So, if any of you have bothered to read the history on/of this blog, you might recall that once upon a time I was a rich mortgage broker. Then, in May 2007, I was laid off. After working a series of shitty temp jobs, I decided it was time to do something with my life, and if I was going to start anew I should do something I loved and enjoyed. Thus, culinary school, where I earned a 3.89 cumulative GPA, an Associate of Applied Sciences in Culinary Arts degree, and amassed over $60,000 worth of debt. Since my externship (March 2009-July 2009), I have had four jobs.
First the externship, at an assisted living facility ($10/hr), with a brand-new-to-the-position Executive Chef who had to flex her Dietary Services Coordinator muscle to prove she could do the job and henceforth wrote me up six times in one week and put me on the edge of being fired. Before that could happen, I got a job as the Gourmet Chef Manager at a grocery store ($12.30/hr).
I LOVED this job. The problem was, a coworker had wanted my position and was literally out to get me - not just ME, but another guy and another chick who had also been the Chef there. She lied to an "authority" and I was put on suspension without pay. After an investigation, it was proven that I had NOT done what she said I did, yay HACCP and CAMERAS (dumb bitch), but at that point I had already found another job as a Chef at a Winery ($10/hr).
I literally did EVERYTHING at the Winery, for peanuts, and was treated like shit by the GM who was a drunken nobody with no restaurant experience (and, for the record, ran the place right into the ground like I said she would - it's not even open anymore!) and so we parted "mutually" due to "lack of business" or whatever.
Next I got a job at a catering company ($10/hr), not like weddings and parties but businesses. I had to drive either 50 minutes to Groveport or 65 minutes to Newark for work every day at 7am, so basically 50% of my paycheck went directly to gasoline for my car. I was hired to be the "Catering Chef ", they even went so far as to do a hair drug test, and was told I'd be taking over all the catering jobs. Within two weeks I realized I'd be had, and in reality I was this bitch's bitch and my title may as well have been "salad maker" because that's about all I fucking did besides run around and do her bidding. On top of that, I was sexually harassed by one of their account managers, but he said that if I told anyone he would get me fired (When he told me that, I was still new and couldn't afford to lose my job; Now I wish I'd turned him in and made him pay. Literally.)
So I finally got the job at this retirement community ($12/hr) and it seemed like my actual dream job. The pay was low for the work, but I was happy to have something I liked that was close to home. That happiness lasted about a week - first, I was bullied by a male coworker who
ended up being a rapist (he's currently in prison), then I was treated like a child and told I was no good by a 20 year old punk (who was the mother of a 4 year old and whose baby daddy is currently at
FCCC), then I was tortured by another male coworker who finally got fired when he came to work under the influence of drugs & alcohol. After all that my chef had the nerve to tell me that I was the problem, when we found ourselves in yet another closed-door meeting. This time it was in regards to my supervisor, a 14-year employee, a black "
christian" woman. She was(is) incredibly racist, with the list going like this from "good" to "bad": black females, black males, white males, white females, all Africans. We might even be under the Africans, I'm not 100% sure. This woman tortured me, literally, from November til July when I finally went on maternity leave. You might remember me talking about Karla from school, well, this sprvsr was ten times worse than Karla ever was. For a christian, she was a horrible person. She eventually lied the right way and got to write me up, twice, for things that she claimed I did - she claimed I didn't cook these ribs, but, had I not cooked the ribs, the residents would have had nothing to eat. She didn't even try to make it realistic, and when I look back now, I laugh. Unfortunately her actions plus my complaining on Facebook (what I said was "I wonder if there is a coalition for black sprvsr on white pregnant employee bullying" and somehow that's harassment?) got me a year probation - the
day before I went on maternity leave - and they expected me to come back? Right. I would have come back if she'd have left or if we truly could not afford for me to stay home. I'm not going to subject my infant son to my drunkenness due to the inability to function because I am being beaten mentally and emotionally on a daily basis. No sir.
Now that you know all that, maybe you can figure out why I can't pay my student loans? No? Ok, well it's because I haven't had steady employment - a month off from March 2010 to April 2010, then again from May 2010 to June 2010 - really fucked up my finances. My loans started coming due in January 2010 and as mentioned in the previous post, I was already unable to pay them and things never got any better.
