#I would give up so many things to go back to an hourly wage job

[aidanchaser]

Really did just text "just got home from work. Have some more work to do" as if that ain't the fucking theme of the year

[kind-of-a-writer]

the usual

Gator Tillman x fem!reader Gator takes you in the shitty bathroom at your shitty job. wc: 3k a/n: hello i am back missed y'all sm<3 lmk if i missed a tag.

contains: mean gator, power play, harassment, name-calling, bathroom sex, p in v, creampie, slight dubcon if you squint?, rough sex

The bar wasn’t known for its quality, to say the least. And nor were you its finest waitress. But the alcohol was cheap, which attracted even cheaper people, and things conveniently managed to slip under the radar around here. It wasn’t exactly ideal, but you needed it to get by, and that’s all that mattered. 

Which, of course, had all come crashing down today. Your boss had pulled you aside before your shift, saying tonight was going to be your last shift. Something about not working hard enough, receiving ‘one too many complaints’ from one of the regulars. When you asked who it was, all he said was that it was one of the cops that frequented the bar.

You knew exactly who your boss was talking about, and it angered you like you couldn’t believe. 

Truth be told, you couldn’t give a shit, and there was no denying that. It was a shitty fucking job at a shitty bar. You earned just enough to pool together your hourly minimum wage and the crappy tips to be able to afford rent. But it was a job, it was something at least. Now you had nothing, and it was all thanks to that stupid deputy who found amusement in your misery.

It was another long, dreadful night. You had grown accustomed to the loud music and dim lights by now; this job had been your routine for months. Still, your feet were aching and your head was starting to pound, and your shift was nowhere over tonight. At least it’d be your last. Except, that meant you had nowhere else to turn, and even landing this shitty job had taken you so long. Still, you had to suck it up for the next few hours.

The bar wasn’t slow, but it was a Thursday night. Not exactly packed either, which meant less tips. You wished your boss had at least given you till the end of the week, but there was nothing you could do. He’d already hired someone new, she was replacing you tomorrow.

You had heard him and his friends enter before you even turned, they somehow had managed to be louder and more infuriating than the shitty bar music. They were rowdy, loud, messy, and the worst kind of table you’d want on a night like this. Or any night, really. But tonight specifically. You didn’t want to see him, the reason you had gotten fired. 

Gator Tillman was, of course, leading the pack of cops, with his stupid deputy vest and cargo pants as he strutted into the bar with confidence. His hair was slicked back, albeit starting to come undone. They must’ve just gotten off work. 

Unfortunately for you, Gator and his group of dumbfucks were regulars, often making your already-excruciating shifts more miserable. Often claiming you’d got their order wrong, whistling at you like a dog or yelling at you to catch your attention, bumping into you and spilling drinks on the floor which they’d relish in watching you mop up. It was worse when the bar was packed; full of drunk sweaty men who didn’t take kindly to the floor being sticky.

And Gator was, of course, the worst of them all. You’d never hated someone more. Even the sleazy customers who’d grab at your ass or hit on you were manageable; you knew how to handle them. But there was no handling Gator. He was, quite literally, the law. It was his way, or you were getting no tip (not that he was very generous), or a drink spilled on your clothes or shoes.

With a deep breath in, you approached the table, hoping tonight would have semblance of normalcy - whatever normal was with him.

He was the first to notice you, his signature smirk plastered on his face when you approached. “There she is,” Gator drawled, as if he was excited to see you. Excited to ruin your night probably. Well, the joke was on him. Tonight couldn’t get any worse. He seemed to notice the fatigue in your stance, reaching out and tugging on your half apron harshly. “This new?”

You tried to step away, but his grip only tightened, as if he had anticipated your move. 

“What can I get you guys?” you asked, trying to keep your tone neutral. Subtly, you glanced down at your outfit. You were wearing a white t-shirt and a little red skirt, nothing too special. But you were irritated, how did he know it was new?

“The usual, a round of beers for everyone,” Gator replied, his fingers still digging into your skirt. “I like this on ya, sugar. Though I gotta say, it does make you look a little slutty. Or d’you like that? Is it gettin’ ya a lot of tips?” 

You wanted to yell at him, call him names. Your patience tonight was already at an all-time low, and it didn’t help that his friends were cocksuckers who loved giggling at every single thing Gator did to piss you off or rile you up. But you held it in; you didn’t want to cause a scene and your shift to end early. You couldn’t afford to miss out on any cash now; even the minimum wage you received hourly at this stupid fucking job. 

With a tight-lipped smile, you turned away. You guessed that was a mistake, because his hand dug down into your tights, causing it to tear with a loud rip. You glanced down in disbelief.

“Oops,” he said smugly while his friends laughed loudly, causing your cheeks to burn. “Butterfingers.” 

Maybe it was the fact that you had just been fired tonight, or maybe it was that you were tired of Gator’s antics, but your eyes stung with tears. Before he or his dumbass friends could notice and give you shit for it, you turned away quickly, walking to the bar. 

You returned with their drinks, sliding over the glasses of beer. In the corner of your eye, you could tell Gator was watching you closely, but you pretended not to notice. God, you wanted tonight to be over. 

With another forced smile, you had started to turn away. But Gator wouldn’t make your life that easy. Swiftly, he lifted his beer and splashed onto your chest and down your skirt, the cold liquid making you flinch. Your ears were starting to ring, overwhelmed by the sounds of his friends laughing like he was the funniest man ever; their leering eyes on you as your white shirt clung against your bra, the beer seeping into the fabric.

“Oh, clumsy,” said one of Gator’s friends with a sneer. “Givin’ us a real nice view though.”

Frustration bubbling up, you turned to look at him, your lips parted to cuss at him. “You fucking asshole,” you snapped before you could help yourself, stepping back. That caused a low whistle from someone in the group. You’d surprised even yourself. “You’re so-”

Gator blinked up at you with a scarily blank expression, as if challenging you to say anything else. The clench of his jaw shut you up, and you walked away to grab a rag. 

After you were done with cleaning up the table and floor, Gator and his friends watching with amusement, you had finally managed to enter the bathroom to clean yourself up. 

Your cheeks were burning with humiliation and you were almost trembling with anger. You didn’t know why; you were used to Gator being an asshole. It was nothing new. 

Dabbing at your skirt with wet tissues, you knew it was a lost cause. You were going to have to endure being sticky and stinking of beer for the rest of the night. 

You glanced up when the door swung open hard, hitting against the wall with a loud thump. In strided Gator. 

“You’ve got a mouth on ya tonight, huh?” he asked, watching you continue to dab at your soaked skirt. “What, you think you can swear at me-”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Gator blinked, momentarily surprised. He was closer now, leaning against the sink beside you. He wasn’t used to seeing you like this; fiery and snappy. For the sake of your job, you’d mostly managed to keep your mouth shut and endure his stupid little games. But now, you couldn’t give less of a fuck. You wanted to offend him, make him feel as angry as you were.

To your surprise, however, Gator was suddenly grinning, as if he found all of this very amusing.

“Ah, look who’s finally snapped,” he smirked. “There’s that bitchy attitude.”

You turned back to your skirt. You snatched your hand away when he tried taking the tissues from you. “Fuck off, Gator. I’m not in the mood.” 

“Jesus, what crawled up your ass?” he questioned, eyebrows furrowed. “Just tryin’ to help your sweet little ass clean up, it’s a sexy fuckin’ skirt.” 

Before you could register what you were doing, your palm made contact with his cheek, the loud smack echoing through the walls of the bathroom. He let out a soft grunt, clearly caught-off guard. “Fuck you.”

He didn’t move. His jaw clenched as he towered over you, taking a step closer. “Try that again and see where it’ll land you.”

“This is all your fault!” you snapped. “Because of you, I’m getting fired, and you always have to be a fuckin’ asshole-”

“Whoa, hey, whoa,” he smirked. “It’s not my fault you’re a shitty waitress. Y’know, maybe if you flashed a smile once in a while, you wouldn’t be getting fired.”

You knew that was partially true, but you were too blinded by rage to even care. 

“Fuck off, Gator, I know it was you who complained to my boss.”

“Look, it ain’t my-” He shot you a confused look, pausing. “What the fuck are you even talkin’ about?”

“Stop fuckin’ lying, I know it was you. My boss told me it was one of the cops.” You lifted your arm again to slap him, but he was faster. 

Gator grabbed your wrist before it could reach his face, his fingers digging into your flesh. “Now,” he said lowly, his eyes darkened, “normally, I might’ve felt sympathy for a hot thing like you gettin’ fired, but you’re pissing me off.”

You squirmed, trying to lift your leg to knee him, but he was quick to push you back.

“You’re really askin’ for it, huh?” he grunted, all the amusement from before vanished now. He took another step closer.

Blinking up at him, you scoffed. “What are you going to do? You’ve already snitched to my boss like a little bitch-”

He swiftly turned you and slammed you against the nearest wall, causing your chest to squish up uncomfortably against the cool tiles.

“I warned ya,” he snarled in your ear, causing a shiver down your spine. “Don’t say I didn’t. And for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t me.”

You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t thought of this. As much as the Gator infuriated you, made your shitty job even shittier, you couldn’t deny the attraction you felt towards him. You hated it. 

You swallowed thickly as his large, calloused hand drifted up your skirt, ripping your already-ruined tights even more.

“Gator-” you said, voice slightly shaky.

With haste, he tugged the tights down so it pooled around your shoes. His hand was back up your skirt, squeezing the supple flesh of your ass. His fingers brushed against the fabric of your panties, causing a soft noise to leave your mouth. 

You could feel the heat growing between your legs, clit starting to pulse. A small part of you wanted to push him off, but really, you didn’t. Now that he had started, you didn’t want him to stop, and you hated yourself for it.

“Fuck,” he groaned into your neck as he tugged your panties off. “Been wantin’ to do this for a while. What a pretty fuckin’ pussy.”

“Wait, hold on,” you started as he started tugging your panties off down to join your tights, his fingers dipping between your slick wet folds, drawing out a moan from your lips. “You’re- you can’t be serious-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Gator groaned, biting at your neck as his fingers circled your swollen, pulsing clit, making you whimper. Then he pulled his hand back. 

You squeezed your thighs together at the sound of his belt unbuckling, groaning when you felt his hard, leaking cock press up against your ass. You glanced back, heart pounding and eyelids heavy with pleasure, licking your lips. You knew he had to be big, but the sight of his large cock pressed up against your ass made you moan loudly. 

“What a pretty fuckin’ sound,” he said as he pressed his leaking tip up against your folds. “You want it, huh? You try to act so uninterested, yet here you are…” 

“Fuck you,” you breathed, your palm grasping at the tiles on the bathroom wall. Your voice had no real conviction in it, and it seemed like he knew.

His free hand tugged at your hair harshly, tilting your head back. “You’re such a fuckin’ bitch, don’t know when to shut the fuck up.”

Gator let out a soft groan as he pushed his thick cock inside you, pain and pleasure swirling together, causing your eyelids to flutter. He kept his grip tight on your hair, the feeling of his cock burying  himself so deep you were sure you could feel him in your stomach was making it hard to care about how much you hated him. 

You pushed your hips back to meet his, causing a moan to leave his mouth. You hated how it made your stomach flutter, his breaths hot in your ear, gripping your hip tightly it was starting to hurt. His grip on your hair loosened, just slightly enough to let you press your forehead against the wall.

“Oh, God,” you whined as he started fucking into you, giving you almost no time to adjust to his length.

“What a cockslut,” he said lowly. “What if someone walked in right now? Saw you taking my cock raw and deep like this? What would you say? I bet you’d want me to keep goin’ like the slut you are, huh? Not such a bitch now that I’m fuckin’ you?”

“God, shut the fuck up,” you managed to say through rapid breaths, each thrust causing your breasts to press up against wall uncomfortably. You whimpered when he shifted behind you, slamming into a new angle that made your eyes roll back. “You- you want this just as fucking bad-”

He laughed, breathlessly, like he was struggling to keep his composure. “Don’t flatter yourself, darlin’...” he said, which was a lot less convincing than he intended, because he whined as soon as you thrust back against him. 

Gator’s whine sent your stomach swirling with pleasure, your clit throbbing at the sound. As defiant as you tried you sound, however, you found yourself glancing back at the door, like you had just realized the possibility of someone walking in. 

“Aw, you worried?” he crooned, not slowing down his movements, each thrust more aggressive than the last. “Worried someone’s gonna see you takin’ it so good for me?”

He glanced down at you, and it felt like your eyes meeting for the first time, properly. His eyes were heavy and slightly glassy. The intensity of his gaze made your cheeks flush, and you turned back to face the wall.

It was pathetic, how you were starting to drool, clenching around his cock tightly, biting your lip to stop yourself from making a sound, but it was useless. His fingers were starting to bruise your hips by how firmly he was keeping you in place. The sloppy, wet sounds of skin against skin echoed through the bathroom, along with your moans.

Gator released your hair, moving his hand to your mouth as he felt you clenching around him tightly. “Mhm, shut up,” he grunted, as if he wasn’t just moaning a second ago. “God, you’re takin’ it so well. Should’ve just done this a long time ago.”

“Gator,” you whimpered against his hand, tears forming in your eyes.

It was embarrassing how loudly you cried into his large hand as you climaxed, white hot pleasure surging through your body as your thighs trembled. Your fingers were gripping at the wall helplessly, trying to stay upright. 

Hot spurts of cum coated your walls as Gator let out a soft groan, his breaths heavy as he came inside you with no warning. He bit at the crook of your neck as he rode out his orgasm, his thrusts sloppy until he finally came to a stop.

Breaths heavy, you stayed leaning against the wall as he pulled out. You could hear the sound of his belt being buckled. Cheeks flushed and eyes barely open, you turned your head to watch him fix himself back up.

“You better take a fuckin’ pill, you hear me?” he said harshly as he zipped his trousers on. You couldn’t help but notice the slight flush on cheeks, despite how neutral his expression was. Like he wasn’t just moaning and whining in your ear. You almost wanted to laugh in his face, but you couldn’t, too spent from your climax. 

Then, without another word, he left the bathroom. Leaving you there standing, his cum still dripping out of you, your skirt still stained with beer.

Somehow, you had gone home that night with a generous tip from Gator’s table. They were gone before you’d even managed to clean yourself up and leave the bathroom.

And two days later, to your surprise, your boss had called you up, practically begging you to come back and work for the bar again. You noticed that one of Gator’s cop buddies had black eye and cut lip, avoiding eye contact when they showed up at the bar again - this time, to your surprise, without Gator.

You knew what this meant, though. It meant you owed him.

[fordphilipsfictionlibrary]

Late Shift (Part 01)

Scotty pulled up to the Quick-Stop gas station a few minutes before his shift started. His car had barely made it, but that wasn’t anything new. As he sat in his beat-up Corolla, smelling the faint smell of something sinister issuing from under the hood, he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. Ignoring it, he lit a cig and took the first hit deep into his lungs, holding it there as long as he could, before releasing it into the enclosed space. If someone was calling him, it was about work, and if he wasn’t on the clock yet, he wasn’t picking that shit up. 

They’d tricked him into being a night manager a few weeks back and his attitude mirrored his change in situation. It wasn’t like the morning shift as the new guy had been great, it hadn’t, but he had had one set of duties and his shift had ended when the schedule said it did. Now he did everything for everyone and he left whenever he could, usually after a solid ten to twelve hours of bullshit. The whole night part of things was its own issue, though that hadn’t gone as bad as it could quite yet. But it was only a matter of time. Shit, his boss told him that regularly. 

As he finished his cigarette, he saw that he had three minutes to get in the building before he was officially late, not that that mattered. The morning manager was a stickler about that kind of thing, but luckily the owner didn’t seem to care. He’d been through six night managers in as many months and so long as Scotty kept coming in, his job was secure. Still, he didn’t want to abuse his position too much, so he stepped out of the car, cashed his cig into the grass behind the station and headed towards the front doors. 

