triticale - the wheat / rye guy

Fortune Favors The...

Jane Galt quotes William Rasberry"s quoting of William Galston on the relationship between magical thinking and poverty. I have witnessed the same pattern quite often in the course of our economic climb, and now, in people's reaction to it.

My current contract, thru a national telecom consulting firm, involves driving to each sector of each cell site in the client's Southeast Milwaukee coverage area in order to test an upcoming high speed Internet service. Because of the driving involved, I have the use of a monthly unlimited mileage rental car. The job-related mileage is expensed at a rate which has succeeded in covering all of my gasoline.

Because the rental is monthly, I have wound up driving the wee wifey to and from work in a sequence of like-new vehicles. When I picked her up Sunday morning one of her coworkers (like most third shift nursing assistans, a graduate of the Wefare 2 Work program, asked what happened to the minivan. Herself explained that I had to exchange it because it was a monthly rental, and the comment in responce was that "You two are the luckiest couple in the world."

First of all, altho our situation may look great to someone who has only recently made the important step from welfare recipient to "working poor" we really aren't that well off. we are, overall, around the median, and we've had a couple of lean years of late. I think we could actually have claimed poverty in 2002.

More importantly, this current contract didn't just drop into my lap. To make a long story short, I went to some effort to put my lap in the job's path and to make it a suitable one. It was good luck that I got into the telecom field, but I got that first call because my own actions had kept my name at the top of the staffing firm's list.

Posted by triticale at October 9, 2005 11:17 AM | TrackBack