My American Life here

I find this amazing:

I can work for a company that employs thousands- but only part time.
I can want to work, and be denied work. Not because of any failing of mine, but simply because they don't want to pay health insurance. Twenty-five people work as little as four hours a day at part time jobs that would be good, full-time jobs for ten. It's a kind of hazing that everyone who has attained full-time status already went through. It's considered normal. For a retail company whose net worth is in the billions. Whose profits are unfathomable. And growing. Of course they're successful. They use American ingenuity and people in a two-tier, have and have not that profits off America's structure by stealing from Americans.
No sick days. No vacation. No health insurance.
-Wanna buy an extended warranty with that purchase?-

Does this sound like what you've heard about Starbucks? People that work there tell me SB pays health insurance to workers scheduled for as little as 20 hours a week. Sounds great, until you learn the work schedules are then maxed out at 19.75 hours.

My quality of life is reduced to begging for work every day, every week at a company that employs me. Funny how there's no time for fun or creative endeavors. Funny how I never have time to write. Funny how exhausted I am, without consecutive days off. A schedule that can have me working at 9AM one day or until 10PM the next.

-No, I'm not on commission. Yeah, I would be rich if I was on commission. Ha, ha, yeah funny!-

On my lunch "hour"-sometimes only a half hour, it varies!- I walk outside and am confronted by people with their hands out, begging. One guy even had "Beer Money" tattooed down the arm that ended in the outstretched hand.
This city's ability to allow this and look the other way is astounding. Where is the tipping point for this week's beggar to become next week's thief?

I was in a local store where the staff were menaced by someone high on drugs. They were trying to bodily keep the person out as the person slammed themself repeatedly into the glass door, trying to break it. Blood streaked down the miraculously unbroken pane as three of the stores' staff pulled on the handle and kept the criminal from getting in. Another staff member called the cops. In vain.

It's dangerous to shop in freestanding PDX stores. When called, the cops don't come. I was in there a couple weeks later and found out they'd had to stop a cop car in the street to get someone to come help. It's made me rethink my personal safety in a freestanding store.

A mall gives the illusion of safety. You may be personally safer than this beleagured streetside store. See the mall cop? That person is not going to stop a criminal, I'm told. They're there to police the sheep. Not the wolves.

the whole world looked to this country, this experiment in democracy. I can't get back the pride I once had in telling people I was American. Now I'm just another financier in open terrorism and murder of people in their own beds/homes/cities. How many bombs have I paid for this year?

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