The station itself was actually pretty nice. Less than ten years old, it was part of the company’s big roll out here in the midwest. The Quick-Stop brand had started down south, become the favorite of college towns and big cities alike and then it had begun to spread north and west. The Yankees and New Englanders didn’t seem too fond of it, but the midwest was a different story. Here, the Quick-Stops were always crowded and the preferred station of the average consumer. Sure it made his hourly wage slightly higher than the local norm, but most days it didn’t seem worth the heavy traffic. 

What made the stations so popular basically came down to the stuff they sold inside. Their pride and joy was their hot food production area. While most stations had a junky refrigerator full of old sandwiches and maybe a hot dog roller, Quick Stops were all outfitted with an entire kitchen, complete with a rotating menu of fast food. Most of it was gross, but it was still a step up from chips and sweets. Then there was their beer selection. Three massive walk-in coolers separated the wide selection of domestic, international and local/craft selections. If these two amenities didn’t draw you in, there was the large selection of home goods and basic electronics in addition to the general gas station fare.

Walking through the automated double doors, Scotty was hit with the familiar mingled smells of gas, cooking pizza, cigarettes and circulated air. It was just six now and shift change would be in thirty minutes. Manning the counter now were two young women, Kelcy and Hannah, and both had phones out and seemed unaware that a manager had entered the building. There was also someone in the kitchen, though Scotty had no idea who yet. He never looked at the schedule, there was no point, people called out daily so you couldn’t trust it.

“Evening,” he said to the two women as he came behind the desk. 

“Hey Scotty,” Hannah said without looking up from her phone.

“I need to go,” Kelcy said. She had put her phone down, but the look she was giving him didn’t make that an improvement. 

“Why?” Scotty asked as he clocked in. 

“Need to pick up my sister from my dad’s. It’s on the other side of town and he leaves for work at seven. If I’m not on time he’ll leave her in front of the building.”

“Sounds like a great guy.”

“He doesn’t trust us to lock up,” she said flatly.

“Fine, go,” Scotty said.

It took her less than thirty seconds to clock out and leave.

“Who’s in the kitchen?” Scotty asked.

“No one,” Hannah said. “Lee was earlier, but he left thirty minutes ago and Gerald called out right after.”

“Why do I smell food cooking then?” Scotty asked.

“I just pulled the last of our pizzas. Figured it might help you tonight.”

“Thanks,” Scotty said. It wouldn’t really help, pizzas needed to be going til at least one in the morning, but it was a nice thought. He hoped he had a good crew tonight. Someone needed to watch the front at all times, so that was going to spread them pretty thin. Apparently with all the money they were raking in, they couldn’t add a few people to payroll to make people’s lives slightly less miserable. 

“Who’s coming in at six thirty?” he asked as he leaned on the counter. 

“Cal and Veronica,” she said after glancing at the laminated schedule on the wall. 

“Good,” Scotty said. They were a capable pair even if they weren’t his ideal night shift. Cal was older, worked hard, but didn’t say anything to anyone and stunk of stale beer and body odor. Veronica was middle-aged, high-strung and not exceptionally bright. He could throw Cal in the kitchen, he’d prefer that, and let Veronica run the front while he handled everything that was piling up around here. Shelves were looking bare, the floors were dirty as hell and the backroom was in shambles. It wouldn’t be fun work, but it would make the time pass and maybe get him promoted to day manager eventually. 

When six-thirty finally rolled around, Hannah was ready to leave, but there was a long line all of sudden and Cal and Veronica were nowhere in sight. “Just get me through this line and you can go,” he said as he wrangled some Skoal out from behind the protective case. 

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“You want to stay?” he asked back.

“No,” she said firmly, but at least she had the decency to look like she felt bad about it. 

Right as the line dissipated, the store phone rang, a sure sign that someone was calling out. Picking it up, Scotty hedged his bets. “Veronica?” he asked into the receiver.

“Scotty? Is that you? It’s Veronica,” she said very quickly.

“Yes it’s me. You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago.”

“I’m sorry Scotty, but my son is sick. I’m not going to be able to come in.”

“Isn’t your son seventeen?” Scotty asked despite himself. The woman really needed to try harder.

“He’s very sick. I just can’t leave him like this. I’m sorry Scotty. I’ll be in tomorrow night,” she said and then, without another word, she hung up on him.

“Jesus,” Scotty said as he put the phone back in the receiver. 

“She not coming?” Hannah asked.

“Nope,” Scotty sighed. “You sure you can’t stay?”

“My dad won’t let me work nights here,” she said seriously.

“Alright, well you can go then,” he said.

“Good luck,” she said sheepishly as she clocked out.

“Have a good night,” he said.

“You too. Be careful. Full moon tonight,” she added and she was gone.

(Part 02)

[renaerys]

PPG One-Shot: Mall Santa (Boomer/Mike and Brick/Blossom)

Summary: To earn a little extra cash over the holidays, Brick, Mike, and Boomer agree to help out their buddy Todd at a Mall Santa gig. Shenanigans ensue.

This one is for @snailbutters, @genovah, and @hanaokm. Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Enjoy some Boomike, Blossick, and Capri Sus on me. 

[Cross-posted to AO3]

xxx

There were a lot of things Todd needed: a haircut, for one. His black hair was getting too long for gel and it was really pushing the boundary between greaser sexy and sad trash hobo. Money, for another. But like any other 21-year-old townie with a high school education and two restaurant jobs, he always needed money.

A new best friend, for yet another.

“I’m not your best friend,” Brick snapped as he tied a black tie around his neck. He needed to leave in ten minutes if he was going to be early for his dinner meeting with Oliver Morbucks.

Todd put a hand over his heart like it might fall out of the wound Brick’s words had stabbed there. “Dude, of course you are. I’m totally sorry if I ever gave you the wrong idea.”

Brick grimaced so hard he was sure he’d end up constipated. “No, you idiot. I know you think I’m your best friend. You’ve never shut up about it, even after we graduated high school. I’m pretty sure the whole fucking Peninsula knows it the way you go around shouting it when you’re blasted.”

Todd looked like he’d just received news that his favorite nana wasn’t dying of cancer after all. “Oh, cool. For a second there I thought I really hurt your feelings. You know you’re kinda sensitive, right?”

Oh god.

“What do you want, Todd? I have a really important meeting and I’m not missing it for your bullshit.”

Brick checked his reflection in the bathroom mirror in his one-bedroom apartment in downtown Townsville. It was a shitty hole-in-the-wall kind of place, but Brick was used to squalor. His break was coming, he could feel it. If tonight’s meeting went over well, he’d have a more steady revenue stream and, more importantly, the connections and clout the Morbucks name brought to open doors. All the long days at Red’s Auto Shop saving and scraping by would finally pay off, and just in time for Blossom to graduate from college. It was perfectly planned, meticulously manipulated, all down to this last pivotal dinner.

“Cool, no big deal! I just need to know if you’re free this weekend.”

“Free to do what?” Brick indulged him, because Todd was one of the few people on this planet who wasn’t 100% intimidated by his very presence.

“To help me with this Mall Santa gig I got. Harry Pitt was supposed to be my number two elf, but he ate some bad prawns and they had to, like, airlift him to Citiesville General.”

Brick stopped everything he was doing and glared at his second-to-best friend, which was a key fact because second was not the same as first. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“I know, right?” Todd knew his way around Brick’s embarrassingly small bathroom, opened up the hair wax, and fixed Brick’s styling job. “Dude always had a weak stomach, you remember. But you don’t fuck with bad prawns. I mean, obviously.”

Brick swatted Todd’s hands away and checked his reflection. It was definitely an improvement. “Not that; the Mall Santa thing, obviously!”

“Oh, yeah. So you’ll help me out?”

“Fuck no.”

“Aw, Briiiiiiick,” Todd whined.

Brick grabbed his dinner jacket from the closet barely big enough to fit a small, starving child. Todd, who had latched onto Brick in the seventh grade like a goddamned barnacle and never let go no matter how hard Brick tried to push him away, followed. “Not if you paid me.”

“You’ll get paid! It’s $20 an hour!”

Brick hesitated over the threshold. “That’s higher than minimum wage.” It was higher than his hourly rate at the garage too.

“Seasonal gigs, man. That’s how you win.”

“It’s seriously fucking not.”

Todd, one of three people in the universe who actually cared about Brick on a personal level even though he wasn’t obligated by blood, made his blue eyes big and wide in a way that reminded Brick of Puss-n-Boots from Shrek, Todd’s favorite movie. “C’mon, bruh. Do your bestie a solid? Just this once? I really need the money and they won’t let me keep the gig without two elves to fill in. So please? Pleeeeeeease?”

And Brick, former scourge of Townsville, a Super with the power to literally raze the planet if it so much as tickled his fancy, and the dictionary definition of the boy every father dreads his perfect, pretty little girl falling for against her better judgment, cracked like an egg.

“For fuck’s sake,” he groused. “Just text me the time and place and get out of my face already.”

Todd punched the air with both fists. “Yes!! Oh, hell yes! I love you so much, dude.”

“Blow me.” Brick checked his watch. Shit, now he was merely on time.

“I’d consider it an honor,” Todd said, probably literally serious.

xxx

Boomer rolled glitter on his cheeks and around the edges of his dark blue eyes with the help of a compact as he huddled behind the North Pole set on the first floor of the Townsville Mall. When he was satisfied that he sparkled like the tinsel-festooned Christmas trees in Santa’s twelve-by-fifteen-foot “forest” themselves, he discreetly re-emerged just as the latest child slid off Santa’s lap.

“Merry Christmas, Dan!” bellowed a red and white-clad Todd behind an enormous, curly beard. “Remember to brush your teeth!”

The little boy ran back to his parents, who were having a word with the photographer about purchasing a picture of their son on Santa’s lap. Before Boomer could follow them, Brick was quick to cut him off.

“Where the hell were you?” he demanded. Sour as an un-sugared plum in his festive, candy-striped elf costume, Brick may have absolutely intimidated the seven-year-olds waiting in line with their parents for a turn on Santa’s lap, but Boomer only allowed him a bemused smile.

“Why, I was making toys for the good little boys and girls who came to visit us here at the North Pole,” Boomer said in a raised voice. He looped his arm through his brother’s and let his power surge with enough force to turn Brick around and face the crowd that was definitely within hearing range. “Isn’t that right, Elf Mursten?”

Brick pushed back with inhuman force, but Boomer held his ground with a smile as bright as the glitter on his cheeks as a little girl in overalls trotted forward.

She giggled. “I like your hat.”

“Thank you!” Boomer gushed, and he tipped his pom-pom-topped cap. “And what’s your name?”

The little girl giggled again. “My name’s Alynn.”

“Well, Alynn, why don’t you step right up and take a seat on Santa’s lap? I’m sure he has a great present for a cool girl like you. Right, Elf Mursten?”

Brick glared medieval torture at him, and he managed a smile that showed too many teeth to be anything other than life-threatening. “Of course, Elf Buller.”

Boomer’s smile tightened.

“Ho ho ho! Come on over, Santa doesn’t bite,” Todd said.

“What a psychotic reassurance,” Brick said soft enough for only the Super brothers to hear.

“Hey, Brick?” Boomer said, just as softly. “Cheer the fuck up.” He gave his brother a bone-crushing squeeze around the arm and broke from him. Brick could be a sourpuss when he wanted to be (all the time), but he wouldn’t mess up Todd’s Mall Santa gig when he’d bothered to show up and actually put in the effort at all. Complain as he might about Todd’s exuberance, Brick had always come through for his best friend since the seventh grade.

Boomer, on the other hand, had been very happy to accept Todd’s offer to work the two weeks leading up to Christmas. The hours were reasonable, the pay was good, and Boomer loved children. It was easy money in between local shows he and his garage band had booked over the holidays.

Plus, the photographer had a nice rack.

“Okay, Santa, Alynn. Look over here and say ‘jingle bells’!” A flash went off, and Mike Believe stood to his full height behind the tripod he’d set up for the day’s pictures. Even in reindeer antlers and a bright, red-painted nose, Mike filled out every fold of his brown Rudolph outfit almost to the point of popping a button. His broad chest puffed out when he put his strong hands on his hips and grinned brightly like he wouldn’t pick anywhere else to be right now.

Their eyes met, and Boomer flushed and smiled like a fool.

When Mike winked back at him coyly, his heart leaped into his throat. Mike had gotten home from college just two days ago, but the three weeks he had off for Winter Break would surely fly by like they did every year, and Boomer was determined to spend every moment together.

A tug on Boomer’s green tunic drew his attention. “Can I take a picture with you? Please?” the little girl asked.

Boomer beamed and scooped her up onto his hip. “Of course you can. Hey, Mike? Can you take one of us, please?”

“You bet! Get in close, now.” Mike readied his camera.

“Oh, wait a sec. Why don’t you take this too?” Boomer removed his festive hat and put it on Alynn’s head. It was big on her, but she laughed happily.

They posed for the picture, and Boomer hugged her cheek to cheek.

“Thanks!” The little girl tried to give him his hat back, but he pressed it to her chest.

“You keep it. Merry Christmas. Remember to be good, okay?”

Alynn’s father was waiting with a hand for her to take when she ran back to him, yammering about how she’d met Santa and his super cool elf friend, and Boomer watched them go.

“You know you’ll have to pay for that hat,” Brick said.

Boomer sighed and ran a hand through his cornflower hair. “You know I look better without it.”

Brick frowned deeply. “Uh-huh.”

“If you keep frowning, your face will stick like that.”

“Moron.”

He always had to have the last word. Brick went to stack the empty boxes wrapped in bright, shiny paper, which was probably more productive than blowing up the entire display. Boomer left him to it. It was time for their mid-morning break, anyway.

Todd got up to stretch. “Man, who knew sitting could be so tiring, huh? Whack.” His phone buzzed, and he grinned when he saw the caller ID.

Boomer, however, had eyes only for Mike as the latter turned off his camera and put a sheet over the tripod to protect it. “Working hard, I see.”

When Mike smiled, his dark eyes crinkled in the corners. He had a face made for smiling. “Oh, you know. Just helping out some friends.”

Like Brick, Todd had asked Mike to help out behind the camera for this gig. Mike didn’t exactly need the extra cash given his lacrosse scholarship that covered his college expenses, but the three of them had been as thick as thieves all through high school no matter what Brick said when he was annoyed. No way was Mike going to bail on the chance to help out a bro.

“This is cute,” Mike said, running a thumb over Boomer’s sparkly cheek.

“If only I could convince Brick to wear some,” Boomer said, lacing his fingers in Mike’s as they shuffled to the side of the exhibit behind a blinking Christmas tree for a bit of privacy.

Mike chuckled. “That’ll take a Christmas miracle. But anyway, I don’t want to talk about Brick right now.”

Their kiss was soft and mostly chaste, considering the venue, but Boomer didn’t mind at all. He rose up on his toes to lean into his boyfriend’s superior height and smiled into their kiss. Even in the middle of the Townsville Mall with shoppers mere yards away, for a few seconds Boomer got lost in the fantasy of the forest and the snow drifts, bright lights and magic that came around only once a year and had always touched his heart in a way nothing else quite could.

“Babe! You got here quick!” Todd’s excitement and a small commotion around Santa’s throne drew the lovers’ attention, and Boomer reluctantly broke the kiss. His Super hearing quickly picked up on what was going on.

“What is it?” Mike asked.

Boomer smiled wryly. “That Christmas miracle you wished for. Come on.” He took Mike’s larger hand in his and pulled him back toward the front of the display, where Todd had scooped up a very small, very fashionable Asian woman in his arms.

“Oh my god, don’t do shits in front of the innocent children, Toddy.” Hana patted her high bun and smoothed out her oversized black jacket once Todd released her.

“Hey, I just missed you is all,” Todd said with a genuine smile like he had really, truly missed his girlfriend since this morning when they had last seen each other.

“You guys are too cute,” said Bubbles with a giggle. As usual, she was adorable in blonde twin tails and a holiday-appropriate sweater dress. Shopping bags hung from both her arms, also as usual.

