Monday, July 15, 2013

Rumor-cleaning time...

Today is hilarious beyond all doubt... I've hearing all sorts of wacky rumors, some that almost hit home a little too much. Well, I BCC all 20 people I mail this to for spam prevention measures, but as a sales consultant, PR is everything and I have eyes and ears everywhere... I am not going to put those people on blast, but I am not going to let it slide either, nor do I want to address them individually in case I got another hater somewhere in this email that might be "just curious". However, those people know who they are and hope they realize that they are a traitor, scum of the Earth and even one who exhibited total disrespect for the deceased should be ashamed of yourself.

Rumor: "Ed is struggling and in a panic that Unemployment Insurance isn't going through, he's probably broke and scared out of his mind."
Answer: Nope, far from it. EXCLUDING probate estate and a settlement I won (which I would've gladly taken my old company to the cleaners if I didn't have to worry about my dad's final expenses), I currently have $2,200 NET of my own blood, sweat and tears bank AND GROWING. Gotta love residual income from the loans I closed. Would've been more, but I took this month off for bereavement leave. What about the things I excluded? The $300 left in the estate/funeral/donations trust fund for my dad and the $1,000 settlement I mentioned, $1,000 I have in savings (which I have savings for the first time in 3 years), $500 here and there, I have $5,000 NET (AKA after bills).

As I lived paycheck-to-paycheck and lived EXTREMELY frugally at MetroPyongyang*, (e.g. NO eating out, NO social life, NO rainy-day spending) and would still only have $150 left over every month with constant threats to FURTHER reduce my hours, I got $5,000 in 2 MONTHS VERSUS 2.75 YEARS!

Oh, and speaking of UI, I appealed for the sake of justice (not because I needed the money, not to mention I don't want a "failure to appear" on my record) AND WON. I'd return it to the state, but this is the funds that MetroPyongyang screwed me out of and I don't think I'm unfair in asking for a tiny $1,600 back... The appeal decision letter was HILARIOUS; I was CRACKING UP when it said "a reasonable person genuinely desirous of retaining employment would also quit under these circumstances faced by the claimant." In other words, the way I saw it, it means you'd have to be a deranged lunatic to work there! I asked them about my account balance, they said it doesn't concern them. I said "can I continue to work at PVF?" they said "as long as you don't work past x hours and report your income that's OK" However, It'll be too much if I actually continued to claim against it, so no further claims. Hope that $6,600 after 3 years of destitution doesn't make you choke on your Haterade.

Speaking of deranged lunatics, I love this one...

R: "Ed is psychotic and should be [on Prozac / in a mental institution / etc].
A: So wait, you didn't hear about the deplorable working conditions I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy? Are you taking my celebratory joke songs way too seriously? If I have evidence and SWORN affidavits (one even NOTARIZED) from 2 different witnesses/patients in hand for some of the problems that I had to face but was swept under the rug by the owner and someone who calls herself "the boss", let me ask you...

WHO IS THE PSYCHOTIC ONE NOW?

I am seriously baffled when I say that I can bring up a hazard or violation multiple times but have that ignored, but I get the full blame for a minor mistake that has someone else's initials on their certification worksheet, which if "the so-called boss" acted like an actual boss or the owner would take charge and work with the landlord to fix some of the problems after paying $$$$ in rent (I saw the lease agreement and am still surprised that they are low-balling MetroPyongyang), I wouldn't have had to done ANY of the reporting I did, and it's despicable to see that the only way it got resolved was me quitting, having a guilty conscience and resorted to telling the government about the problems of MetroPyongyang instead and not even being around to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

If I am crazy for wanting a safer, equitable workplace where everybody is equally respected instead of a hostile, unsafe environment where everybody hides behind their titles and tells their employees to mindlessly eat their s**t, please, I'd be HAPPY to put on that straitjacket and sit in that padded room for the rest of my life. Please also give me some Eskalith; Prozac won't do nothing for how crazy I must apparently be!

Actually come to think of it, I think the sewage gases spewing out of that place also kinda created an imbalance. After all, if I am getting dizzy, headaches, nauseous, irritability and experiencing short-term memory loss (all of which are proven side effects of Hydrogen Sulfide exposure) that ALL gradually went away the month after I quit, I'm sure part of the side effects of working for an oppressive totalitarian boss AND the H2S exposure ACTUALLY must've made me "psychotic!" After all again, what "reasonable person" would want to stay in this mess?

