I pit white trash girl...

The BBQ Pit
81

I’ve come in for more than a little grief for my suggestion that this girl is in a very difficult place and one very few people would be willing to trade places with. I was accused of “diagnosing” her with depression and advocating a “you poor, poor dear,” approach toward dealing with her. So many of the posters to this thread were in such high dudgeon over their self-righteousness that I hardly bothered to respond.

The fact of the matter is, where people like her are concerned, there is no good answer. They are in a downward spiral and no particular approach is likely to do any good. Sympathy doesn’t work, excusing it doesn’t work, and condemning it doesn’t work. Some people are able to get hold of themselves and pull out of it and others will never be able to. This is how a certain segment of the homeless population becomes that way.

I can commiserate with you over the problems you have to deal with because of her absenses and poor work habits. And I can commiserate with her over the utterly crappy hand that life has dealt her, even if that crappy hand is simply that she doesn’t have it within her to change.

I’ve seen far more people serverley handicapped in life by their minds than I’ve ever seen handicapped by their bodies.

82

I’ve come in for more than a little grief for my suggestion that this girl is in a very difficult place and one very few people would be willing to trade places with. I was accused of “diagnosing” her with depression and advocating a “you poor, poor dear,” approach toward dealing with her. So many of the posters to this thread were in such high dudgeon over their self-righteousness that I hardly bothered to respond.

The fact of the matter is, where people like her are concerned, there is no good answer. They are in a downward spiral and no particular approach is likely to do any good. Sympathy doesn’t work, excusing it doesn’t work, and condemning it doesn’t work. Some people are able to get hold of themselves and pull out of it and others will never be able to. This is how a certain segment of the homeless population becomes that way.

I can commiserate with you over the problems you have to deal with because of her absenses and poor work habits. And I can commiserate with her over the utterly crappy hand that life has dealt her, even if that crappy hand is simply that she doesn’t have it within her to change.

I’ve seen far more people severely handicapped in life by their minds than I’ve ever seen handicapped by their bodies.

83

Sorry for the double post. Don’t know how I managed, it but I did.

84

By the time I was 20, I had been married (at 16), had two kids (at 17 and 19) and was divorced (at age 20). I had also dropped out of high school (two months into my junior year), didn’t have a job and barely had my driver’s license (actually, I had a learner’s permit). It would have been very easy for me not to work, never get an education, to rely on a monthly welfare check (which wouldn’t have been enough to pay my rent), food stamps and rent assistance in a housing project. Matter of fact, most of the people who were in my life at the time, especially my (ex) husband’s family, did just that, and it was actually expected and somewhat encouraged.

Instead I fought against all of my social supports (family being a big one) and got my GED, got a job and worked my ass off to put myself through college–never once receiving a welfare check. Yes, my kids and I relied on food stamps to feed us through the years, and yes, we did rely on Section 8 housing assistance to help us pay the rent, but we always knew it was temporary, and it was.

While we were poor, we were not trash. My kids knew what behavior and appearance was acceptable (table manners, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, clean clothing, brushing your teeth, taking care of the possessions you did have, respecting others, working hard in school for good grades, etc.), while many of those who surrounded us (my sister-in-laws kids for example) could have cared less. Their attitude: Haven’t brushed your teeth in four days? hey, that’s okay. Didn’t show up for school all last week 'cause you were too hung over? Have another beer. Lost your job 'cause you were two hours late for the third time? Your boss was a prick. Got a ticket for speeding, or arrested for shoplifting, or busted for possession? Damn cops were out to get you. They always had “bad luck”.

My kids grew up knowing to value what they had, and how to work their asses off to get it, and that nothing was ever expected to be given to them, and quite honestly, the world didn’t owe them anything. As a result, I have two kids who have pride in their education, and responsibilities, and the knowledge that they can do anything they set their minds to do. They’ve never dropped out of school, never been involved with the law, and have never been fired for a job. All summer jobs, or after school jobs (which were all meant by both the employers and my kids to be temporary positions) were left in good standing–and many employers have actually called us when they needed part time fill in workers.

Poor (fill in the description) trash is an attitude, and has nothing to do with the color of one’s skin. It’s about how one acts towards themselves and others, it’s reflected in the beliefs and practices, and is how one is viewed by others because of these. Living in a trailer, or working as a waitress, or having a baby at 18 does not make one ‘poor white trash’–but conduct does.

I’ve been poor, but I’ve never been trash.

