Five Long, Arduous Years

Well, my five-year anniversary is fast approaching. By some strange coincidence, Wife #1’s five-year anniversary is the same time of year. Fortunately, they are both on the same day so we celebrate them at the same time.

As I look back over the five years since I babbled something that sounded like “I do,” I realize that most people probably would have split up because of the problems we faced. The number one cause of divorce in America is money issues. And wow, did we have money issues. By issues of course, I mean that we had none.

2000

The first year of marriage is a beautiful time, when two people used to having their own bathroom move in together. Your feeling of independence and freedom is shattered, never to return.

But we made it through the first year, I was working and Wife #1 was finishing school (that would be second grade, we got married young).

2001

Six months into the marriage was when her back problems started, nothing quite like taking someone to the emergency room in an ambulance, it is an experience to be missed. Good things happened that January though; I got a whopping 3% raise! My boss had to fight with her superiors to get me that much, they wanted to give me a 2.75% raise. With the amount of money I was making, we were not talking about a lot of money, that would be my first experience with corporate greed, The Howard Hannah Way®!

In February we started looking for a house. Our one bedroom apartment got old really fast. We wanted out. We were picky. We weren’t going to take any old house; we demanded that it be in our price range! On June 18^th we bought our first home using Howard Hannah Realty. We did it The Hannah Way ®!

On November 12^th, my boss, while crying, told me that the higher ups in Pittsburgh had decided that they were dumping my job. My boss reminded them that I had just bought a house using their company. The higher ups agreed that it was a shame. How swell of them. To be honest, I hope their company collapses around their ears. I hope they wind up broke and unemployed while people they sacrificed for turn their backs on them. Does that seem vindictive? It sure is. I also hope that a certain Hannah gets his Porsche destroyed before his eyes. Just a quick reality check, if he had refrained from buying a new Porsche that year, they would have EASILY had enough to pay my salary. So a new car was more important than I was to those people. The Howard Hannah Way®!

That changed me, I thought irrevocably, but it was not to be. I swore never again to give more to a job than they gave me.

They gave me a month of severance pay, thereby ensuring that I would spend Christmas realizing that I only had one more week of income left. My boss was not supposed to tell me so early in the month for some reason (only explanation: The Howard Hannah Way®!), but she told me, risking her own position. I immediately started looking for a new job. I sent resumes, I filled out applications, and I applied for unemployment. Months came and went, we had no money; unemployment payments are just enough so that you can pay some bills. I got rejected by Wendy’s, I couldn’t get any job.

2002

Through this all, my wife’s back grew worse. She graduated (with many honors) from a prestigious school that you have never heard of and got a job at a local non-profit that helped people with mental problems and other such stuff (motto: We help our clients while hating our staff!).

In July I had an interview. A few weeks later they offered me the job. I just knew I should refuse it, but I needed a job. Five months of misery followed, culminating in us calling over the H.H.G. and having a chat about me quitting with no other job on the horizon, and with no unemployment to fall back on. It was the right thing to do; I left.

With only Wife #1’s income we were still short (money wise that is, I’m over 6’). So I plunged into the depths of hell and got a job taking phone calls from people who were buying stuff shown on infomercials. Wheee! The interview process went thusly:

I walked in; filled out an application, set what days I would be there, and that was it. I had a very bad feeling from the get go. They didn’t even pretend to care if I was a good worker or would be there beyond next week.

As some of you might have noticed, my mind jumps around a lot, it is very active, sort of like a chipmunk on speed. Taking these calls was awful for me. They didn’t really take all that much brain power to handle, just enough so I couldn’t zone out. My mind raced, time slowed to a halt, and I got in trouble for, on average, taking less than 18 seconds on upsells.

Through all of this my wife’s back grew worse, she missed time at work, her supervisor started showing her true colors. Doctor’s offered no help, aside from medication there was no relief from the pain, and medicine loses its potency after a while.

2003

January 28^th. I started working for a C.P.A. I will go into detail about this in a later post, suffice to say that I hated it, maybe I hated him too, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me in regards to my career (that, readers, is known as a teaser).

During tax time I would work 40+ hours a week. I enjoyed doing people’s taxes, despite what you may believe, I did over one hundred tax returns (individual and business) in 2004 and not one came back due to an error I had made. I was pretty proud of that.

Then came the summer of 2003. There wasn’t enough work to do, I worked two days a week, eight hours a day, sixteen hours a week, between Wife #1’s job and my part-time work we almost were able to make it. I started looking for a better job again. I sent out resumes to everywhere, even for Accounts Receivable positions (if you understand my distaste for Accounts Receivable, then you must have some accounting knowledge).