“Right?” Hana said, her deadpan façade melting completely as she beamed at her closest friend.

“No contest.” Bubbles set down her small nation of shopping bags. “Oh! Hi, Boomer!” She dashed to hug him in a flash of blue, and he caught her easily. “Oh my gosh, I love your glitter. You look like a supermodel!”

Boomer laughed and hugged her back. “Thanks for letting me borrow it. I really owe you.”

“Don’t worry about it. Oh, but you definitely need some touching up. Here, let me just…”

Mike had wandered over to Todd and Hana. “Hey, Hana. Are you staying for the holiday?”

Hana shrugged. “Yeah, my art show isn’t until after New Year’s. You know, I’m always looking for more models.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

Mike laughed. “I’m honored, but I’m really nothing special, honestly. You might try Butch.”

Todd guffawed. “Oh man, Butch is, like, one of her top models! She painted him for what, six weeks last summer, babe?”

“Seven,” Hana said, dead serious.

Mike smiled nervously. “That’s a lot of inspiration.”

“He is very inspiring,” Hana said, deader and more serious.

“That dude is goals,” Todd said, totally unironically.

“I guess I can’t argue with that,” Mike said.

“Aaaaand done.” Bubbles stepped back to admire her handiwork. “Honestly? You’re the most beautiful elf the North Pole ever employed.”

Boomer snickered. “Don’t tell Brick that.”

“Don’t tell me what, now?” Brick emerged from his useless empty box stacking task, glitter-less and severely lacking in Christmas cheer.

Bubbles gasped, right on cue. “Brick! Where is your glitter? Get over here.”

Brick made a weird face. “What are you talk—hey!”

Bubbles all but accosted him with the glitter pen. Hana cheered and applauded, and Todd joined in because he liked to cheer and applaud in general.

“What are you—get off!” Brick shoved Bubbles hard, but a flash of pink caught her before she could crash into anything.

Blossom peered around her totally unfazed sister, a tray of lattes in one hand and her perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised. “Brick,” she said.

Brick swallowed. “Blossom.”

She looked nice in leggings and a sweater dress that matched Bubbles’ style, except where Bubbles’ was white, Blossom’s was a scarlet that rivaled the shade of Brick’s eyes.

“I brought you guys coffee,” Blossom said, her eyes trained on Brick even as she held out the tray.

Mike took the tray before it could become collateral damage in whatever was going on between the two of them.

“Here you go.” Mike offered one to Boomer, who gratefully accepted it.

“Thanks!”

“I thought you weren’t getting home until tomorrow,” Brick said, as if he and Blossom were the only two people there.

“Change of plans,” Blossom said. “Problem?”

Brick seemed to remember what he was wearing and snatched his elf hat from his head. He bunched it up between his hands like that would hide his imagined shame. “It’s fine.”

It wasn’t fine, clearly. But it wasn’t Boomer’s place to intrude. He would have been extremely happy for it to end there, but sadly Blossom, like his brother, had a flair for the dramatic and an affinity for the center of attention.

She sauntered up to him and smeared the bit of glitter Bubbles had managed to draw on his cheek before he’d shoved her off. “Good,” she said, half an invitation and half a challenge.

Brick didn’t bend easily. Boomer knew his brother as well as he knew himself, and he knew Brick didn’t relent, never gave in unless he was well and truly beaten, which was rare. But he slackened now, lips parting and eyes falling. Even though his arms stayed stubbornly at his sides and he didn’t do something as scandalous as hold his girlfriend’s hand in public, he melted under her touch and attention.

“All right! Bloss, you’re back early! This is massive, like, supernova massive,” Todd said. “Hey, I know! Let’s throw a party at mine tonight! Brick said you weren’t coming back for another couple of days, so this is like a cool early Christmas present to all of us.”

Bubbles gasped. “Oh my gosh, yes! Let’s all go to Todd’s tonight, just like we used to. I’m calling Robin right now.”

“We can make it a real Christmas party,” Blossom said. Somehow, she’d gotten ahold of Bubbles’ glitter pen and now smeared a generous amount on Brick’s cheeks until he gleamed without suffering a nuclear meltdown. A Christmas miracle, indeed.

“You’ll wear the Santa suit,” Hana said. Demanded.

“Ho ho ho! You got it, babe.”

“That thing’s a rental,” Brick said. “And it’s, like, 75 degrees outside.”

“If he gets too hot, I’ll hose him down,” Hana said.

Brick smartly decided not to press her on that one.

“I like your elf costume, Brick,” Blossom teased. Maybe.

“I’m burning it as soon as I get paid,” Brick said.

“I thought it was a rental like Todd’s?”

He hesitated, trapped by his own logic, and she laughed softly and kissed the side of his mouth. Brick froze and played it off like it didn’t affect him, but his eyes were drawn to Blossom’s lips for the next six whole minutes. Boomer really didn’t get why he had to make everything so damn complicated.

“Hey, hombres, our break is up and I see a super cute kid waiting to sit on the softest lap in Townsville,” Todd said, sinking back onto his candy cane throne and patting his lap.

Brick visibly cringed.

“It could be worse,” Mike whispered to Brick. “At least this time we get to keep our shirts on.”

Boomer smiled at the memory of Todd’s last seasonal gig he’d roped Brick and Mike into over the summer. The shirtless carwash had admittedly been one of his more rewarding part-time jobs, and Boomer had the photo evidence to cherish the memory extremely fondly.

Blossom and Hana retreated behind Mike while Bubbles finished up her phone call with Robin and Brick admitted the next child on set.

“Welcome to the North Pole,” he said with all the cheer of an old tire. Nonetheless, his cheeks dazzled. “What’s your name, kid?”

She looked up at him but didn’t say anything. Boomer noticed her shyness and decided he better intervene.

“Hey there,” he said, taking a knee so he could be on her eye-level. “Merry Christmas.”

That alarmed her even more, and she hugged Brick’s leg.

“What the—” Brick put his hands up like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Great.”

The girl’s parents were busy talking to Mike about the picture packages and didn’t seem to notice what was going on.

“Uh,” Boomer said, ready to flag them down before the little girl got scared or started to cry. They’d been lucky this morning with only one child throwing a temper tantrum out of the tens they’d seen.

“All right, kid. I hope you have a good grip.” Brick floated off the ground with the little girl clinging to his leg and flew over to Todd’s throne.

Boomer was so flabbergasted by his brother’s gross disregard for this child’s safety in front of her parents that he was momentarily stunned where he kneeled. It was over in about two and a half seconds, with her parents none the wiser and the little girl still in one piece, miraculously. Brick peeled her off him and dropped her on Todd’s lap.

“Name,” Brick demanded. And then, reluctantly: “…To check you off the Nice List.”

The little girl looked up at him with wide-eyed wonderment, or maybe fear. “Morana.”

“Morana. Super. Tell Todd—I mean, Santa—what you want. And smile for the camera.”

Todd didn’t miss a beat and wrapped his arms loosely around her to hold her safely in place. “Morana, that’s a pretty name. Wanna tell me what you want for Christmas?”

Morana pointed at Brick. “That one.”

Brick turned as red as his messy man bun. Todd wheezed.

“Oh, yeah? Well, that one’s taken, but I bet I can get you a picture together. How ‘bout it?” Todd asked.

Boomer was up and moving in a blue flash. “That can be arranged.” He shoved his brother with a healthy burst of Super strength, and Brick all but fell on his knee next to Todd’s throne. Boomer waved back at Mike for the picture.

“Big smile now!” Mike said cheerfully, and snapped the picture.

“What the hell is up with these kids?” Brick asked when Morana skipped back to her parents and started chattering at them in a language Boomer didn’t recognize but assumed must be all good things from the way she grinned from ear to ear. “They get bolder every year.”

“Or you’re just getting softer,” Boomer teased.

“Yeah, right.”

Blossom laughed at something Hana said on a nearby bench, drawing both their eyes.

“Whatever you say, man,” Boomer said.

xxx

Todd’s party was a nostalgic and long-overdue affair later that evening. Unlike Boomer, who had to make do in a small studio apartment on the outskirts of Citiesville where the rent was more manageable and his commute didn’t matter when flying anywhere took only minutes, Todd lived in a big house he took care of for his often absent, globe-trotting parents. Blossom, Bubbles, and Robin had taken the initiative and strung up Christmas lights, while Boomer created and managed the playlist for the night. They had a good crowd with old friends from high school and new ones from work and college gathered for no excuse other than to have a good time.

Butch, Buttercup, Mike, and Todd had set up beer pong in the basement, where most of the festivities were taking place. As usual, the shit talking and macho bravado had soared to ludicrous heights.

“Come on, BC,” Todd goaded. “Money shot, right here.” He fluffed his Santa beard, the ends of which were damp with beer. Buttercup had one cup left to hit.

“I’m about to straight-up tea bag you with this ping pong ball, Todd, I swear to god.” Buttercup tried to focus on her aim after too many beers and the distraction of Todd’s stupid Santa beard.

“Do it, fucking do it,” Butch said, bobbing on the balls of his feet and slightly manic with the competition and holiday cheer, probably.

“I’m gonna fucking do it!”

“I don’t think you can fucking do it,” Mike said.

“Ohhhhh!” Butch hollered when Buttercup lost her temper and threw the ball too hard. It bounced off Todd’s beard and fell on the floor, leaving the last cup untouched.

“Mike, you cheater!” Buttercup shouted.

Mike burst out laughing.

“All riiiiight, the Toddster’s final shot. You filming, babe?” Todd asked.

Hana, across the table from Boomer, had her phone out and poised. “Kick their asses, Toddy.”

“Yeah, bring it on, Toddy,” Butch jeered.

“Oh, it’s about to be brought.”

“Oh god, please, you peaked in high school,” Buttercup said.

“Hey, he plateaued,” Mike said. “There’s a difference.”

“Just take the damn shot!”

Todd shot, hit the rim of the solo cup, and missed. Buttercup and Butch threw up their hands and whooped. They were still in the game, and the stakes were even higher now.

Boomer squeezed Mike’s arm in a silent excuse and went to change the music…only to find Brick and Blossom making out in the hallway like it was their last night on Earth.

The music was fine, he decided. No need to interrupt Brick and Blossom trying to fuse with the wall and face his brother’s cock blocked wrath. Discreetly, Boomer snapped a picture on his phone and texted it to Bubbles.

[Boomer: Shooketh]

Bubbles’ reply was lightning fast.

[Bubbles: More like shattered!!]

[Bubbles: Better get out of there before they catch you lol 💀]

After another hour (and Brick and Blossom’s reemergence from the wall in one piece with not a hair out of place because god forbid), Boomer and Mike decided to head out early. They went back to Boomer’s apartment, where a very excited Pomeranian welcomed them home.

“Hi, Pumpkin!” Mike brightened like the sun and scooped up his favorite girl, left in Boomer’s care while he was away at college. “Who’s ready for a walk?”

They walked Pumpkin and let her tire herself out running around the suburban neighborhood where it was too late at night for any cars to be out. A half hour later, they were curled up on the loveseat with Pumpkin snoozing in her fuzzy bed at their feet and an old black-and-white Christmas movie playing on low volume on the television.

“Hey,” Boomer said, lifting his head from Mike’s chest to look at him properly.

Mike set aside the hot chocolate he’d been drinking and pulled Boomer up by his waist. “Hey, you. What is it?”

Boomer smiled. It was silly, really. “It’s nothing.”

“Oh?” Mike returned his smile and leaned closer. He smelled like soap, a hint of chocolate, and something else that made Boomer want to bury his face in his neck.

“Just happy,” Boomer said.

“Really? I can’t tell.”

Boomer sat up a little higher. The neck of Mike’s old lacrosse jersey he wore dipped down his shoulder, too big on him and softer than a cloud. He pressed a chaste kiss to the underside of Mike’s jaw. “How about now?”

“Hm, nope, I don’t think I quite got that.”

Boomer threaded his fingers though Mike’s short, dark hair at the nape of his neck. Feeling coquettish, he gave his ear a nip. “How about now?”

Mike shifted on the couch and pulled Boomer’s bent legs onto his lap. His voice was as warm as the hot chocolate he’d been drinking. “I think I’m starting to get a vague understanding.”

Boomer laughed and painted a trail of kisses along Mike’s jaw, up his chin. He pressed a strong hand to his chest and put a little power behind it. Centimeters apart, he could taste the lingering heat of the hot chocolate on Mike’s breath. “And now?”

Mike’s eyes drooped and darkened. His hands slipped around Boomer’s waist, under the jersey, a silent entreaty. “I think you can do a little better than that, Angel.”

The secret nickname broke Boomer’s resolve, and he kissed his boyfriend full on the mouth with all the confidence and shamelessness he couldn’t give him that morning at the mall surrounded by children and their parents. Mike’s shirt soon found its way to the floor along with Boomer’s borrowed jersey. The loveseat was too short to accommodate Mike’s height comfortably, and after a few moments Boomer held him close and flew them to the bed in a flash.

“I’ll never get over how hot that is,” Mike said, breathless.

Boomer blushed, unable to help it. He was careful with his strength around Mike, but sometimes the X bonded to his bones pushed him to the raw, carnal boundaries of humanity. Mike’s hand on his cheek drew him out of those spiraling thoughts.

“I mean it,” Mike said. “I love that part of you. And I trust you completely.”

Words did not come easily, nor did they seem appropriate in that moment. Boomer bent to kiss Mike again and pull him as close as he could get. Wrapped up in the warm sheets and each other, Boomer’s silly little thought that he had never been happier grew and swelled to heights he never could have imagined before Mike. They lay there together, lazy and sleepy, as the credits of their forgotten holiday movie played on the television.

“One more semester,” Mike said, “and then I graduate.”

“I can’t believe you’re almost a college graduate,” Boomer said. “It feels like you left ages ago.”

“Four years is a long time, but it’s not forever. And you should get ready.”

Boomer looked up at him. “Ready for what?”

“To move, of course.”

“Move?”

“Hey, I love how cozy your apartment is, but I’m pretty sure Pumpkin would appreciate her own room once we’re living together full time.”

Boomer sat up properly. “You… You want to move in together? With me?”

“Of course! The only question is, where do you want to go?”

Boomer covered his mouth. Of course he had thought about getting a place with Mike, but that always seemed like the distant future. What if they didn’t stay together? What if the long distance was too hard? What if Mike met someone else at college? Brick didn’t talk about it much, but after a few too many drinks one night the year Blossom and Mike both left for college, he’d confessed how afraid he was that he would lose her forever. How can the old be exciting and fun compared to the amazing, new adventures she would be having?

But from the way Boomer had caught them all but absorbing each other at Todd’s tonight, Blossom seemed perfectly happy to keep him. And Mike…

“You’re serious,” Boomer said.

“I’ve never been more serious.” Mike took his hand and kissed his knuckles carefully. “I can’t wait to start our lives together.”

Boomer could have cried. He almost did. Life was hard, even for a Super like him. With endless bills to pay and the occasional monster to dispose of, sometimes he felt like he was being pulled in too many directions without anyone there to help pick up the slack. But this… This was his.

“Me too,” Boomer said. “And I don’t care where we go, as long as it’s together.”

“Well, cool. In that case, if you’re not opposed to it, was thinking farther north, like Metroville. There are some great photography jobs there that I want to apply for, and the music scene is bigger than it is here—”

“Yes! A hundred percent yes, let’s do it. When do we leave?”

Mike laughed. “June 1st, as soon as they hand me my diploma.”

Six months. It had a date now. Unthinking, Boomer threw his arms around Mike’s broad shoulders and hugged him tight. “I’ll mark my calendar.”

“It’s a date.”

Incidentally, they did not get much sleep the rest of that night.

xxx

I told myself I wasn’t going to do a ton of fluff, but damnit all, Boomike is SUPER CUTE and I couldn’t help myself. Let them have the happy ending they deserve. Thanks for reading!