85

I think everyone understands someone getting fired after not working half of their shifts. No one’s going to argue about that.
And, I’m fairly sure it’s universal knowledge that not everyone that’s poor is trash, and poor people can and have gone to school, bettered themselves, and pulled themselves up. I know lots of people that are doing it and have done it, myself included.
As I stated in the “stereotypes that you perpetuate” thread, I’m a poor single mother. I’m poor not because I don’t make decent money. For Tucson it’s a living wage. I’m poor because I just barely don’t qualify for things like Section 8 and daycare assistance, so I have a lot of expenses. This state like anything else won’t last, and the days are drawing near when I will have more disposable income.
I do live in a low-income apartment complex, where I am quite literally surrounded by trash of every ethnicity. The majority of people here work and are normal people just taking care of their families and behaving themselves. And then there are those that act like trash. From what I’ve seen of trash (and believe me, I’ve known alot of trash) it’s a quality that is passed down the generations. When you grow up like that, how do you even know that there’s another way? I’m not saying it absolves them of blame, but it’s something you have to consider. Their family’s been acting like that for hundreds of years, maybe!
Another thing is, most of the trash I’ve known were not too bright. Stupidity seems likely a part of it. My brother and I grew up less than a year apart, and had the same abusive crazy childhood. He’s poor white trash, and I’m not and never have been. The difference? He’s stupid, and I’m not. I’m not a genius, but I believe if I had been stupid, I’d be sitting in a trailer park right now, waitin’ for my man to get home so I could go to the bar, with my daisy dukes and bleached, crispy, teased hair.

86

And when it goes wrong, you fix it. You don’t expect others to make it all better without you (again, collective you) putting forth any effort whatsoever.

As I said, I certainly wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and I still don’t have one, but it’s NO ONE else’s obligation to fix, but my own.

87

Holy, moley, Sweetums, are you sure you aren’t in Oklahoma? That sounds exactly like my ex-husband.

my apologies for cutting down the quote, but I didn’t want everyone to have to scroll through it all twice–even though it was worth scrolling through, of course.

88

Good post, phall0106.

Motivation might be the key.

And positive outcomes – sometimes people change their behavior after just one small success. Breaking a negative cycle is hard for many people, especially if they’re trying (by their standards), and they don’t see some results.

Could there have been one day at work when WTG did something special, and nobody cared, nobody noticed? For all we know, getting to work at all was a big step for her, a major achievement. If she hasn’t been exposed to people who go to work every day because that’s what most people do, she might have thought she was getting her act together and doing pretty damn good.

89

As a supervisor who manages a relatively low-skill group, I beg to differ.

While I won’t call anyone trash, and I certainly have good employees, there are people who are just wastes of time. I have sat down with a person and showed them a list of all the times that they were late, gave them a paper to sign saying that they would not be late for 60 days, and they would be late the next day. On top of that, when I gave her the benefit of the doubt and I asked her why she was late, she got really mad and said that I was on her like “flies on s***”. Lovely. When I fired her, she applied for unemployment and told the judge at the hearing that I hated her for personal reasons. After all, it couldn’t possibly be her fault, now could it?

I’ve had people who I told that I was doing them a favor not to fire them for attendance, they would miss the next day and come back and ask for a permanent position (with raise and full benefits) before being fired.

I’ve had a person come in and hang up on every customer who rang through on their phone without speaking to them – they just released the calls as soon as they came in. She RAN AWAY when approached, never returned, then came back after they were fired being angry that they weren’t paid for every minute of her time (by accident – since they just ran away, left all their systems logged in and didn’t even submit a timecard, we didn’t know when they left).

I have had many, many people who argued for being fired for being gone half the time or more, even if they didn’t even call in for the time.

And we require a year of experience. I can’t even imagine a truly entry-level position.

90

But part of what it took for me to fix my life was a government-funded clinic when was jobless, suffering from severe clinical depression, and unemployed. That was 13 years ago and I hope I’ve paid back the government in the form of taxes and society in the form of various intangibles. When I called the hotline which sent me to that clinic, I was actively suicidal. If I hadn’t used the government’s dime or your dime for that clinic, I have no doubt whatsoever that I would be dead.

That clinic and unemployment are the only forms of government assistance I’ve deliberately made use of in my life. I probably could have gone on Social Security for depression in those days – I’ve known two people who have – but I had too much pride and the fact that those two people were on Social Security for depression is one reason I didn’t want to date either of them.

People, including the twit in the OP abuse welfare. I’ll be the first to admit that. Human beings seem to be capable of abusing just about anything. The thing is, I can’t say we should discard the entire safety net because some people abuse it. Others, obviously, differ.