The H.H.G. and I took up golf, that would soon turn into a

*obsession*

passion of mine.

My mother died that summer. This is the event that has affected my life more than any other, I think. We all know that we are fragile creatures, but we still think that death is for old people, or other people. People are not supposed to die from a bee sting. But that also is another topic for another day.

Back to the job search. No luck, no one even called me for an interview. Before I knew it Christmas had come and gone and it was a new year.

2004

Tax time! Sweet relief, I was able to work again, as much as I wanted. We had enough to make ends meet, we were paying off debt, and both cars were now paid off. Good times, we both knew that the summer was coming when we wouldn’t really have enough, but why worry about the future when you can’t do anything to change it? I stopped sending out resumes during tax time, didn’t want to lose money going to a fruitless interview.

April 15^th. For some reason we were not as busy on the 15^th of April as some tax people are. Maybe we just dealt with more people who liked to get their taxes done early, the lack of advertising had something to do with it as well I’m sure. Only one more month before my hours would be cut dramatically, the phone rang. It was Wife #1. She had been forced to resign from her position for having the audacity to actually use her sick days. I won’t go into all of the ugly details, but it turns out that a friend of the CEO was hired within a week after her leaving. A grave injustice had been done. The reason that she resigned, rather than forcing them to fire her is because they gave her severance pay and promised not to fight the unemployment claim. Thanks a bunch guys! (Motto reminder: We help our clients while hating our staff!).

We now looked forward to trying to survive on sixteen hours a week and unemployment. The CPA and I examined some things and discovered that I would make more money if I worked a mere eight hours a week and filed a partial unemployment claim. He was willing to do this, and so was I. You can discuss the morality of this with me all you want, but walk in my shoes, attempt to provide for your family, see what you do.

I went to several interviews, two of which I nailed. I knew I impressed them. I interview well, when I have to I can swallow my shyness, my fear and plunge ahead when I know I have to. I may feel like puking, but I am the most outgoing person you have ever met while being interviewed. I was runner up in one of them, second place, the first loser. More interviews, more rejections.

I heard of a job, three states away in Illinois (shudder). I had always fought against moving, I really did not want to leave my family. It appeared I had no choice. I interviewed for the position. The offered me the job.

On November 3^rd , Wife #1 and I drove off in a huge Penske truck, filled with our earthly possessions, and more importantly, the furball creators we had come to love. We left Western Pennsylvania (motto: closer to Heaven than most Buddhists will get), with heavy hearts and a CD player packed with batteries.

Never say, “We are making good time!” Don’t tempt the fates.

We were making good time; we were going to hit Indianapolis just a little before 7:00 p.m. (Eastern) when the truck started jerking, bumping, thumping, and generally feeling like it was about to collapse under us.

We made it to a truck stop and called Penske (motto: you break it, you bought it!). They sent out Charlie the Wonder Mechanic. There was a good chance that it would be hours before it was repaired. Against Penske’s wishes (new motto: the customer is never right!), we packed up some thing in the car that we were towing (this included a very scary episode of getting the cats out of their traveling cage and into separate carriers without them escaping), and headed off, leaving all of our earthly possessions at a truck stop in Indiana. It was now 11:00 Eastern; we had spent three hours at the truck stop.

As we hit Illinois, it began to rain. Just enough so that wipers were needed, not enough so that they didn’t make a screeching noise. There were no lights. We pulled into our new home at about 2:00 Central. There was no water. The small town where we lived had not allowed me to transfer the account into my name over the phone, so we had electricity, gas, phone access, but no water.

My new landlord had kindly left a mattress and bedding for us to use, I inflated the Aero Bed ™ for Wife #1, and collapsed into sleep.

2005

Wow, this is long, quite prodigious, I would say. At least I would if I knew what that word meant. Wife #1’s back has gotten worse, doctor’s still offer little help, but on the bright side, I work at a really good place, and once our house back in Pennsylvania sells we will just have enough to pay the bills. That is a good feeling to have, especially considering where we were.

We have been through some really hard times, job problems, money issues, sharing a bathroom, my mother’s death, and some really good times, most notably our honeymoon at Niagara Falls (everyone should go there once). There is a phrase from The Shawshank Redemption that I always have liked:

“He crawled five hundred yards through the (muck) and filth, and came out clean on the other side.”

That is us, we have crawled through the muck and filth, the other end is in our sights. Even when times have been hard, really hard, we stuck together, when times seemed desperate, we didn’t push each other away. We have crawled through muck and filth, and there are only fifty more yards to go. I’m sure eventually, we will make it to the other side and come out clean, together.

Fritz