R: "His dad killed himself because of [something I did; I don't even want to say it]"
A: OK, wait a minute. Wait just ONE F$%*ING minute. Like I said in my last post, anybody who knew my dad for a sufficient length of time knew he had testicular cancer, a heart attack and diabetes. The cancer brought on a trauma, his heart attack needed meds but gave him all the negative side effects ever listed (including depression and thoughts of suicide), and diabetes that was left uncontrolled for so long, his blood sugar imbalances causes dementia. My dad was actually pretty proud of me even if what I did wasn't phenomenal, and it's sad that I just barely got the wheels lifted off the runway of my flight to success when he passed, especially when I promised him I'd send him $2,000 the week before he passed on and was even thinking of surprising him with $500-$1000 per month, a feat I would've NEVER been able to do at MetroPyongyang living paycheck-to-paycheck. At any rate, nothing would've saved him. In fact, I even subpoenaed his phone records and even the friend he talked to 4 HOURS before he shot himself said he was in good spirits and even planned on visiting him the next week, so this was definitely unpredictable.

Also again, I hope that the person that made the statement should learn how to respect the dead and go f#&k yourself, you insensitive a$$hat.

*For those that don't get the joke, Pyongyang is the capital of North Korea and the oppressive, totalitarian Commies with no regard for anybody's well-being I worked for was named Metropolitan Optometry.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Dad's Death

As you saw about 3 weeks ago, my father took his own life. Even worse, yesterday was supposed to be his 56th birthday. He had lots of trauma behind him; it all started when my grandma passed away on October 20, 2008; he was very close to her and took it very hard, and that was when he started experiencing flashbacks, but can still live a decent life. Then he had a heart attack due to an artery collapsing, but recovered nicely soon thereafter. However, for the next 2 years he's had physical exams that did a thorough check on him and haven't found any problems... Except his blood sugar; surprisingly no doctor has made it a point to check it.

Starting around spring of 2009, he started having these severe depression symptoms where he was constantly worried and stressed out even over the littlest things, saying hurtful things to me all the time (e.g. if I didn't pick up the phone he'd say stuff like "you don't care about me" and "I'm a worthless pile of crap, forget I ever existed")... This happened almost DAILY and any problem he'd have would last for over a week. Since he alienated most of his friends, not to mention at least twice a month there'd be something new to get upset about, I became pretty much the only pissing post he had, and that's a lot of pressure; I even started getting anxiety attacks whenever he'd say stuff like that...

It got to the point where he was such a downer that it started affecting my life, my way of thinking and my own problem-solving abilities went down. In fact, I too, have become so depressed that my life went to hell in a handbasket. I was making good money; I had a fully-furnished, plush apartment in Arcadia, the car that I've wanted that was going to be traded in for a BMW or Lexus (I haven't pulled the trigger on it, but at the time but I was leaning towards the Lexus IS-C)... Down to being so demotivated that I slept at 4AM on a regular basis, woke up around noon, stopped pursuing any form of income and lost everything... Oh, and the fact that I got wrongfully terminated from one job, laid off from another and ROYALLY screwed out of a business partnership didn't help either. It still hurts to think about it; it still hits me like a ton of bricks as if it happened yesterday, and the fact that one of my friends keeps trying to use this as a way to "punk" me into doing something or reminding me not to go down my old path all the fucking time doesn't help either. Anyway, that's besides the point.

So, they finally figured out that he had diabetes and his blood sugar was high enough for him to need hospitalization towards the middle of 2012... Also this is after he started experiencing the more severe of symptoms like frequent urination and blurred vision. So, he's been on diabetes treatment and things were starting to slowly go back to normal, although he would still tick over minor discrepancies or overreact to negativity, but it became only 1-2 days instead of 1-2 weeks.

Also at around this time, he decided to hand-build a trailer that became his home. I was praying that he'd get over this horrible disease and he seemed to have the upper hand, until the very morning of trying to enter a dispute with my former employers, I got an email from the county Medical Examiner's office, where I called back and they informed my my dad shot himself.

So far, with everything I said a few days ago in mind, life has gotten easier in certain ways, but in other ways it's harder. Life is harder in the sense that now more than ever, I do feel a bit alone. Sure, I found new relatives I didn't know I had, more friends are talking to me and reaching out more, and I'm not constantly worried about my dad anymore (which is making me move mountains in my life), but also it's harder in the sense that now I am more easily agitated since I am still coping, and having to sift through his paperwork, file legal documents and all this stuff is a lousy experience... I didn't know that the death of a family member was this complicated.

But anyway, here's to your memories. I even crawled up extra early and went to our favorite breakfast joint and ordered your favorite breakfast. Steak & Eggs, sourdough bread, eggs over-medium with coffee.


Anyway, it's getting late so I think it's best if I end it on this note.