[houseof-harry]

pleaseee do a back story on why Y/N has trust issues. I’m so CURIOUSSSS🥺

Trigger warning: emotional manipulation, daddy issues basically lmao (and a complacent mom but I don’t want to spoil any more), mental health issues

Most children grow up thinking their parents are perfect. That they can do no wrong, they’re always right, and you can always trust them to be there for you, to take care of you. Y/N was no different. She had a mother who loved her, packed her lunch every single day for school, who took her to all her activities, who cooked her dinner and brought her shopping. She had a father who loved her, made sure she always had somewhere to sleep, a place to do homework, a cheerleader to push her to do her best.

When Y/N was 15, she became a lifeguard for the summer. Easy money, always in the sun, and lots of cute boys swimming around under her watchful eye. It was the ideal job for anyone who was her age, and her parents even offered to drive her so that she could work at the fancy country club to add a few bucks to the low hourly wage she’d be making.

And it was going pretty well. She liked her coworkers, got to know the regulars quickly, and even got a few babysitting gigs out of it.

What she wasn’t sharing with the world was her anxiety. Her crippling, maddening anxiety. The anxiety that almost made her fail her sophomore year of high school, the anxiety that made her nauseous whenever she was awake, the anxiety that had completely taken over her body and locked her soul far far away in the depths of her brain.

She didn’t know how she got to this point. But one day it became harder to breathe, and that heavy weight in her chest never went away. That didn’t stop her from trying to live her life, though, because she wanted to do anything she could to try and make it better.

After a particularly long day at the pool, she was exhausted, sunburnt, and dehydrated. She just wanted to go home, shower, eat dinner and go to sleep.

When she got into her fathers car, he didn’t even give her a second glance. She sat in silence with him for the entire drive home, him not responding to anything she tried to say to him. It was an eerie feeling, and one she would soon become used to whenever she was around her dad.

When they got home, he got out of the car without a word, walking into the house with a huff and a puff, Y/N trailing behind in confusion. Her mom gave her a look of pity, which not only made her more confused, but made the pit in her stomach even more prevalent. What could have possibly happened in the 8 hours she'd been gone?

She soon found out when she walked into her room to find it completely destroyed. Her bed off the frame, pictures shattered, dresser drawers thrown around the floor, the contents strewn everywhere.

She stood in shock, the warm tears quickly falling down her face as she began to panic. Everything had been ransacked, destroyed, completely ruined. She went to close her door to keep out whoever had done this, her one safe space tainted. 

But she couldn’t. The door had been taken off the hinges, no where to be found. When she looked down the hallway to see her fuming father, arms crossed and waiting for her to say something.

“Did you do this?” She whimpered out, like a lost and scared puppy.

“You think you can fuck around with school? Blame it on some mental illness? The principal called to make sure you would be better for this coming year. Don’t go blaming your lazy ass decisions on mental health. You take care of yourself and your responsibilities, and when you don’t I’ll be here to remind you.” His tone was level, almost robotic as he lectured her.

“Where’s my door?”

“Gone. You don’t deserve it, not until you can get your shit together.”

And before she can respond, he was turning and walking away.

Her mom came into view, the same sympathetic eyes she had when Y/N had walked through the kitchen glazing over as she sees her fragile daughter in the door frame, scared and alone.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Y/N asked, the anger in her voice unintentional but she has no energy to control it. She grabbed the door frame to hold herself up, waiting for some type of explanation.

“You know how your father gets,” is all her mother could think up.

Y/N does the only thing she can think of in the moment, storming past her mother and to the bathroom, closing and locking the door before sobbing uncontrollably. That’s the day she realized neither of her parents were perfect

It took Y/N two years after that to finally get to therapy. Only after years of working with her therapist did she realize how imperfect both of her parents really were.

Like all the times Y/N had been sick as a child, when her father had blamed her for making a mess while she had a stomach bug, complaining that she should know better than to miss the toilet. She was 5 the first time she remembers him doing that.

Or the time she had a stomach ulcer at age 8, and instead of taking her to a doctor, her father told her to just eat more and that she was faking the pain for three months. Only when she was uncontrollably crying did her mother finally speak up.

Or the time she was scared to compete in the state championships for swimming, and her father told her she was being stupid and that he wouldn’t talk to her until the race was over before walking away and to the stands, sitting so far back she couldn’t see him while she waited for her turn.

Or the time she got a 99% on a math exam in 8th grade, and her dad asked why she didn’t get a 100% before throwing the exam away.

Two years of therapy opened those memories back up, and many more, of times she needed love and care from her dad, and all she got was cold, emotionless responses. She had never felt safe around him. She only realized it wasn’t normal to constantly worry your dad will stop loving you if you forget to do your dishes, or leave your cleats out instead of putting them in your closet, or miss a day of school when you have strep throat, when her therapist told her that wasn’t normal. She said that, “a parents love should never be conditional, and should never be used as a punishment.” That’s when Y/N realized she only heard of her father’s love for her when he threatened to take it away.

And her mother was scared, too. Reasonably so, because her father was a scary man. Hell, whenever Y/N did something that made him angry nowadays, he threatens to cut all ties with her, the silent treatment still a favorite of his. The last time he threatened that was when she asked for help paying for a medical bill. He’d called her greedy, telling her she needed to be financially independent at all times, because you never know what could happen.

She always wondered if her dad truly loves her, or if he felt forced to have kids like half of his generation. And she still wonders why her mother never loved her enough to stand up for her.

And why she didn’t trust anyone, especially new people in her life? If her parents couldn’t love her enough to hug her when she felt sick, to sing her to sleep when she had nightmares, to tell her she would be okay when she got nervous before any big event, why would anyone else be able to?

[madrabbitsociety]

Sometimes, and I do not mean for this to sound malicious, which it will, I feel the need to defend hairdressers. 

Hairdressers and hair stylists are skilled technicians who go through thousands of hours of training in order to hone their craft. Some of us were lucky enough to go to a technical school while in high school and are not in debt. I, however, paid almost $25,000 to go to school. I had to go for 1500 solid hours. In my state, that meant Mon-Thurs evenings for 5 hours a night. In my opinion, people don’t give stylists enough credit for what they need to know to get licensed in their state. Specifically, my license is for cosmetology. I had to know skin disorders, chemical reactions, actual strand structure - and we still don’t get told enough because we don’t get proper training on different types of hair, but that’s a whole different post that a lot of other people have done better than me. 

The predominant way we are paid in the industry is via commission. So if we have no one scheduled, we don’t get paid. If we have a client cancel, we don’t get paid. At my first salon I was expected to stay as early as I could to as late as I could, unpaid, just in case someone came in. Of course, corporate places are mildly better in that they offer a minimum wage, but that’s usually somewhere between $7-9 an hour. In order to earn commission in that type of situation you have to do more in services than what you would have been paid for the hour. Again, probably an entire post in itself. 

I tried a lot of places. I paid a lot of money for a license I was very proud to own. The final straw was a salon near my house. Personality-wise, I really felt like it would work out because I enjoyed the people I was around and I was disappointed when it didn’t work. When I first started, they insisted I do two unpaid apprenticeship days because I was (licensed for 6 months at that time) too new to work on their clients. They would provide models and charge the models a lower service fee than their usual service fee. I would then have two paid days at $10 an hour where I would basically follow the owner around, clean and do shampoos. On my days off, I was expected to want to come into the salon and continue to apprentice for free. There was a point in my apprenticeship phase where I was only being paid two days for 5-6 days worth of work. 

Again, this is not uncommon in the industry. Maybe not to this extreme, but certainly there’s a lot of free work being done. Does your stylist have someone help them blowdry? You might want to make sure that apprentice is being paid.

My skills did improve greatly during this period, but I maintain that was because I put a lot into it. The owner took all the credit- through his great teaching methods, I was becoming an ‘okay’ hairdresser. 

During the apprenticeship, unless you handed me a cash tip, he kept all of my credit card tips. So if you added a tip after service with your credit card, the salon kept them because they said I was using their electricity/taking up space in the salon and I needed to pay for that.

In addition to all of the time I listed above actually being in the salon, I was also expected to attend continuing education classes. In summary, and again this is not an uncommon culture in the industry, if you do not eat-sleep-breathe HAIR, you are told you’re not good and you won’t do well. The only exception seems to be if you have children, but if you’re single/without kids they will work you to the bone.

When I was finally promoted to a junior stylist, I stopped being paid hourly at all. I was told I would get 36% commission for services and I was specializing in color corrections/the blonding journey at the time, so I was doing $200-300 services quite often. Some of those services took 4-6 hours of my time, but if I had no one scheduled I was still expected to straighten up, do laundry, sweep the floors and help other stylists with color application and blowouts. Which is fine, kind of. The problem became that from the start of my journey at that specific salon, I would be expected to arrive when we opened at 10 AM and stay until the owner finished his clients- sometimes I didn’t leave until 11-12 PM, and was expected to come back the next day. 

So yes, one $300 color service could mean that I earned 14-16$ an hour, but… when you’re working 10-12 hour days that kind of knocks it down to minimum wage again.

Then there is the opinion that this is an easy job that so many people can do and you don’t need to be vaguely intelligent to do it. That the people who chose hair are stupid or unskilled. I was sitting on the steps of my school once, reading an Agatha Christie book and comparing certain passages to an ACD Sherlock Holmes story via text message with SpicyMags, when an older couple walked by. The man looked up at the school sign and scoffed, “These girls are getting suckered into a scam. This is nothing but a scam and they’re stupid enough to fall for it.” 

Well, in retrospect, he’s not wrong, but at the same time when you know the blood and sweat and tears- the thousands of hours and dollars that are poured into not only the initial licensing but the continued education classes- being a hairdresser is so much more than people give it credit for. It’s an abusive industry that exploits a lot of unpaid labor and even when you get to a point where you have skill, where you are an artist, you have people asking for a luxury service and then complaining when that unnecessary luxury costs them actual money. 

One last thing I’d love to point out- the 100% customer service guarantee. A lot of salons these days are trying to change, but a lot of them also still have a guarantee that if you don’t love your hair, you get a free redo or a refund. Do you know what that means? Your stylist doesn’t get paid.

So I can spend 6-8 hours on your hair after you tell me it’s been box dyed brown attempting to take you through the lightening journey to get it blond. I can tell you that because of the molecules and ingredients in the dye, the actual damaged structure of your hair, that it is not possible to do it all in one day but I can get you close. I can explain to you the entire process, waste all my time being completely honest with you about how golden it’s still going to look because it IS a journey/process, and at the end you can decide that because I didn’t get your hair to solid white in one go that you want a refund…

And I don’t get paid for the entire day that we spent together. 

That’s some fucking bullshit, but it’s - and this is a quote from several of the places I’ve worked- an “industry standard”. 

The cherry on this shituation cake is that we also don’t get any health benefits, life insurance, retirement- no freaking anything (corporate salons being a slight exception although having worked in the medical field I can tell you the benefits offered by corp. owned salons are not great.)

So please, next time you decide that it’s laughable that a salon quotes you $150 for a craft haircut that takes a certain level of knowledge and skill, remember that the salon gets most of that and if you don’t like it there’s a huge change your stylist isn’t getting paid.

Edit: Things that I did not mention but should have- the toll it takes on your body (repetitive motions and standing in heels on concrete floors cause back issues, neck and hip issues, knee issues, carpal tunnel and risk of cutting off your knuckle with your instruments). I had to sign a release that my school was not responsible for me cutting any part of my body with my shears (I’ve had bosses who lost toes and knuckles). You think that heels thing is a joke? I’ve worked in several salons where ‘female’ stylists were required to wear heels and at least three items of make-up because ‘this was the beauty industry and we had a standard to keep’. Say you gather a clientel and can rent your own chair or booth, you’re responsible for purchasing every single bit of supplies you might need to continue doing what you’re doing, so you’re still having business costs eat into your hourly wage. People need to give a fucking standing ovation to hairdressers, okay, because this industry is brutal.

I’m not saying I dislike doing hair, or that I’d never do hair again, but there are several reasons I’m not doing it right now. 

[halfpennythoughts]

How I Spent My Unemployment Money and Why It Matters

I don’t usually get political here, but watching the discussion of whether to extend the extra COVID $600 unemployment past July because “some people are making more on unemployment” is a hard thing. So here’s my answer, not that anyone is listening:

Firstly: so many people need that money to get by. It’s a desperate crisis. Even now, with things reopening, very few everyday workers’ salaries are the same. Restaurants are allowing 25% capacity, so waiters are getting 25% of the tip money they usually count on. Hourly workers are being barred from overtime as the businesses look for ways to make up lost profits. There are heaps of stories of people for whom this financial support will literally be the difference between life and death.

Now, on to the argument that this lifesaving support might be too generous for a small percentage of recipients:

I make more on unemployment than I do in my job. I have a college degree in my field, and before covid gutted my industry, I worked 10+ hour days, Monday through Friday, and was more or less getting by. Money was tight, in the way that it is when you keep a mental map of which gas stations are cheaper per gallon and a $1/hr raise changed the way I was living. I’m on standby now, meaning once business resumes I will have work--but it will be a while before business resumes, and longer still before I can go back to my usual schedule and salary.

So when I started on unemployment, I found myself with an extra $300 a month, more or less. Chump change to some folks, but not to someone like me. What did I do with that money? *The very first thing I did was donate a bit back, to charities supporting health, human rights, and other support for those less impacted than me. Good fortune needs to be repaid in kind, and it’s only right that those who have something to give support those who do not. *Then I went online and checked all my favorite local stores, both here and my hometown, to see which ones had transitioned to online sales. As small business, not many of them were set up for that, but of the ones that were, I purchased ‘luxury’ items--books, shirts, Christmas gifts for friends--that I normally would call “beyond my means.” Purchases of $20, $30. Trying to keep businesses afloat in hard times while also, FINALLY, buying a shirt “just because” and not because I needed a new one, without agonizing over the decision, without waiting to see if it would end up in clearance. Just, “Hey, this is neat, I’m going to get it, add to cart.” Amazing. Do some people live like this all the time?

*With the support of unemployment, I didn’t have to ask my landlord--a kind and wonderful guy--to tighten his own belt and accept reduced rent payments. I was happy and proud to keep paying my rent each month in full. 

*I went to the doctor, and then I went to the follow-up appointments scheduled, for long-term health issues I had had that I had just been living with without getting it checked out.

*I started saving aside $25 regularly so that when it becomes safe to travel again, I might be able to go on a weekend trip to Vegas with my brother. That’s money set aside with the intent to go right back into the economy--vendors, travel companies, hotels, performers, artists, restaurants.  *I bought gifts and started assembling care packages, to mail via the US post office to friends and family, in order to brighten their spirits and support them in hard times. I could afford real gifts for Mother’s and Father’s day, not just a handmade card. *I bought supplies to make crafts, and I taught myself new skills--crochet, weaving. I focused on self-improvement. My new hobbies encourage me to spend on them in the future, save up for new yarn and supplies. In the past, the tighter my budget, the more I engaged my time in free endeavors, things like watching Youtube or playing free app games. Now my dollars are being fed back into the economy.

Now if that $600/week extra was cut, that means I would be making, instead of an extra $300/month, over $1600 LESS a month living on unemployment. I would suddenly not only be unable to contribute back to society, I wouldn’t even be able to pay my rent, let alone buy clothes or food or gifts or any non-critical purchases like yarn or books. It would be dire straits. Cutting that support isn’t just carving a bit off the top so I wouldn’t be making “extra,” it would mean making half of what I need to get by on.

My point here is... so what? So what if, with the extra support, a small percentage of us make more now than we did when we were working? Especially when for so many people, their regular wages aren’t even enough to live by? 

Isn’t the whole point to “stimulate the economy”? Sometimes when people have a lot of money, they get used to the idea that that money sits in accounts somewhere, gets put in savings, gets hoarded like a dragon’s gold in a cave. That’s not what’s happening here. Having the blessing of this financial support allows us to use that money to push profits at businesses, so the government doesn’t have to bail them out or add more unemployed to the ranks of those who need aid. It allows us to donate money to services that work in tandem with government services to get resources to medical workers, food to the hungry, aid to the sick. It allows us to invest in disinfecting products and practices (like ordering no-contact delivery instead of going out) to keep ourselves safe and reduce the spread of disease.

