  I want to do more with my life and I want to be able to enjoy being comfortable with my job and my pay.  I want to be able to go out and splurge a little without trying to change my lifestyle.  

Now my rant for the week, does it seem like our country is being over run by immigrants or what? Now do not get me wrong I am all for a better life for anyone, but it seems as if everywhere I go now all I see is foreign nationalities, I understand that this is supposed to be a cultural melting pot but I think the pot is about to boil over! For example, my sister who has two beautiful and intelligent girls was receiving government assistance for rent and food stamps, recently she decided to leave the government housing to make things better for her and her family, with that change she has to work more and that is a good thing, she is doing the right thing and being responsible and working for what she gets however she don't work a full 40 hours a week, it is just not available where she works, and she makes a lower wage, however when she got a re-determination on her benefits they told her that she will only get medical insurance for the two kids and nothing else!  So lets see she goes from $24 a month rent with govt assistance to $585 with ZERO assistance and she is now told that she makes too much to get help with food for her family because she wants better!  There was people doing drugs outside in front of her old apartment and the places did not have good maintenance but because she wants better and is trying to do better we are going to punish her, we should reward that as a society! SO many people want to "work the system" and do nothing for it and expect more to do less but when someone wants to do their part to make things better we knock them down and make life harder, come on lets help OUR people and stop telling everyone that even if you are not a legal citizen we will help you and we will provide for you!  Its time we take care of our own people and tell the illegal immigrants and the other immigrants that if you want the "American Dream" here you go, here it is, WORK FOR IT! This is not the land of the Freeloader! It is the Home of the Brave and the land of the FREE!! If you do not want to come here and do your part and be a productive member of our society, PLEASE FEEL FREE to LEAVE!  We are taking care of enough people and we cannot take proper care of the ones who are here we do not need you to come here and ask what we can do for you, we need you to come here and ask what you can do for us!  We need innovation and ingenuity not laziness and more children to support because you do not believe in BIRTH CONTROL!!! 

OK so I think that I have vented enough for today, I encourage you to PLEASE COMMENT on my blog and tell me what you think, share your ideas, because that is what makes things better, the collaboration of friends, family and community, whether it makes an impact or not we can be heard and we can share with each other to help with a better understanding. Maybe I have closed my eyes to ones views and only opened my eyes to mine but this is how I feel and without more information and other views and ideas that is what it is my opinion whether it it right or wrong is up to interpretation but I want to see some other view points I will not get angry  I might argue my side but that is what is great about AMERICA is the ability to do so FREELY!

My Soap Box!

So What's New?

Well as you can see it has been since my birthday since I posted anything last and this is my first real post on here since I signed up, so there is a great deal of catching up to do.

First of all we are settled in our place the holidays were a little rough but we made it through and we are doing ok, I still have the Toy that I got in November, jobs are a lot harder to come by so I had to suck it up and take a job with Insight Communications for a few to make ends meet and that is now over I mainly did it because of the starting pay of $730.50  a week but the weather sucked and with the economy being in the crapper the job was a lot harder than it had to be.  I made like 3 sales on my own and then one of them rolled back. I would have gotten 6 but 3 rolled back immediately because of stuff beyond my control.

 

I interviewed for Tee Jays Country Place Restaurant and I was not thrilled by that at all, but if I was offered the job I was going to take it because there is not much out there for work.  I got a call from a Arby's Franchisee and was offered a job as a manager for a brand new restaurant and I took it, because I know the product and I was excited about the opportunity for a new store and new stuff, so far things are going pretty well although I cannot understand how I am supposed to be the AGM and I am not included in conversations that impact the operation of the restaurant that I am jointly responsible for, I really want one of my superstar crew members Ashley to be promoted into management however nobody seems willing to include me in the conversation.  I am a little upset with the situation; anyone who knows me knows that I give my 100% to my job and then some.  I am always looking for a way to improve a process or to help create excitement in the position or job. I am just boggled on how I can be excluded from things that totally impact me and the role of my job. Moving on.. I really do like my job and I hope to grow with the company I just have to get past this minor stepping stone and barrier.

