The Bad News: My Layoff Bleg Goal $2500 by August 10 ($1410 down $1090 to go)

Update: $1410 of $2500 raised so far (8-14-17)

A few weeks ago I and the rest of the people on 3rd shift at the warehouse where I’ve worked since 2015 were informed that said 3rd shift was to be eliminated. On Friday with 30 minutes left to our final shift our small Band of Brothers (after a delightful pot luck lunchtime feast which frankly we should have been doing once a month) discovered our fates. The regular employees who had not already found other work elsewhere were all retained. The temps including me, were all laid off.

There are a lot of adjectives that might be employed to describe my situation but “unfair” is not one of them.

In a business where location or special skills are not vital, the cost of labor is a critical component of decision making. Thus when the decision makers in the state of Massachusetts choose to adjust our minimum wage upwards by over 11% 40 days after my hire, followed by a second 10% increase to $11 an hour a year later, it meant our labor (not counting overhead per employee) was 50% more expensive than the same labor provided by a competitor in say, Pennsylvania ($7.25 hr) a fact not unnoticed by potential clients. The end result a simple mathematical truth: No matter what the legal minimum wage in a state is, the actual minimum wage remains steady at $0.

Nor was my status as a Temp after nearly 2 years unfair either. As you might noted, this year, despite my full time job I have been able to cover events and location from the Catholic Marketing Network in Chicago to the Missouri Star Quilt Company in Hamilton Missouri to CPAC 2017 in Maryland. My employer generously allowed me time off to cover these events. The trade off was when it came to select temps for full employment and all the benefits thereof my stock was considerably lower than a person unlikely to head off to Denver to cover a symposium on school choice or Washington to cover a 3 day event on immigration. Having had to make employment decisions as a small retailer for seven years I completely understood that decision.

In short this job despite its drawback in terms of sleep, status or use of my degree, my job worked out well for me. It covered my family expenses that the blog had failed to do while allowing me ample time and opportunity to continue working toward my goal of growing this site until it could provide me with reliable full time income.

Alas despite complements from the current president on my reporting, a new book on the Hail Mary that briefly passed the Pope’s latest in Kindle rank under Canon Law and an extraordinary set of writers who have this year reported on stories in person from New Orleans Louisiana to China I’m afraid this site hasn’t reached the point where I can do this full time without other work.

And so I come to you Fedora in hand today with a special bleg and a specific goal.

If I can raise $2500 by August 10th I will have time to finish a pair of special projects that are imminent (oddly enough the timing of my layoff is quite convenient in that respect) without having to worry about the bills being paid for the next 30 days.

This will also give me a full 30 days seek employment that would fill my financial needs.

So if you are able and or so inclined I would consider it a great favor if you would consider hitting DaTipJar below:

Please consider subscribing, Not only does that get you my weekly podcast emailed to you before it appears either on the site or at the 405media which graciously carries it on a weekly basic but if you subscribe at any level I will send you an autographed copy of my new book from Imholt press: Hail Mary the Perfect Protestant (and Catholic) Prayer