Following my recent experience completing nine days of unpaid training and passing a series of nerve-wracking tests only to be told that the company wasn’t going to hire anyone after all, I thought I was beyond being surprised by the ways in which employers will take advantage of workers’ desperation in this rotten economy. Then [...]

When you read a lot of Help Wanted ads, you begin to notice certain patterns. One thing I’ve noticed is how common drug testing has become–for hourly jobs. In fact, if the employer is a midsized to large company, mandatory drug screening is now the norm for hourly workers. But not for most salaried employees. [...]

Once upon a time you could be fairly certain that investing the time, money, and effort required to earn a four-year degree would allow you to land a good job with medical/dental/vision benefits, a retirement plan, and paid vacation time. In the event of a bad break, you could count on being covered by worker’s [...]

Whenever I leave my little corner of the web and venture over to one of the big Democratic cheerleading sites, I’m told that we’re in the middle of a slow but steady economic recovery. Strange, I think to myself, because it sure doesn’t look that way from where I’m sitting. Until the beginning of this [...]

You’re not going to believe this. Then again, maybe you will. Remember the job I was telling you about? Nine days of unpaid training and the need to pass a bunch of proficiency tests, after which we were to start a part-time, no-benefits contract job for $9.50 an hour? Today I received a notice congratulating [...]

Things are looking very bad right now, but I’m not giving up. I can’t give up because of the dogs. If it weren’t for them, truthfully, I don’t know. I’ve had a tough life and I don’t see it getting any easier. And I’m tired of fighting. So damn tired. To be honest, when I [...]

I was planning to write a few blog posts this week but I’m too weak, too tired, and too sad to focus on anything complex. Maybe in a few days. I’m also scared. I keep thinking of my partner, our dogs, and myself in a car speeding toward a cliff. Unless something changes, we’re going [...]

One of the things you worry about when you have neither money nor health insurance is what will happen to you in the event you become seriously ill. How are you going to pay for treatment? If you have an acute condition such as appendicitis, you can go to the ER and they have to [...]

A huge, giant, colossal THANK YOU to everyone who donated in the past week! You guys are truly lifesavers! Many thanks also to everyone who helped get the word out on Twitter and Facebook and especially to the awesome bloggers who asked their readers to lend us a helping hand. As a result of your [...]

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever written. And if I saw any other way out, there’s no way I’d be sitting here and writing this. Asking for help has always been very difficult for me, and if it was just about me, I probably wouldn’t be doing this. However, I have my dogs to [...]