That support is contingent on the pandemic crisis we are in. None of us have some sort of silly illusion that we can kick back and enjoy “handouts” and not have to go back to work. I MISS work. All my coworkers talk about is getting back to work. Being trapped at home is no picnic, and it’s not the nature of the human spirit to be content with doing nothing--we would much rather carve out our own destinies, be self-sufficient, self-reliant. But the fact of the matter is, this crisis is not behind us yet, and would only worsen if the people who need it most are abandoned now.

So again, if the argument is that “some people” are making more now than they did before, I think it bears remembering that those of us who do are not rolling in bathtubs of bills like Scrooge McDuck. We’re spending that money, dumping it like grease on the slow-grinding gears of the economy, trying to keep it running smoothly until we can all get back to work. 

And we must remember that for every one of me, there are hundreds if not thousands for whom this financial support is not about the new revelation of having spending money left over--for them, it is what they need simply to live, to feed their babies, pay their bills, and keep the lights on. And I personally would be sickened and horrified if someone used my situation to deny them of their most basic human needs in this time of crisis, when what we really need is to be pulling together as a community and a nation.

[andytfish]

FREELANCE GUiDANCE: A 10 Part Series- Part 5- GET PAID SON!

The biggest magic trick the Freelancer ever pulled was convincing his client to actually pay him a fair wage.

You want to make it in this business, kid, you gotta get paid.

You can turn to the Graphic Artists Guild Pricing Guide for some reference if you're just starting out. But unless you live in New York or LA (lower Alabama I'm not talking about) those prices are going to be spit-took when the client hears them.

So HOW do you get paid?  The easiest way is to negotiate with respectable clients.

First and foremost, make sure you agree up front (and in writing) that you WILL be paid.  Not only do I use a formal contract I also insist on ALL communication between me and clients to be via email-- why? Because then I have a paper trail-- I can re-read emails for project details and I have essentially a written correspondence regarding the agreement of trade.

Cause that's what it is-- the client is trading you something (preferably cash) for your services to provide. 

When you first hang your freelance shingle up you're going to get approached by a LOT of people offering you work either on SPEC or "for the exposure".  Here's a cold hard truth-- unless that company offering you exposure is Time Magazine it's not worth it-- and guess what?  Time Magazine actually pays you for work so the point is moot.

This brings up the basic formula of work:

1. Work on Spec - You'll get paid after publication based on the number of copies sold because your work appears in it. I HATE these deals. HATE 'em. If you're going to work on SPEC then work ONLY on something you OWN. In the comics world writers can whip out a 22 page story in a day or two, an artist will take a month or longer if they have a full time job. Yet SO many writers and publishers of small companies offer you spec for payment with ZERO equity in the product. BAD. Make sure if you're providing the artwork you are getting a share of the profits.

2. Work for hire-- You'll get paid up-front or upon completion but you will own nothing. You are solely providing a service, like a plumber installing a new bathroom for you-- they can't come over and use it any time they want just because they installed it. Same thing here, you do the work, you get paid and that's it.

3. Royalty Work-- You get paid up front or upon completion of the work and you will get a royalty based on the number of copies sold.

How do you negotiate?

I use a simple method when someone contacts me-- here's how I handle it and it works 85% of the time:

"Hi Andy-- we LOVE your work and we have (such and such) we think you'd be PERFECT for!  We were wondering if you'd have time and what such a project would cost?"

"Great! Thanks! What's the budget?"

That's as involved as it gets, now keep in mind there are a couple other factors--

A- I look over the project that they're talking about and make sure I understand exactly what it is they are looking to hire me for.

B- I calculate a rough budget and time frame in which I can deliver it so I have a number in my head.

Now if that client has a project that I REALLY dig, or if they happen to make me laugh in the proposal AND they show that they've actually LOOKED at my work that will go a long way towards keeping my price down.  Steve Altes, when he reached out to me about his graphic novel GEEKS AND GREEKS, not only referenced specific works I'd done but he made me laugh. His online presence was tremendous and he happened to mention a record album he had been looking at that day- and by sheer coincidence I had looked at the same exact one (a vintage one at that) -- I knew it was instant Karma and this was a guy I not only wanted to work with but I found a new friend.

Ok, so about 85% of the time the client will come back with a budget they had in mind.  On the 15% of the time they don't I have to give them a number.  I've been doing this a long time so I can come up with a number pretty quickly.

I use a simple equation:

WHAT DO I NEED to pay the bills this month?

HOW busy am I?

How LONG will this take?

Let's say you pay yourself an hourly wage of $100/hour and that is what you consider your IDEAL rate.  Ideal= you're in good shape bills wise so it's okay if you lose this job. 

Factor in the number of hours you expect this to take (a good rule of thumb is to double whatever number you come up with because you're likely to underestimate how much work this'll be).

ASK and UNDERSTAND what your royalties will or won't be. If it's none then you need to up the price a bit.  If it's being used for commercial purposes what kind of permissions are you granting?  Someone who hires you to design a T-Shirt for a Cub Scout fundraiser shouldn't have to pay the same amount as someone who is hiring you to design a T-shirt for their website that they will then sell in perpetuity with no royalties on those sales.

This is the point where you're going to hear about the magic of exposure.  Exposure means you should do this cheap because of the fame you will gain.

I just don't buy into that.  I DO free work that I donate to Charity Auctions like Art In The City or the Boys and Girls Club.  I do it because I believe in the cause and if it's lead to any exposure no one has mentioned it to me.

In fact you can get a lot of exposure just by building yourself a decent web-presence, but that's next week's lesson.

All right so let's assume they've given you all the details of the project and you want to do it, and it fits in your schedule and it seems to be a good mix for you. 

You figure how many hours-- let's say 10 to keep the math easy-- double it because you know how bad you are at figuring how much work something is going to be and you have that hourly rate-- in this case $100/hour which brings us to a grand total of $2000/USD for 20 hours of work granting them whatever useage rights you are comfortable with. NOTE: Specify the currency you'll be paid in. USD = US DOLLARS. It's a world economy now.

A good rule of thumb is if they aren't going to pay you royalties then add 30% to the quote.  So now we're at $2600.  I'd also be comfortable giving them a 180 days exclusive rights to the image, after that it reverts to you so that you can use the image on your own product.  If they want to keep the image as an exclusive to them in perpetuity (essentially forever) then add a few more bucks to the job.

I like the rule of 1/3s for payment- so 1/3 up front for me to start, 1/3 at the halfway point and 1/3 at completion with the agreement that they get the final useable image with the final payment.

Meaning of course, that every file you sent them for approval through the stages was at 72dpi and NO bigger than 500 pixels or so tall. This ensures they don't just take your prelims and run with it never paying off the balance owed.

Remember if you give them a price that's too high you can always lower your price, but you can't raise it. 

In that same vein, if you are in financial straights as this potential assignment comes in you can simply follow up your quote if you don't hear from them within a day or two and tell them it's negotiable if you were far off from the number they had in mind.

It's all about NEGOTIATION.

NOW WHAT ABOUT THE CLIENT WHO WON'T PAY ME?

It's going to happen, sooner or later. A client runs out of money before the balance is paid. Unless they file for Bankruptcy protection your best option is to file a civil case against them in your local court system.  In fifteen years I've never had to do this, but I've come close twice.  It's not hard to do especially if you have a contract and a paper trial of your conversations.  It's a simple filing fee and the clerks will usually walk you through it.  You'll have to see a constable or sheriff about notice getting served to the (likely now ex) client but that too will be explained to you when the time comes.

You should also use your instinct.  If a client comes to you with a project someone else had been working on in this day and age of the internet it's not hard to track down the previous creator and find out why the relationship ended.

If a client comes to you with a project that is scattered with fallen creators that should give you a pretty good insight into how smooth this project is going to be.  It certainly could be that this person is a great partner to work with and all those creatives were the guilty parties, but far more likely is that this is a difficult client who is never happy.

Add that to the equation when you're providing your quote (should you decide to work with them). 

I was approached by a client once who I was warned against by several friends who stated they were difficult and slow to pay.

When I quoted the job I did my usual hourly rate x hours x2 only I added ANOTHER X2 to the equation so essentially the quote was DOUBLE what I would have normally charged.

They balked at the price, I stuck to it-- they finally relented and we were off to the races.  They weren't the most difficult client I'd ever had but they were "tweakers"-- so there were a lot of revisions along the way.  They were also a committee which is another FLAG-- committees are slow to green light and that usually eats into the deadline.

If a project needs more than one person's approval I stipulate when the approvals need to be in hand in order for the project to come in on schedule.  This way I can point to this when we start running late.  I also insist on ONE CONTACT person from the group so I'm not getting multiple directions taking me all over the place.

By the time the project was over it had taken me twice as long to finish it as I'd projected-- good thing I doubled my quote.

When they came back for a new project I knew what I was getting myself into up front and used the same quote system.

BECAUSE SOMETIMES IT'S OK TO SAY NO.

No matter how much they like you, how much they love your work, how much they're willing to pay, how desperately they want to work with you.  Sometimes the right thing to do is to pass.

*OK so what about that HOURLY rate? $100 might seem like a lot or it might seem dirt cheap depending on where you live and how long you've been doing this Freelance thing.  Your best bet to discover the going rate in your area is to keep yourself familiar with the work being done in your industry.

Locally you can attend Chamber of Commerce and Business to Business events, but I find local means little money (at least here in Central Massachusetts-- I've found the same thing in Boston too).  So I keep my client base international via the web.

But network with other artists, find out what they're charging.  Look at ads via sites that advertise for freelancers and see what clients are paying.

A site like FREELANCED.COM can give you insight and fits of laughter too.  I'm always amazed at the number of people who will apply for a gig that pays something like $2 an hour. Amateurs no doubt, because a professional couldn't keep the lights on for that rate.

Meaning keep an open mind when perusing the offerings.  Like the reviews on Amazon, you have to weigh in the value of what the person is saying.

Which will take us to the next lesson:

Part Six: ESTABLISH AN ONLINE PRESENCE

Andy Fish is a freelance artist and writer who has been living the lifestyle longer than there has been an iPhone on this planet. The advice given has worked for him, it might work for you, he hopes it does. But like all advice, take it with your own situation in mind. If you want to contact him shoot him an email andy@andytfish.com

 Which will take us to the next lesson:

Part Six: ESTABLISH AN ONLINE PRESENCE

Andy Fish is a freelance artist and writer who has been living the lifestyle longer than there has been an iPhone on this planet.  The advice given has worked for him, it might work for you, he hopes it does.  But like all advice, take it with your own situation in mind.  If you want to contact him shoot him an email andy@andytfish.com

[shepardsleftboob]

It’s so hard to not take it personally when someone who knows me and what I’ve been though doesn’t support a livable minimum wage, because if minimum wage was livable I never would have had to subject myself to the shit I did these past few years.

My last job as a dog groomer was so fucking intense. Every fucking weekend it’d be working 12 hrs non stop with no breaks, no food, and sometimes no time to even go to the bathroom. I’ve risked blood disease so many times because there just was not enough time or proper supplies to clean and dress any injuries I got (which, for a groomer, is a daily if not hourly incident, depending on how the temperament of the dogs are that day). I straight risked AIDS one time after an elderly lady’s cat attacked me bc it turned around and attacked HER and got HER on the vein, so while I was dripping blood, this 80 yr old lady was POURING it. I had to grab bandaids out of MY BAG (because all this place had was an empty first aid kit, I shit you not) and help this lady, praying she wasn’t gonna pass out and also praying she didn’t have a blood disease because it wasn’t exactly possible to keep a sterile environment there. I had a lady’s dog attack me, break my finger, and UNDER ORDERS I had to lie to the doctor that a stray bit me because it is a huge thing with animal bites and this lady’s dog might get put down. Any injuries I had were mine to take care of, there was no workman’s comp or any of that shit. OSHA, in my experience, specifically does not give a fuck about the grooming industry because of how it is, I’m sure. Just all of this, the working non stop with no breaks at an intensely physical job with no food and constantly being injured, on top of the mental pressure of the customers cursing you out, blaming you for everything, having the audacity to call you lazy if the shop gets full, and just never having empathy. On top of it, my coworkers (save for like 2) were horrible people, and while I would help them, most never helped back. The managers would get paid way more, but didn’t actually take on more workload, they just left it to me basically. And then i got so mentally fucked up that I thought I deserved it. I deserved to be there because I was an uneducated, poor, depressed, and anxious piece of shit that they made me believe I was one of them and I was going to be there or be in that industry forever. The worst part about it is they might be right, because while it was horrible, it still made enough money to pay all my bills, but it cost me my humanity and when you already want to die, you just don’t care.

[ahnsael]

Still unable to get in touch with tonight's security guard/bartender to see whether he will be there (he called off his last shift, and had me send him home sick the night before).

So I have no idea whether my one night off this week is canceled, and whether I follow-up a 13-day work week with a 12-day work-week.

Which means I should be in bed (in fact I just called the casino to ensure that they will call me if I’m needed but my boss answered and he was angry that I’m still awake).

But screw it.

I’m going to assume he will be there, and if I have to be there instead, I’m going to fall back on “I’m exhausted” and do as close to nothing as I can. I even told the other manager that I’d be working with that I’m just there to be a second person to verify jackpots or handpays that require two people, and that other than that, I’d be pretty much napping in the break room while getting paid for it.

I mean...if I’ve got to follow my initial 13-day work streak since reopening with a 12-day work streak, I’m going to take some liberties, and fill our first 28 days with 26 days of me having to work, I think I deserve that. Especially since the other manager can wake me up and have me be the second authorization on a jackpot or hand pay, when I’ve worked so many days without the luxury of a second person to authorize such things.

I’m...still grateful for this job, which they were kind enough to give me after six years of unemployment, but I’m...also pretty fed up right now at being the fall guy whenever someone else doesn't show up to work.

I mean, I think it’s the reason that my email exchange with the owner about requiring guests to wear face masks went as well as it did (the owner is VERY conservative, to the point where he requested that we sent “thank you” letters to Trump, and I’m very NOT conservative but up until the mask thing I don’t know if the owner knew that but I think he knows that I’m important to this casino’s continued existence therefore our conversation was amicable). They know they need me.

I wish they PAID me as if they know they need me.

But, I enjoy what I do, overall. I just wish I didn’t have to do it for so many days in a row with no “me” time. If I work tonight, I’m asking for a raise. And I know this company is stingy about raises, but it could be worth a try. The down side would be having them giving me a raise, but making me salaried. Because I’ve seen that backfire in multiple ways. When I worked for Universal Studios Hollywood, they put me on salary -- then, after I agreed to it, said that I now needed to work 60 hours a week, which actually put me below minimum wage per hour. I was making less per hour than the people I was managing. And in times like this, I will put in the extra hours, but NOT for free. I may be okay with some extra hours (usually I am okay with it), I may be bummed about some of them, but at least I know I’m getting paid for them. On salary, that’s not a thing. I would be doing these 12-13 day streaks without a day off with zero extra pay. As it is now, at least I can claim the OT as an hourly manager. Keep salary the heck away from me.

As for today, I’m assuming that the grave bartender/security guard is showing up. I’m doing laundry (which is about a week overdue), and assuming that I won’t have to be there tonight (a dangerous assumption, I know). But  wow,this whole set of circumstances stinks. But I told the other manager tonight already that if I’m there, it’s only physically, and not mentally. I will nap. I will spend time on cell phone games. I will only physically be there. After working 19 of the past 21 days, I’ve earned this. I’m not cleaning a single ashtray. I’m not fixing any machines. I’m not getting anybody a drink. If I’m there tonight, I’m going to the “that employee who would be fired on the spot if anybody was paying attention, but I know that nobody will be because they couldn’t even bother to notice the times I did this by myself.”

