Cracked: 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor

<snip>

There's a phrase in the working world that drives me crazy. One guy says, "The money's not great, but I love my job." And somebody responds, "Hey, happiness is all that really matters."

To be clear, that's probably true for people at a certain level of income. If you aren't struggling to pay the bills, then happiness is indeed a pretty damn awesome extra. But you know those movies like American Beauty, about the guy with the unfulfilling career who abandons it to live life to its fullest? Yeah, don't forget that after quitting their jobs they still come home to houses that look like this:

But down here, at this level, you take what you can fucking get. Fantasies about holding out for that dream job will ruin you.

For instance, long before reading to this part, some helpful commenter has surely skipped down and chimed in with, "Why don't you just get a job, you lazy fuck!" Wait, did you think I was unemployed? Hell no, it's been years since I was out of work for any long period of time. I've always had jobs. Shitty, shitty jobs.

A huge chunk of this economy runs on shitty jobs now. Recently, McDonald's held a job fair with 50,000 openings. They got more than 1,000,000 applications. Tens of millions of you will wind up in one of these jobs, it's sheer math.

<snip>


Read more: 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-being-poor_p2/#ixzz1NfQ8J6FW

the country of shitty jobs with many temporary, part-time or full-time with minimal job security and benefits. That's the drift I'm getting just observing what's going on. Maybe others see a rosy picture, and that's great.

So many ignorant people will ask a working stiff, anxiously awaiting the benefits of social security and Medicare, why they didn't put away a few hundred dollars each week back when they were earning low wages and struggling to raise a family to prepare themselves for a self funded retirement.

Why don't people have the foresight to sock away a few hundred bucks a month to bolster themselves when their 1997 Buick inevitably kills it's own water pump? Do they think we drive a 13 year old car because we finally have the driver's seat broken in just the way we like it?

Everyone from the millionaire on Wall Street to the check-out girl at WalMart seems to revel in telling someone worse off that if they tried harder like them, they wouldn't have the problems they complain about. Invariably, people look to someone less fortunate and demand the government cut off help to them as if that will somehow free up more cash for themselves.

Most Barstool Republicans in particular, seem not to realize that they are only two weeks away from the social safety nets they strive to eliminate if their company decides to cut back.