At this point, I'm out of ideas. I've contacted Sallie Mae over a hundred times to try and consolidate or get a lower payment or something - anything - and they simply will not work with us. My friend's aunt keeps telling me on fb that I'm bragging about not paying them, that it's not fair for me to get a free education, and so on. Clearly she doesn't understand how un-awesome it is to be $60,000 in debt with nothing to show for it.
Aunt: what is sad about this if every keeps not paying then
they will stop the loans and some one who really wants it won't be able to
go....Kelly I don't think this is anything to be proud about...:^(
Poke: People will always be able to get student loans, as
long as there's a Phoenix facility somewhere in your state
Aunt: again don't think it is right to go to school and JUST
don't pay....not fair...just saying
Me: So are you saying that I didn't really want it? That I
chose to go to college seven years after graduating from high school, put my
entire life on hold to obtain this degree, worked my ass off to get a 4.0 and
make honors the entire time just so I could NOT pay my student loans back? Do
you think, Aunt, that I planned for things to go the way they did after I
graduated? To be raped by my employers, lied to, not paid, and not to mention
laid off? To be lied to by Bradford, who told me that they would help me not
only to find a job FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE but also that they would help me
with financial issues as well? Do you think that I haven't been on the phone
with Sallie Mae three or four or five times a WEEK for almost TWO YEARS trying
to consolidate or get lower payments or whatever so that I COULD pay them back?
IF I had known this was how it would be, I NEVER WOULD HAVE GONE TO COLLEGE. I
would have continued in the mortgage business and worked those shitty temp jobs
instead of trying to better myself and my life. In trying to do so, I have
actually ruined my life. So if you think that I'm PROUD to be part of a HUGE
problem, you couldn't be further from the truth. Why don't you think about the
things you say before you say them? Do you truly think I am proud to have lost
everything I had worked for before the age of 22? Proud to be $60,000 in debt
with absolutely nothing to show for it? They can have my fucking degree back -
even before I became a SAHM it was worthless. Take the degree back and cancel
out the loans because I certainly did NOT get what I signed up for. Besides,
how do you get that I am "proud" from this photo? Did you ever think
that maybe I posted it to show how badly things have gotten? I'm not the only
person out there who doesn't/can't/won't pay their student loans. Plenty of
people who don't even finish school and get the degree don't bother to pay. Why
don't you pick up a copy of this morning's Dispatch so you can read the article
associated with this photo instead of just assuming that I'm so proud to be
upside down in debt at age 29.
Aunt: sorry I did think before I said something sorry Kelly
you have a FREE degree because you are goin to just walk away....sorry that's
how I feel....sorry just sometime you brag on face book thay maybe you
shouldn't be braging about....just saying....
Me: how am i bragging about this? am i posting things like
"i'm awesome cuz i can't pay my bills"? no, i don't think so.
So that's where we are now.
On top of all this stupid debt bullshit rolling around in my head, my ex-boyfriend's girlfriend keeps tagging him in posts about how awesome he is, for example, making her TheraFlu when she was sick. For some reason I am jealous, probably because I knew that he was the perfect guy but then I fucked it all up and he ended it before it could really go anywhere. Don't ask how, I don't really want to talk about it, but it had to do with when I was beat up by that girl back in November 2009. I know that if I had hooked up with him I never would have gotten 4L, and that would be terrible, but I think about all the pain Poke puts me through on a regular basis and I just regret a lot of things. After all these years of wanting him, of him leaving me so cruelly only to come right back again and then leave once more, I feel sometimes like I forced him to be with me and now that we have 4L, I am stuck. He tells me weekly that he doesn't love me, that he never loved me, but he also tells me that he loves me on a daily basis. I don't know what to believe. He bought me a house, he's great with 4L, and he provides for me/us financially. Emotionally, romantically, physically, however, he provides either nothing or just hurt. Even when he tells me he loves me or says nice things to me I can't take him seriously because I know that in a few hours or a few days he'll be telling me how much he despises me. He needs to see a therapist.
