The Downfall of the American Economic Society

Despite the heady title, I'm not about to go into an economic lesson/tirade about the good 'ol US of A. In fact, I somehow got through 19 years of schooling without ever taking a course in economics. How the hell did that happen?

It's funny how financially hard times brings out something different in everyone and every situation. I understand that I am hardly qualified to complain like some people out there; but that's not going to stop me from pointing out strange effects these times have had on me personally (Is 'personally' unnecessary in that sentence from a grammatical point of view?).

First off, my job has become, um, strange? Whereas we used to be full all the time and could hardly keep up with all the diners hungry for cheese, now we have too many servers and not enough diners. Two easy solutions might be to fire the lesser workers thereby boosting the workload of those deserving, or playing the seniority card and giving more work to those with the longest (and best) track-record with the company. Instead, the restaurant has become, well, like this:

Torture | Viral | SPIKE.com

And that is only a slight exaggeration. We, the servers, were all informed that those who took the initiative to partake in menial tasks not in our job description, followed all the corporate rules to a T (even though they haven't cared up until this point), and basically brown-nosed, would be the servers who got shifts. So an atmosphere of at least semi-happy compatible servers has turned into a power-struggle to see who can outdo who. Since when does my choice to perform a busser's task (of course secretly hoping I'm being watched, otherwise who would care?) at the detriment of my own duties equal being allowed to work?

Secondly, the issue of food has become interesting. I start out the month like normal: make a sandwich for certain meals, cook some burgers for others, eat out occasionally, and snack on whatever's around when hungry in between. Towards the middle of the month I cut out eating out and rely on food from the freezer and fridge plus the occasional snack. By the end of the month (with rent looming) I find myself having conversations with myself like this:

G1: "Let's see, what can I have for dinner?"
G2: "You have no money, so you can't eat out."
G1: "True, and I'm out of sandwich meat and microwave burritos."
G2: *Points at something in back of cabinet* "What's what?"
G1: "A can of refried beans that's been there for 2 years."
G2: "Wrong, it's dinner!"

Third, I start making strange cutbacks that probably aren't making that much of a difference. Case in point: I need to return this movie to the store; but I am running on fumes in my truck. In order to get to the store I will have to fill up my gas tank. So....screw it, I'll return it later when I have gas and hope that I don't get fined thereby negating the savings I just made. But of course, if I were to stop and think, I would realize that I have to buy gas whether or not I go to the store today, and I will have to return the movie whether or not I do it today (unless I really want to own a copy of Baby Geniuses on BlueRay for a mere $25). This probably goes back to my lack of economic teaching; but I somehow convince myself that delayed spending is saving me money!

4, I indubitably make one or more stupid financial decisions. E.g. After adding up rent and utilities, counting how much I have in the bank, counting how much I have in my wallet, coming to the conclusion that since I only work one more day in the month I need to walk with $130 in that next shift or I will not make rent, and realizing that I haven't made that much in a shift in a long time (therefore it will be a long shot to make rent this month), I will wake up the next morning with furrowed eyebrows as to why I spent the night spending money to drink with friends <---This is, most assuredly, the longest sentence in this post, or in any recent post for that matter; which makes me want to go scan the archives to see what the longest sentence I have ever written is.

Times like this make you wish you had been smart with your savings when things were looking up. But nooooo, I needed the duplicate DVD just because it was a special edition with one added feature, the fancy name-brand headache painkillers that are 6x the price of the generics, the new digital camera with twice the megapixels (even though I have never printed anything requiring the max number of magapixels my current camera has), and the fancy foreign bottled water (my Brita filter makes the water taste like carrots!).

Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20 while current vision is like reading the bottom line of an eye exam chart from 100 yard through blue-tinted glass covered in mud.