Oh yes, here’s why I wound up going to that clinic. On the island of Oahu, where I was living at the time, there were any number of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, NA meetings, etc. They were common enough that I could have gone to at least one every day. The problem was, I wasn’t an alcoholic, only a straight depressive. There was one support group which met once a month on the other side of the island from me. There was no charitable support for someone in my condition, although my church did the best they could. As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t quite fall through the cracks, but I did have to hang by my fingernails for a while.

Respectfully,
CJ

91

The difference, and this, at least to me is THE crucial difference here, is that you used the programs for what they were intended. Hell, I’ve had to rely on gov’t assistance in my past as well.

I think you’re an awesome and intelligent doper, but in this case, I think you might be personalizing this a little bit, and aren’t really seeing clear to the types of people we’re talking about.

See, the thing is, that you took the programs, you did them as they were supposed to be done, and you moved on. You helped yourself.

i’m not at all “angsty” or angry about this subject, I just kind of find it surprising that people seem (and I could be way off base) to be taking a position whereby there IS no such thing as a lazy, endowed with a false sense of entitlement, purposely screwing up person.

Absolutely, and I agree, I don’t think it should be done away with because of a few bad apples.

What I’M saying is that those “bad apples” need not to be enabled. Someone said something to the effect of them being to mentally crippled to help themselves. Well, if you’re talking actual mental illnesses such as Schizophrenia and the like, I agree.

However, if we’re talking Mr/ms. “I didn’t ask to be born and should have life handed to me on a silver platter without lifting a finger’ springerites it’s a whole 'nother story. In a similar thread in the pit just recently about panhandlers the whole scenario, these people 'work” the same areas and use the same stories.

If they weren’t allowed to do this, and by that I mean, if no one tumbled to their little tales, they’d be forced to face the consequences of their actions. By people taking the 'well, some people are just so low on self-esteem, depressed etc that they can’t help themselves" they’re allowed to continue to not have to care for themselves.

Wow, that’s quite a ways you’ve come. Awesome strength of character on your part to have come so far. Especially after having to have help from the gov’t. I do know how much that sucks.

92

In that, we’re in 100% agreement. Everyone I know thinks he or she has had hardships. Some of them really have, including most of the people who are closest to me. What makes a difference is the way a person handles hardships. Someone who sits back and whines about it, expecting someone else to fix it is someone I have very little time for. People who work their way through hard times and who choose to be honorable people despite their circumstances are the ones I respect (by the way, CanvasShoes, that includes you).

Many years ago, I came across a joke about a baseball scout who was looking at two young pitchers. He pointed out one of them and said, “See that kid? In 10 years, he’d got a chance to be a Cy Young award winner, All-Star MVP, and maybe even win the World Series.” He pointed to the other and said “See that kid? In 10 years, he’s got a chance to be 30.”

The woman in the OP’s one of the latter. Maybe she’ll learn; maybe life will teach her consequences, although I wouldn’t put much money on that. Meanwhile, until she decides to learn and change, she’s going to go on mooching off people one way or another and genuinely not understanding why she doesn’t have what others have. I don’t know why. I’ve seen it myself over the years and I’ve taken up the slack when people doesn’t understand why they need to show up on time and do their jobs. Under the circumstances, I would have fired her, too.

CJ

93

Well, no. Not really. She was generally pretty lazy. She’d often bum a cigarette from someone and then disappear for the next 20 minutes (takes that long to smoke a cig?). As I’ve noted before, she also had the nerve to ask for money or free food. Sounds like a sense of self-entitlement to me. :rolleyes:

94

See, this is what I don’t get. Is it the position of some of you (no, not you Siege, I think we’re in pretty close agreement), that there IS no such thing as a lazy, shiftless 'ne’er do well"?

That springerites are all just victims, or something? That, if someone behaves badly it’s “not their fault” they just need love, or they weren’t “lucky” enough to have our bloodline (and as I’ve stated, mine was absolutely NOTHING special, very very dirtpoor one in fact), and so on?

Do you not see that those who are behaving this way do so because they are being allowed to? That if they were forced to, by lack of panhandling or those supporting their laziness, that they would then HAVE to support themselves??

That it’s laziness, not their childhood, or lack of people “misunderstanding” them, that causes them to call in sick? That, among those who aren’t suffering from a learning, or mental disability or severe mental illness, there is NO one stupid enough to honestly not understand the correlation between hours worked and cash earned with which to pay rent?

Again, this isn’t judgment driven, for I know darn good and well that I’m no smarter, luckier or possessed of a “better bloodline” than these people. It’s simple logic. It’s not their lack of background or their bad childhood that is causing them not to be able to “understand” it, it’s that there are enough people to rescue them to allow them to not HAVE to be responsible for it. (it being rent, bills, etc).