I’m a secondary authorization for a hand pay or a jackpot, and other than that, I’m just hanging out. Because I’m too beat to go for another night.

[brokenhandsmedia]

You know what?

When you get right down to it, the ultimate symbol of capitalism might just be the piss cup.

Now, I acknowledge that it's important to realize that prisoners are being forced to stitch lingerie and migrant laborers to pick fruit for pennies on the dollar.  I know that climate change is real, I know that Coca-Cola and Nike have death squads in the global south.  But consider the humble piss cup.

Those of us within the United States who have to take on hourly work are familiar with this particular vessel.  We are required to pee in a cup to take on hourly wage that we don't want, but which we acknowledge to be better than starvation and homelessness.

Many of us are also aware that fellow employees who have gone through this ritual are often stoned out of their minds, because they only test you when you get the job.  As I have often said “a thing is what it does,” and the piss up is a message.  It tells an applicant that the manager has the power to tell them what to do with their own body; it subtly sends the message that “while you deal with me, I am the adult, and you are the child.  I am the lord, and you are the subject.”

This is a subtle but ubiquitous example of what Michel Foucault called biopower.  The social faculty to tell someone else how to live their life.  Because one party in the transaction has something that they can use to coerce the other party, they do so.

The reason is simple: your job is a dictatorship, and you are the subject, the prole, the peasant.  This is not new information, but I want to explore it for a moment.

Why are you required to put one of your bodily fluids in the cup?

Is it to make sure you're a good worker or exert dominance?  Is there any difference?

Consider, as David Graeber does in the landmark book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, that the vast majority of workers are filling roles that don't need to be filled.  Most of them occupy their position to stoke someone's ego, to allow them to say “I have thirty people working for me.”

This, I feel, is one of the key problems with Capitalism.  It doesn't just fail to distribute resources effectively, it doesn't just atomize us and make us feel alone, it doesn't just fail to acknowledge that it's killing the planet, it doesn't just warp our perspectives to make us think that it's the only way.  No, the problem is the end goal: it is doing these things solely to fulfill the desires of those at the top of the heap.  It gives them license to set up their own private repressive regimes.

An analysis of this can be found in the Vox.com article “How bosses are (literally) like dictators” by Elizabeth Anderson.  The thesis of this article is encapsulated in the statement:

How should we understand these sweeping powers that employers have to regulate their employees’ lives, both on and off duty? Most people don’t use the term in this context, but wherever some have the authority to issue orders to others, backed by sanctions, in some domain of life, that authority is a government.

In short, if something exercises control over your behavior, it is governing your actions.  The state of contemporary work is that, oftentimes, this resembles a dictatorship.  Anderson puts it succinctly: “Bosses are dictators, and workers are their subjects.”  They control the flow of a necessary resource (capital) that employees need, and can encourage behavior by controlling access to workers, showering excesses upon favored workers and throttling the flow to unfavored workers.

To put this another way: is there any definitive difference between a silicon valley tech firm and the USSR other than the fact that the latter had an army?

I've been lucky enough to have a few employers that I was reasonably certain are invested in whatever the project of their business is to a reasonable degree and behaved accordingly.  I have had other employers I was not so convinced by, because they seemed to wield the power they possess in arbitrary ways.  Sometimes an explanation was given, at other times it wasn't.  I'm sure that we all have.

This is what capitalism is: an engine for satisfying some desires and deferring others, while producing suffering, unemployment, and environmental collapse.  It does this by convincing people that if they buy into it for just a bit longer, they'll get their slice of the pie.

So any Post-Capitalist system is going to have to take this into account, because the common interpretation of non-capitalist systems is that no one's desires will be satisfied.  Our project, in trying to envision a viable post-capitalist system, isn't just to figure out a way to distribute resources equitably.  We also have to figure out a substitute for the capitalist engine of desire.  For the system to be more viable, this substitute is going to be key, because it needs to work better to draw people away from Capitalism.

And note: when I say “desires” I don't just mean the pleasure of a job well-done or seeing beautiful art or for a meaningless knick-knack or for sexual release – whatever engine of desire we come up with is going to have to touch on all of those things in its own way.  I think, though, that there are ways forward: I have heard it said that everyone tolerates capitalism on the clock so that they can be socialists at home – ask anyone who cooks a gourmet meal they don't have to, or any game master slaving over a rule book to prep a session for their friends.  

There are many reasons to do things other than to avoid starvation and exposure, and we would discover them if we had the chance to.

Except, perhaps, for pissing in cups.  I'm going to guess that would happen less.

[hoodooyousee]

PSA

Before these past 2 weeks, EVERY single one of my clients was amazing, dreamy, and so easy to work with that it didn’t even feel like a job! They listened to my request, took my advice, compensated me, and we made magic together ✨

But lately I have had people:

1) Say I overcharge and that they can’t afford my services. I charge 1/4 of what this industry does. I kept prices low in an effort to be able to help as many people as possible but the truth is, my work isn’t for everyone. It’s for people ready to have some part of their life transformed, mended, and made better. It’s for people who value me, value my work, and my point of view.

2) Give me recommendations on how to do their spell based on something they read, heard from another worker, etc.

3) Be overall rude, skeptical, invasive, and disrespectful.

4) Ask me to MENTOR, as in teach completely about hoodoo, something that has taken me years of research, years of practice, and lots of money on tools and supplies for free. Be available to answer all their questions, teach them my secrets, and have access to all the content I put on here literally just because they asked for it.

If you see yourself on this list, I’m not saying any of this to be mean or cruel but it has taught me a lesson.

I was not setting boundaries for my work, myself, or my clients. So that’s all changing. And I’m raising my prices. Why? Because they never should have been so low in the first place.

I am a damn good rootworker. I get results for my clients. I have over 10 years of experience practicing magic. I have changed my own life and manifested everything from lump sums of money, 2 apartments, countless jobs, money for my dream school, and relationships that are fulfilling. I am worth my prices.

I was scared to raise them because I thought not everyone would be able to afford them and the truth is, they won’t. But that’s okay. Because my work isn’t for everyone. I’m not meant to help everyone.

I also wasn’t clear about who I help, how I help them, and what is absolutely unacceptable. So we’re gonna get real clear on that in this post.

I’m the rootworker for you if:

✨You are ready to change some part of our life whether that be your money situation, getting your ex back, drawing in a new partner, in need of a promotion, want a new job, the list goes on. I do almost every single kind of spell but they key here is being ready to transform your life. That means you’re open to advice, open to my suggestions, and open to taking actions in the physical plane to make it happen.

✨You can afford me. Do not waste my time in my DM’s to ask for free services. I make my prices well known. If you can’t afford them, I love you, I see you, but I can’t help you. I need to be compensated for this work. Not only monetarily, but I can no longer justify spending so much of my energy, completing spells that take 3 hours and up, for less than hourly minimum wage.

✨You already believe in magic, my work, and my point of view. I’m not here to convince you of my abilities. If you have questions like:

“Does this really work?”

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“What are your previous results?”

I’m not gal for you. I have reviews on this blog that speak for my results. I provide tons of free content that I love writing that provides value and “proves” I know what I’m doing.

I’m NOT the rootworker for you if:

❌ You don’t believe in magic, spells, or me. I’m not here to convince you of anything. The proof is in the pudding.

❌You are rude

❌You can’t afford my prices and have no interest in paying me for my private time.

Tnings that are totally free:

⭐️Reading this blog and getting value from it and things I put out like the guide.

⭐️Sending me an ask. If you want FREE advice, go to my ask box and drop your question. Do not DM your entire story, expect detailed advice on how to fix and what spell to do. I will answer ask at my own discretion and pace.

⭐️Being kind, saying nice things, reblogging, sharing my work with friends.

Bottomline is I know my worth as a person and a practitioner. I won’t settle for any less anymore. I WANT to help you with your life. I want to help you make more money. I want to help you find new love. I want to help you open your roads for new wonderful opportunities, but I can’t do it for free.

Money is just energy. I am willing to use my energy to shift your reality, I am asking you be willing to compensate me for that shift so that our energy be a fair trade.

So what do you need to know?

🔮My prices are doubling. I charge $30 a day for any work. For ex: if you purchase a 3 day road opening work for 3 days, it is $90. 5 days is $150. this allows me to be paid $10 per hour for my work, where as before it was $5 for works that lasted 3 hours (jars usually take around 4 with prayer/prep so I was charging around $3.50 an hour) if I have already spoke to you and locked in at my old rate you are not affected.

🔮I am not open for unsolicited advice from other workers. If you like their work, awesome! Buy from them instead.

🔮I love you, and thank you for supporting me.

I am still taking clients for this year so if you’d like a spell done DM me!

I look forward to changing your fucking life!

[porchwood]

Okay, here goes. The incredible @everlarkedalways created a GoFundMe to help me out through present circumstances, but before I share that link, I wanted to explain a bit of what’s been going on. I feel awful accepting financial help, in part because I’ve been such a dry well for the past 18 months (I have nothing creative to give back/say “thank you” with) and also because so many of you have previously contributed monies to help me through other crisis points over the past five years (yes, it’s been that long and no, it doesn’t seem to be getting any better). But things are maybe the most desperate they’ve ever been and I really can’t say no to badly needed help.

Because I’m long-winded, I’m going to try to condense this into a simple chronological order. Things have been relentlessly bad since my car accident on December 26, 2013, but this is where the current run really started: 

December 2017: The day after Christmas, I went to the ER at 3am with excruciating chest and upper back pain, a bad experience all around (terrible staff, indifferent care). Their best guess was that I’d had an acid reflux attack, something I’d never had before (but have had since, alas :/).

January 2018: The ER bill saga began, and after loads of paperwork/headaches applying for any kind of aid/bill forgiveness, they put me on a payment plan for the $1,343 balance (and yes, that was "after” insurance - Marketplace policies are crap and all they did was “adjust” the total; nothing was covered). Meanwhile, I started taking Lucky to an acupuncturist over an hour’s drive away, desperate to find something to ease her severe separation anxiety (nonstop barking and howling when I was gone, which we have been struggling to treat, with varying degrees of success, for over two years). The sessions were very expensive (around $400 for one month - I had to put them on a credit card that I’m still chipping away at) and actually made her WORSE.

February 2018: The downstairs neighbors left a mildly threatening note about Lucky’s howling - the day before my birthday. In a ridiculous twist of luck, I managed to find a great sitter who only takes little dogs and was (and still is) able to watch Lucky for me as needed, but it cost me $25/day. (At most I would use her two days a week, but you can see how quickly that would add up.) At the same time, I also started administering CBD drops (suggested by our new vet) to Lucks when I had to leave her at home.

July 2018: After increasing the dosage multiple times, I finally started seeing improvement in Lucky’s behavior from a combination of the CBD drops and SAMe, which was huge (note the timespan), but these therapies cost about $100 month. I resolved to make it work somehow.

September 2018: I found out that my workplace had been bought out by an area salon and would be changing hands soon. Shortly thereafter the new owner sent us the employee handbook, which stated that we could not have another job in the same field (many massage therapists in this part of the country work at multiple places as there simply isn’t enough work to go around, especially in the off-season). The new owner was originally okay with me keeping my second job (on-call work at a yoga studio), and then I learned that that position was switching from a subcontractor to an outright rental (I would have to pay up front for the use of the room and possibly make none of it back while having to promote myself as a business), so for several reasons I decided I would leave that second job at the end of October and try to pick up more hours at my “main” job. One bright spot in all this: the downstairs neighbors moved out at the end of the month, but...

October 2018: ...the day after the neighbors moved out, the landlord informed my roommate (a THG fandom friend and content creator) that the owner of our building had sold the property and that we had 30 days to vacate. I can’t even begin to articulate how stressful, expensive, frightening, and exhausting that time was. By the end of October our only real option was a little house approximately 10 miles from town, and miraculously we got ourselves moved out there - to the tune of lots of $$$ and insane energy expenditure.

November 2018: Because I now lived about 20 mins from work and I have to come home at lunchtime to take Lucky out (and give her a booster of anxiety drops), I had to switch to split shifts. If you’ve ever worked split shifts, you will understand why this sucks (you’re never home, you’re always tired, and you never see or spend time with the people you live with). My new boss put me on the schedule for two additional days a week (I initially had just two days a week, period, hence the second job), which initially seemed very promising, but neither myself nor the rest of the staff realized that the new management had an either/or policy when it comes to pay. (This is messy and frustrating to explain, but in a nutshell: instead of getting paid commission for massages and hourly for the rest of your clocked-in time - laundry, desk help, etc - you get paid ONLY commission, i.e., nothing for all the extra things you do, unless the commission divided by hours amounts to less than minimum wage, in which case they pay you minimum wage for the week instead, including for your massage hours. Which is not cool but is, apparently, legal.) So I was driving about an hour a day (20 mins each way, twice, to the tune of about 300 miles/week) just to make minimum wage (we were entering the dead season for massage and I’m the perpetual “second string” therapist anyway, so some weeks I had just four clients in four days :/), which was exhausting and disheartening.

December 2018: Daylight glimmered: my sister (with whom I am extremely close and who I hadn’t seen in a year and a half) flew out to see me after Christmas. A coworker agreed to cover the whole week and a half of her visit for me, and I was a little nervous about taking the time off (unpaid, of course) at such a rotten financial time, but I hadn’t had a vacation of any kind since moving to Maine nor a weekend off since August of 2017. I resolved to be extra frugal during her visit and my work schedule was going to be almost full after she left, so I was pretty sure I could squeak through somehow.

I saw her off on her return trip, and that night I was carrying some dishes down from our living room when I took a very bad fall down the stairs. These are awful, steep “Maine stairs,” and in my fall my left leg shot out through the open side of the staircase and wedged the knee against the bookcase in the dining room below. When I tried to get up I realized that something was very wrong with my knee, and my roommate helped me to bed with ice, a brace, ibuprofen, etc. The following morning I went to the hospital and was directed to the same stupid ER (the last place I ever wanted to go again, but they don’t have urgent care out here and wouldn’t let me just see a GP, so I broke down and cried in admissions). The care I received was middling, if not as bad as on my previous visit, and the nurse-practitioner ordered no weight-bearing for three days, which meant losing the rest of that (desperately needed) work week, and advised following up with orthopedics the next week if the knee wasn’t better.

My wonderful roommate made all kinds of accommodations for my comfort for those three days, and I implemented all the extra therapies I could think of (turmeric, arnica, l-glutamine, Epsom salt soaks, etc). I asked my employers about the possibility of picking up non-massage hours (covering the desk, laundry, etc) but was given the impression that there was nothing for me to do till I could return to massage again. I went to the orthopedic doctor last Thursday and his diagnosis was an MCL (least concerning of the knee ligaments) sprain or tear. I was already strides ahead on his self-care recommendations (getting myself off the crutches, constantly wearing a good brace) and he was supposed to refer me for some PT, but I haven’t heard a peep on that front, and I’m not particularly concerned because, Lord knows, my insurance probably wouldn’t pay for that anyway. He estimated 4 weeks to full recovery but I’m determined to get back to work before that.

So, here’s where we’re at: I’m out of work at the worst time of year, and at the very least, I’ll lose 2.5 weeks of pay (on top of the planned week I took off, plus Christmas and New Year’s were unpaid holidays). Because we live in Maine where everyone has beastly heating fuel, even in a decently insulated house (as I believe this one to be), it costs us around $350 a month to keep the place at 58 degrees through the winter months. (Yes, 58 degrees. 60 if we’re splurging.)

My credit cards are maxed out from car repairs and copious Lucky expenses (including an emergency vet visit - she ended up being fine but it was one of those things that happens after hours/over a weekend and you really shouldn’t wait several days to have checked out).

Oh, and just for fun, our January rent payment got lost in the mail. The landlord was very nice about it and we promptly sent out a replacement, but this meant paying $35 for a stop-payment on the missing check (did I mention that I had to buy checks, to the tune of almost $30, just for paying rent?).