Pickles has been having a rough time finding gainful employment and I know it is frustrating him greatly.  I sit and think about the economy and how things are and just wonder how things will be 3 months 6 months and one year from now.  Something has to improve, I know that things have to get worse before they can get better but how much worse can they get?  My mom got laid off from her job and cannot find work, unemployment is only $225 a week and that is nothing but because my dad makes decent money working for the county they cannot get any extra help, my mom’s COBRA insurance premium is $190 a month and I just feel so bad because I know that she has bills on top of that and I wish there was more that I could do to help her but I only make $500 a week which is well below what I am accustomed to making but a job is a job and they are hard to come by these days. Sometimes I just wonder how the big man thinks that we will be ok and that the menial pay that people receive will help them make ends meet. 

There is so much craziness that you hear about in the news everyday and I just wonder how much more of it is being caused by the current situation our country is in. I know that problems will not and cannot go away over night but we need some sort of solution, we need our government to get it together and work for the people who put them there, let business work on business and work for the people.  I really do not know what we can do to unbury ourselves from this mess but we need to do something.  It seems as though before long we will no longer own our country it will belong to all the other countries that we keep borrowing from and we cannot get things together.

We need a reform that starts from scratch, that does not include big business and we need to end the corporate greed, I mean really who needs to make millions a year and then get bonuses and stock options and private jets? This is ridiculous we need to move toward being more humble and spread the wealth, I mean really look at it, the people who make the companies work make so little while the schleps at the top sit and bask in the wealth, I mean don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with someone being wealthy but I feel we need a more even spreading of the profits.  We need to make it so that people can live off of what they take home as a net pay, so people do not have to depend on government aid forever, Government aid is good for helping those in need and for a fixed period of time but not helping till the end of time.

I am sure that at this point I sound like some political machine spewing out a bunch of rhetoric but it is how I feel it is my values and it is what I believe in.  I believe in a country where people can enjoy life we can have family’s that can build on family values whether it is a hetero or homosexual couple. If we could just get the rest of the world to join in and get the corporate leaders to show some moral value and show that they are not just about themselves and money we can get there however I doubt that I will see it in my lifetime.

Another thought that I ponder is how things can be so much harder today than they were years ago, we have so many things that are supposed to make life easier, we have coffee makers with intelligence that will brew when we want them to, we can call people from nearly anywhere and we can communicate in an instant with things like email and instant messaging and text messaging but life is harder and we get less done in a day, is it that we have become lazier? Or is it that everyone wants things now and instant gratification?  Businesses are more customer conscious now I feel that things are more geared to customer satisfaction than ever before, you almost cannot go anywhere and not have someone with some sort of satisfaction measurement process in place but we want more.  How much more can we do, have we as consumers become too greedy? Are we wanting too much from that high school kid making our fries or the clerk at the supermarket?  After being in customer service and management I constantly find myself evaluating the service I receive and the product quality like I am some sort of "expert" or "connoisseur of service and quality"  We need to get back to the basics and start there.  We need to be humble again and be thankful for what we do receive and what we do have, not what we think we deserve or we think things should be, I mean it is good to have standards but I feel that we sometimes set them too high and sometimes out of reach.

I know that I keep going on and on and on like the energizer bunny and most people will not read all of this but it is just things that I think about and things that I want to say so here is my soap box and this is my forum to present my ideas.  Whether you agree or disagree it is not for me to judge, as you too have your own goals, ambitions and values that might differ from my own but I feel that I speak for most people that have little and try to make the best of life.

Best Wishes for a better tomorrow!

Your Friend

Brian

P.S. Please feel free to comment on the above statements I love to hear feedback and sorry if things jump around but it is just thoughts flowing from my head at that moment!