Those of you who have already donated: you are quite literally keeping me going right now. You covered Lucky’s rabies booster yesterday and refills of her food and supplements (all of which, naturally, were running out at the same time), and Lucky is absolutely the reason I’m still alive, so her care honestly means more to me than my own.

I have no idea what my medical bills will look like at this point. I’m assuming the ER visit will be around $1000, and I’m sure the orthopedic visit will be up there somewhere too. As soon as bills start coming in I’ll apply for aid (or, likelier than not, a payment plan), but in order to do that they’re going to want my new tax returns, which means I’m going to have to get my taxes done (probably in Feb) just to find out what my ultimate medical expenses will be. (I used to do my own taxes cheaply through TaxAct, but I was a subcontractor for part of the year, which complicates things and means having to pay someone $$$ to do them this round. I may actually owe on my taxes this year, which is terrifying.)

The healing has been going well overall and I’m hoping to be able to go back to work next week, but I don’t want to assume my knee will oblige. To add insult to injury, I just got hammered with a terrible cold (the kind that levels you in bed), so my body is triaging itself and I’m not sure which is going to get the care first. Surprisingly enough, Lucky’s being a great little nurse, but recovery is a difficult and very lonely process, especially when you get saddled with illness on top of injury.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. I’ve been reluctant to talk about the miserable past year, but in light of the fact that I’m receiving (and, I guess, asking for :/ ) help, I thought you should know what’s been going on. Thanks for listening and blessings on your day. <3

[leevandam]

Why You Should Brand/Sponsor Yourself and Start a Business

Alex Valle talked about this on Twitter to tourney players looking for sponsors, urged them to sponsor THEMSELVES, and I just want to give you three reasons why you should definitely start your own company by branding YOURSELF!  

1. You get to ACE income taxes and have more of YOUR earnings to spend.

Every employee hates paying income taxes.  Every business owner ACTS like they hate paying income taxes until they write off a majority of their revenue as business expenses.

Here’s a quick example. Let’s take an employee and a business owner who both make $100,000 this year.  We’re going to give them a tax rate of 30%, which means they will owe 30% of their taxable income in taxes.  The term taxable income is very important.

First up is the employee. The employee has a chance to lower their taxable income by investing in pre-tax investment tools such as a 401k, FSA, etc.  Let’s say the employee invests 15% of their wages into their 401k, which would be $15,000.  That makes the employee’s taxable income $85,000.  So we take the tax rate of 30% versus taxable income and calculate the employee owes $25,500.  That’s actually pretty cool.  By investing $15,000 into their future, the employee owes $4,500 less in taxes than they would have if they had to calculate versus the full $100,000 salary and owe $30,000 in taxes.  The employee’s take home pay and purchasing power ends up being $59,500.

Next is the business owner! Now the business owner has a great opportunity to write off business expenses from their taxable income. We will say this business owner spent $30,000 paying for an employee’s wages, $10,000 for business trips, $10,000 on inventory, $10,000 for marketing/business trips, and $25,000 on real estate which total $85,000 in expenses. When the business owner writes off these expenses, their taxable income is only $15,000!  We take the tax rate of 30% versus the business owner’s taxable income and calculate the business owner owes $4,500 in taxes.  WHAT?!?!?!? That’s $21,000 less taxes than the employee!  Also, even though the take home pay for the business owner is only $10,500, their purchasing power throughout the year was $95,500!!  That’s a 62% increase over what the employee has the ability to purchase in the same year.  From a video game player’s stand point... how many more tournaments could you attend with that extra buying power?

The beauty of this is... the employee can still own a business and take advantage of these write offs!!!!!!  They aren’t out of the game, just like you aren’t out of the game!  You don’t need a lot of money to start a business, but the government will reward you for investing money into your business AND other businesses by requiring less taxes from you.  

2. You have the opportunity to earn more income based on your value, not necessarily your time.

This reason is a big one, because almost everyone I know has a wonderful talent and ability to serve humankind. No matter if it’s entertainment, production, agriculture, financial services, cooking, or the myriad of other skills humans have developed, everyone has a way that they can improve the world. No one should be servicing the world for free their whole life, and as you become better with your service you should definitely be rewarded justly.  The market is going to decide everyone’s value differently, but the better you are at what you do... the more the market will agree to pay you for what you bring into their lives.

Once you increase your value, then it opens up the ability to generate more streams of income at the same time!  Check out this cool example of how you can grow your brand to something that an hourly wage can NEVER compare to:

Employee making $30,000 year gets a 10% raise every year for 5 years:

Year 1 - $30,000, Year 2 - $33,000, Year 3 - $36,300, Year 4 - $39,930, Year 5 - $43,923 ...Total Earnings in 5 years = $183,153.  Not bad, right?

Now, let’s take a business owner who invests 10% of their income into a new venture (listed in parenthesis) once each year, and the new venture makes JUST enough to cover the initial investment every year while previous ventures enjoy a 5% gain:

Year 1 - $30,000 (tournament earnings)

Year 2 - $31,500, $3,000 (stream revenue)

Year 3 - $33,075, $3,150, $3,150 (stream coaching/consulting)

Year 4 - $34,729, $3,308, $3,308, $3,308 (apparel/merchandise store)

Year 5 - $36,465, $3,473, $3,473, $3,473, $3,473 (talk show)

Total Earnings = $198,885

This may not look like much of a difference, but keep in mind that this includes a 5% lower increase for the business ventures versus the pay raise each year and proves that multiple streams will fare out better because they provide MORE opportunities to earn income.

This concept is difficult because it may “feel” like you’re working for free for a long time before things “blow up” and become financially beneficial for you.  Don’t give up, because there is a break point for everyone where what you bring to the table becomes more valuable than almost any job on the planet!  Side note: You’ll also love what you’re doing, so you’ll definitely work harder to improve!  Almost everyone I know who is in business for themselves looks back one day and says,”I could have never earned so much AND help so many people on just an hourly wage...”

3. You help SO many more people by being in business with them, not working for them.

This reason FEELS so good once you’re doing it, that it’s honestly hard to stop after you’re on the path.  That content creator you collaborate with in order to make a huge project, that local barista you buy coffee from daily who is making a name for themselves in the community, your assistant who you pay to help improve your efficiency so you can practice your craft more, your friend who is a clothing designer that makes your new company wardrobe, the tenant who stays in the rental home you own, or even your aunt that’s a CPA... there are so many people positively affected by you being in business.  That last sentence has SIX different people’s wealth building affected by your regular needs!!  To top it off, these owners along with other customers have the chance to support your business with the same money you just spent!  It’s like the money never left you, and it feels the same way to them too when you continue to purchase services from them!!

A tight knit group of business owners is so valuable because not only are they circulating money between them, they all benefit from outside customers bringing revenue into their business because it gives them MORE TO SPEND ON EACH OTHER!!

Hope this gives you some insight on why you should work on creating your own brand instead of representing someone else.  Being a part of an already created team can be a nice jump-start, but don’t forget about yourself.

[alipilling]

How my son Sam bought his first investment property at age 18 The FOUNDATION OF BUILDING WEALTH STARTING FROM SCRATCH  

Step 1 : PERSPECTIVE 

‘PLANT THE SEED’  

*RAISING children to have an Optimistic Vision of:-

1.) them self: 

2.) their future and 

3). the world

*Instilling the mindset that:                                                                           ‘Money works for you, you don’t work for money’

*Three cores Values: 

1). Value self

2). Value money

3). Value time

Step 2: PASSION FOR LEARNING:  FINANCIAL EDUCATION

I took Sam along to his bank to deposit money that he had saved from doing chores around the house and working in the family business. We would ask the bank tellers for the best interest rate and the best deal for his savings account.

Reading Newspaper and internet Articles:

Sam was inspired by reading a few articles about successful youth who purchased their first house at young ages, 18 and 19 and knew that it was possible for him too.  

Parents leading by good example:

As parents we were very conscious about leading by good example. It is commonly said that ‘Children are a product of their upbringing’. I tend to agree and I believe that parent’s are one of the most influential people in a child’s life. A parent’s work ethic is hugely important when teaching your children that ‘Work ethic is a direct reflection of your wealth and that wealth is stored work’.

Managing money wisely as parents: Earning, saving, investing and spending the rest was another message handed down to Sam. He had added confidence in following his own parent’s footsteps.

Meetings with Bank Lenders and Real Estate Agents:

SAM has a keen interest in real estate so prior to him buying his first investment property Sam and I both thoroughly enjoyed going along to seminars called “fast-track -How Houses Buy Houses.” Now Sam is over six feet tall, and he was sitting in the front row, slouching down, legs right out in front, and the speaker, Julio De Laffitte, who is featured in my pending book Live, Don’t Exist said to him, “Hey Sammy! How old are you now?”

“Sixteen,” Sam replied at the time.

“You do what I do, mate,” and Julio slapped his hands together, right in front of Sammy, and told him, “and you’ll be out by age thirty-five! If you do what I do, you’ll have your money working for you.”

Sammy enjoyed learning about “houses buying houses” so much that he took himself along to another full-day seminar with Julio, but this time he took his older sister Georgie along, without me even being there. This was when Sam started telling us he wanted to buy his first house by 18, because he could now visually see how it all works.

Step 3: EARN INCOME:  WORK & PERSEVERANCE

From an early age Sam was given the opportunity to work along side his parents and siblings in the family business.  Earning a ‘piece rate’ rather than an hourly rate taught Sam a valuable entrepreneurial lesson, that the more productive you are, the more financial reward you receive.

NEGOTIATING CHORES AROUND THE HOUSE?

Rather than paying an allowance which resembles a wage Sam mainly chose the jobs he enjoyed and the jobs he was good at. It was a fun learning experience negotiating the jobs and the renumeration for those jobs. 

Step 4: PATIENCE:   Working in the family business 

‘Life rewards action’. From a very, young age, Sam and his siblings earned money working on weekends and school holidays in the family business, along with extra chores around the house. It’s amazing how that money earned and saved (when not spent) over time can represent a decent deposit for a house. It reinforces the notion that “wealth is stored work.” For a young child, working alongside their parents and siblings can be a huge learning experience and a lot of fun. An interest in either what they are doing or perhaps the feeling of earning money is a good enough incentive to want to work. And from the young age of eight Sam was offered a position working in the family nursery business, ePlants. There was always so much to do. Sam and his siblings began on a ‘piece rate’, as it was pretty difficult to determine what rate a young child is worth per hour, so we decided to teach the important lesson that the more productive you are, the more money you earn. Quite fair, really. It was impressive to see their determination, especially when there was an incentive offered to earn more money or a goal in mind, like when Bayley, Sam’s younger brother worked towards purchasing his first iPhone. As Sam grew older and gained more experience, his rate increased and therefore his income grew.

Of course, the bank was a big part of the funding Sam's investment property. In their determination whether to make the loan to Sam or not, the bank took into account character, capacity, and collateral, which I'll summarise below:

Character is essentially your credit history, the main thing that banks use in making their lending decisions. Banks, like all lenders, want to know about your credit history, whether there are any defaults or if you are bankrupt, or if you have a good borrowing history. In Sam's case, over a ten year period (from say 8 year’s old to 18 year’s old) he had a 10 percent deposit saved and his savings history was a good indicator of his character.

Capacity is your ability to pay the loan back, based on how much income you earn versus the loan repayment. Sam showed full-time income for more than twelve months. He had job security as he had been a long-term employee of the family business from the age of 15 as a school-based trainee. Sam also acquired a real estate rental appraisal that included a projected, rental return for the investment property that he was going to purchase, this added to his existing income (ie. $480 per week x 52 weeks = $ 24960). Keep in mind Sam was able to save a large portion of his income as he had a low cost of living —he was living at home.

Collateral is the security you provide for a loan. In Australia the bank lends up to 80 percent of the purchase price for residential, investment property, which means Sam would need to pay the remaining 20 percent deposit himself. There are various options if you don't have the 20 percent deposit, and in this case Sam didn't.

o Option 1 was called a Limited Family Guarantee, meaning my husband Rob and I could guarantee a percentage of his loan. The guarantee is limited to the amount of shortfall in the 20 percent deposit. For example, on a property purchase of $300,000 a bank would lend up to $240,000. If you were to borrow $270,000 a Family Guarantee of $30,000 would be required to cover this difference. In Sam’s case we offered a Limited Family Guarantee of 10%. 

o Option 2 was called Lenders Mortgage Insurance. In this case, the bank uses mortgage insurance which insures the bank for the loan amount above 80 percent. To give you an example, on a property purchase of $300,000 with a Loan of $270,000 (90%) mortgage insurance is $3,862. This amount increases or decreases based on the loan amount and the percentage above 80 percent lending.

Step 5: Purpose: Parents helping out with a ‘Limited Family Guarantee’

 Believing in Sam

Rob and I were in the fortunate position to help Sam and we decided we were more than comfortable providing a Limited Family Guarantee equal to the 10 percent deposit, being the 10 percent shortfall. This meant that Sam saved more than $5,000 on mortgage insurance, which made great sense to all three of us. Sam borrowed the whole loan amount in his own name. Rob and I secured the 10 percent shortfall of the purchase price. After 18 months from the date of purchase, I suggested to Sam to organise a bank valuation. It turned out that his property had increased in value substantially in the short-term ($80,000 in fact) and this was enough for the bank to release our Limited Family Guarantee. Sam was now standing on his own with his first investment property after just 18 months.

Sam has learned significant financial lessons in this experience, purchasing his first investment property. He has learned to budget for expenses such as: insurance, repairs and maintenance, water, and electricity, and now that Sam is managing his tenants himself, there will be many more valuable lessons to follow. These lessons are real-life lessons, experienced by the act of doing. These are lessons you don't learn at school.

Sam made a courageous decision at the young age of 18. He doesn't want to work for money, he wants his money working for him. “Now that you have purchased your own house at age 18,” I asked him, “could you imagine being an inspirational speaker and standing up on stage, encouraging youth to value money, to value themselves, to pay themselves first and to share your stories on how you've started your financial journey at such a young age? Because if you can do it at that age, others can too.”

“Yes,” he said. Sam can picture himself up on stage. Just by chatting with him, just by asking him questions, it helped him create a picture.

I don't mean to put pressure on my children. Whether he does, or whether he doesn't become a speaker is totally fine either way. I don't want him to think he's failed me if he doesn't want to follow through with the ideas I throw around. It's entirely up to him if he wants to run with any of them. Actually, Sam and his sister Georgie did get up on stage at their old high school, St. Teresa's, and they spoke to the year- 10 students. It was Q&A segment. The topic was “Life After School.” Sam got the chance to share with the year-10′s the importance of managing your money, and Georgie spoke on how important it was to follow your passion and do something that you love.

Sam’s Story:   

I interviewed Sam for my book “Live, don’t exist and I love what he had to say:

I’m 21 now. In Australia, you have to be at least 18 to buy property, and when I was finally legal I was ready. I’ve been working for my parents in their nursery business as a source of income over the years. My brother, sister and I grew up with a family business so we’ve always had plenty of work opportunities and a chance to earn money. It gives me money to do the things I want to do, to invest in things that will go up in value over time. People are surprised, when you’re young as I was and you’re able to invest in property. But if you keep earning and put it away for all that time and don’t spend it, it’s there to use. I was pretty young when I started working in the nursery. I started out on a ‘piece rate’, earning as little as $2 per tray.

The property I bought when I was 18 only took a couple of weeks to get rented out, and it’s going very nicely. It’s only about ten minutes down the road. It was like a blank canvas. The house is a brick home, easy to take care of. It had no yard, just grass, when I bought it, so my family and I, being in the nursery business, on my days off we landscaped the yard, put borders for the flower beds, added fencing, added fake turf for the patio area, added some palms—and it looks great now.

My parents have been good role models. When we go food shopping, even though we’re what others might consider well-off, my mum is always looking for the bargains and if it’s too dear, we just do without. I’m that way now, too. In fact if it’s not on special, I often just won’t get it, at least until next week, when it does go on special. When I go clothes shopping, I always look for the 60 percent off sales and things like that. We spend so much money in life, you just have to look for all the ways to save that you can.

When I go out to clubs I watch my friends get on a roll and they can’t stop drinking. I can actually say ‘no’ when I have had enough—I can stop. I think, “Man! How much money are they wasting?” Every drink is sometimes another 10 dollars, and you have to think, you have to be conscious every time you go out, even if you’ve been drinking. You need to be aware of what you’re spending! But a lot of people don’t care, they just go out, have a good time, just ‘live for the now’. But I don’t. When I spend, I am conscious of every time I put my card down to pay for something, it’s like, “Oh, man!”

One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of people my age take out loans for cars and stuff like that. But I haven’t spent money on things that will go down in value—I believe we have the choice to spend on things that will go up in value. More of us need to make smart financial decisions because I do see people my own age who are already in debt about $40,000 or more, and on things that will go down in value. Now, I laid out $40,000 on a house which is the same money as on a car but mine’s going up and theirs is going down at a rapid rate.

But if I ever get money stolen or see it go unnecessarily it gets me really upset. I went to the beach once and got a speeding ticket for $276, just for doing a couple of k’s over the speed limit. I was driving on the beach not long after that, and got written up for irresponsible driving—on sand it’s easy to let the car drift a bit as you drive. I got caught doing that, and that was another $276. So that’s $552, and to think of all the things I could have done with that money, like pay it towards my house!

“I can’t sleep at night knowing I’ve got those fines to pay!” I told my mum.

“You’ve just got to learn from it, Sam,” she said.

And when your parents charge you for board, rent, life expenses, you get used to paying your own way. Some of my mates pay like $50 and some pay nothing, thinking, “What’s the point?” when here, I’m paying like $100, which I think is pretty good, actually. It makes you feel independent, because you are.

And I would like to buy more property as investments, but since I bought this first property my funds are down a bit. I’ve been saving since the purchase of my house and I’m on the way to having the next deposit for another one. I work five days a week, go to gym every afternoon, the beach on the weekends. I don’t yet know what I want to do with my future but I know I want to earn a good wage and have all of these houses underneath me. For now, that’s the dream, and to over time have them paid off, a bit like what my parents are doing, how they invest in properties. Invest and spend the rest.

Put every dollar away that you can. Just put it somewhere and leave it there. Most people, as soon as payday comes, they go and they spend it. Spend yours on things that will go up in value. It’s especially powerful at an early age.

Saving is putting aside part of your income to provide for your future 

— Sam Pilling

images Sam signing his first contract, and working on his new investment property 

[giantpredatorymollusk]

This is a story about farming. It is quite long. I think it may be worth reading anyway, but unfortunately I have no way to prove it. I’ve also tried my best but I still don’t know if it actually makes perfect sense in every way? But it did all actually happen; so it all kind of has to make at least a little bit of sense, even if doesn’t really seem like it.

The trouble all started in 1901, when my great great grandfather emigrated to the United States from the modern-day Czech Republic and later, in 1911, bought a 90-acre farm there. Many years later, most of that farm came to belong to my grandfather, and roughly 10 years back he retired from his job selling tires at the tire store and started making the 40 mile drive north to the farm to spend his summer days there and plant a garden (in the area that wasn’t already rented out to be planted with soybeans.) Not long after that, he had enough produce to start selling stuff at a nearby farmers’ market in an upscale town, physically not far from the farm, although psychogeographically immensely distant from that chunk of desolate, isolated, fairly representative rural Ohio.

I was dragged in in the summer of 2015, from the end of June to the beginning of July, mostly pounding stakes into the ground so that the roughly 1000-1500 tomato plants that my grandfather had planted that year (with occasional help from my grandmother and uncle) could be tied up between them and the fruit wouldn’t lay on the ground and rot easily. I hated it there (in fairness, I probably would’ve hated anything that involved leaving the house during that time in my life) and when my dad got me out of it (by hiring me to help him paint a house) I quickly divested myself of the money I’d received there to wash my hands of the place and resolved never to go back. My dad was never in favor of me going to the farm, knowing as he did that the work could be dangerous (operating old, large, and unreliable tractors and backhoe with minimal training or safety precautions; running large, dangerous power saws in creative ways without the proper guards, gear, or safety precautions, mostly to put points on stakes; operating saws in an unsafe manner while standing in the raised bucket of the old and unreliable backhoe in order to trim trees; etc) and probably also suspected that I personally (especially then) was fairly vulnerable to being psychologically manipulated into performing difficult tasks that I was unhappy doing over a long period of time while being underpaid under some circumstances. Hmm.

I returned to the farm for the entirety of the summer of 2016. After barely surviving/graduating my senior year of high school that year I had given up on life and settled pretty quickly back into the routine of the daily back-and-forth farm trips. It is true that I was getting paid; it was also true that I was being challenged and learning things, mostly the basics of planting vegetables, like which plants were cold-season crops and which were warm-season and how far apart to space the transplants, and how a PTO works on a tractor; and it’s certainly a fact that on a personal level, I was still completely taken in by my grandfather’s wit and farm wisdom and overpowering managerial confidence. I made myself completely subordinate to him, and blamed myself when his ideas for what we should be doing next were completely obvious to him but rather opaque to me; I remember it frequently happening that he would tell me what to do and I would reflexively go off to do it, and then realize I was unclear on what he meant and have to timidly re-approach him for further instructions. This kind of slowed down the learning process. Much later I would also realize how superficial his constant confidence could be, and how it was often less the natural attitude of someone who knew what they were doing and more a tool he used to impress people into doing things without thinking too much about any of the potential alternatives. Also, according to my admittedly fallible memories, I was getting paid $35 per day for what were generally between 7 and 8 hour days. I was, in fact, 18 years old that year and probably could have gotten a different job that for one thing paid a better hourly wage and for another left me less reliant on the caprices of my family; but this was neither a thing that happened nor a thing that was expected from me, least of all by me. My internal world hadn’t expanded as I’d grown older; my universe of possibilities was limited to the things that were already present in my somewhat simple life. This was probably symptomatic of some larger problem or problems with the functionality of my brain at that point in my life.

One can become trapped in many different ways. You can be trapped in a specific city, or a zip code, or in a geographic region sorely lacking in cities, or one which they are considered entirely strange and outlandish things; in a job, in a career, in a lifestyle, or in a set of lifestyles considered realistic given your high school grades, ability to connect with others, and standing in society and life; in a friend group, or in an identity, or in a lack thereof, or in any number of the various rules and regulations that govern how one is allowed to interact with the rest of the human race; in a comedy, a tragedy, a pastoral narrative, or in any combination of the above kinds of story that one no longer wishes to be part of. For all I know, thanks to the stereotypical farm benefits of character building, meaningful work experiencing, and nature connecting-with, working at the farm for that year may have actually been good for me; nevertheless, I wish that it had been my last full summer there. I had showed up, learned some stuff, earned a small amount of money, and, in retrospect experienced at least the majority of what this particular 90 acre area of the planet had had to offer. Alas.

2017! This year, we had a pretty consistent schedule that I can remember clearly to this day: we left at 9:30 AM, when my grandfather would pull into my driveway and blow his horn, and got back between 7 and 8 o’clock at night. Built into that schedule is a one hour commute each way (we both lived about 40 miles away from the farm, which was actually inhabited by my uncle, who was often around and occasionally helped with the work but frequently made fairly abrasive and critical comments (if often correct) comments about it (for example, about the fact that our work day started so late in the morning)) and a daily grocery store stop for drinks for the cooler. I was the driver (once my grandfather’s problems with what I suspect is undiagnosed narcolepsy had almost killed us a couple of times) which you would think give me control over the stereo, but I quickly learned that my grandfather had pretty specific taste in music (country from the 50s and 60s) and a temperament unsuited to most podcasts. Obviously, most of that time in the daily schedule was taken up by the work day (so generally either planting tomatoes (which gets a little less rewarding after about the 500th one, which that year only put us at about a quarter of the way through the tomato plants, not counting the hundreds of eggplant, cabbage, and zucchini plants or the miscellaneous corn, squash, and beans), pounding stakes and tying string for the tomatoes, or harvesting tomatoes) which lay at the end of the lonely highway on a lonely work site at which the same 2-4 people showed up every day. (It became four people once you counted my younger brother, who came up to the farm that year until the start of marching band season got him out of it, and who fortunately made it his main job to get everyone to pack up and leave promptly at the end of the day. Once he stopped showing up, and even though I persuaded my grandfather to move the schedule up an hour so that we could get home earlier, we never left as consistently as we did when he was there; I didn’t have the stamina to find my grandfather (who didn’t carry a phone or a watch) and tell him what time it was at the end of the day every single day so that he could start to think about leaving.) I was being paid $40 a day, with a $20 bonus for market days once they started, which with our theoretically 35-hour work week ends up being about $6.29 an hour? Huh. In addition to the extra $20, the market season was nice because picking stuff is less tiring and more rewarding than planting stuff, and because I got to see way more people every day in the form of our market customers, even if I was interacting with them mainly through the intermediary of my grandfather.

Another nice thing is that this is the first year I have a decent photo album for! I started experimenting with old 35mm film cameras in late June and by early July I had my first interchangeable-lens digital camera, which I relied upon to keep my brain alive for large parts of the summer. I have… a lot of pictures from this season.

Finally, at the end of the year, I ended up in college. Any criticisms of my grandfather that I might offer up here have to be tempered by the fact that he did in fact drive me to the local (relatively) cheap higher-education dispenser and basically registered me for me (technically, I applied but there’s a 100% acceptance rate.) This was something I desperately wanted to do but was unable to make happen by myself. I won’t say that my grandfather every really understood the problems I went through while experiencing formal education, but as perhaps the member of my family least comfortable himself with the concept and culture of higher education, he was the most willing to notice and accept that I needed help getting started with it.

However, I did do quite badly that semester (I started out enrolled in 4.5 classes and ended enrolled in 2, with a C average) and going to the farm to work 4 days a week still (after morning classes and also on Saturday) did not help that except in that it provided a convenient distraction from it; an opportunity for me to distract myself from my frustrations by wearing myself out.

Why did I come back to the farm for 2018? I wasn’t happy there in 2017, I have the journal entries to prove it. Reasons: it was the path of least resistance, it was something I was more already familiar with than any other job, and my grandfather remained a very difficult person for me to say no to. (Also, he asked me (and my brother) to commit in midwinter, when it still seemed non-threatening and pretty far away.) The schedule was pretty much the same as I described for last year except that for some reason we went up 6 days a week as often as 5 (weather permitting.) My brother went up with us for the same period of time as he had previously, but was even more ornery this year than he was the last, which was an accomplishment; this didn’t stop me from being grateful for his presence. Mostly, I recruited him to work on whatever I was working on during the day, whenever I had a specific project: like building a fence around the second patch, or digging drainage ditches on the lawn, or moving the rainwater collection tank trailer to water stuff before Grandpa could realize that something that he didn’t plan for us was happening. My uncle became extremely fond of complaining that we were getting less done working on the same thing together than we might have working on different things far apart; this may have been true, but I was unwilling to test the theory.

As I implied above, I had a lot more freedom this year to pick projects that I thought needed to be done instead of following instructions all day, as long as I could seem confident about it under scrutiny later. I responded in two ways: I started wearing earbuds and listened to music and occasionally podcasts for most of the day, which was great except that it ruined earbuds and made me feel slightly spacey like I wasn’t even physically there sometimes, given that it was the main input that was actually making it to my brain, and I gave myself three new jobs. The first was to pick, display, and sell produce at a roadside stand that I set up back home (ideally without attracting too much attention from my uncle, who was doing the same thing); the second was to start picking for and selling at a new weekday farmers’ market; and the third was to fix an old dump truck that had been sitting in the back barn for the better part of the decade with a broken brake line, with the help of my dad, who came up to the farm a few days to show me what to actually do. The stand was very successful but 20% went to my mom for stocking it during the day and another 20% went to my grandfather for owning the farm; the new farmers’ market only required me to pay off my grandfather but had too many vendors for the customer base and was generally very slow; and the truck project was a huge disaster that consumed countless hours and brain cells: one brake line burst after another, we ended up having to remove and replace the two brake cylinders in each of the back wheels (which necessitated jacking the 12.5 ton vehicle up and removing both rear wheels and axles), the wiring for the lights was fucked from a previous botched repair job by a person or persons unknown, the bed needed to be attacked with the farm’s one working boom truck to get it to even move, and even after it was going up and down smoothly the hydraulic pump was occasionally leaking fluid, which I was neither qualified for or willing to try to fix; then, during the first test drive with a potential buyer, the radiator apparently exploded, and he convinced my grandfather to sell it to him for $1000, which was split between him, me, and my dad and uncle for helping (more or less.) I eventually calculated that with those three extra projects in addition to my regular salary (up $5 a day but without the weekly bonus, resulting in a net raise of $5 a week) I nearly made minimum wage working there that summer. (Hey, if Quinn is going to read this, I should probably note that minimum wage in Ohio was $8.15 an hour, at least when I wrote this, it’s up to $8.55 an hour now.)

Also, after going on three years of the whole “pull into Mitch’s driveway and blow the horn for a while” routine, the horn on my grandfather’s F-150 finally gave out and he locked the keys in my car while climbing inside of it to use its. (He did admit to this but also told me that I should never have left the keys inside of a car with “automatic locks.”) I had a much better spring semester this year, but it still wasn’t made easier by my 28 hours a week at the farm (plus the commute) right up until October 25th, when I finally quit.

Performance review:

Another part of my feelings about the farm that I have to mention is that the whole time I was there, I was pretty well aware that it was not nearly as productive as it should have been. One large part of this was just flawed soil management practices; by the time I got there, my grandfather had been planting mostly the same plants in mostly exactly the same spots for nearly 10 years, which is absolutely not how any of that is ever supposed to work. He sent soil samples away for analysis, got back reports prescribing long lists of fertilizers to be applied in massive quantities to help production, and then went back to using what he was planning on putting down anyway (mostly starting fertilizer (which we dragged around in 5 gallon buckets for the entire planting season), calcium spray to try to prevent previous years’ blossom end rot epidemics, and some poorly labeled sacks of miscellaneous stuff that he had gotten at a farm auction and that had been taking up space in a barn for years.) My grandfather’s managerial attitude was that all ideas were suspect unless they occurred to him first, which meant it sometimes required some stamina to get certain things done; he would ride up on the lawn mower and stare at you suspiciously if he wasn’t sure of exactly what you were doing.

Like this.

(Of course, the farm was not really run with the purpose of maximizing production, anyway. My grandfather kept it going year after year initially because he was retired, and wanted something to take up his time, and because he wanted to turn himself into a farmer; later, he got the idea that he was going to turn me into one.)

The other main obstacle to growth was the fact that we were surrounded by 80 acres of soybean fields that were at a slightly higher elevation than our plants, which meant that 2 inches of rainfall was more than enough to flood the place. This is not actually a good thing for any plant’s growth (except for cucumbers, and I guess sometimes zucchini.) I ended up (with my brother) digging hundreds of feet of drainage ditches in 2018 to try to combat this. Like, with a shovel. We had a trencher, but its hydraulic pump leaked fluid like a sieve, which had prevented it from being used for years, kind of like that dump truck I mentioned fixing earlier. Other broken down equipment included two boom trucks (one of which was specifically designed just to lay railroad ties), two full-size tractors (an Oliver and a Farm-All), a handful of mechanical tractor attachments that lay scattered throughout the barn-adjacent grass, a smallish red Troy-Bilt riding lawn mower, and a 1963 Buick Riviera.

On a personal level, going to the farm every day felt like dying? It was long hours of difficult, tedious, low-paid work in a desolate and isolated location. It was sort of like a sensory deprivation chamber, but for thoughts and feelings instead of for senses. On one hand, I regret every single miserable second of it, and hope to never see the place again for as long as I somehow manage to live (sadly unlikely); on the other hand, I do think it made me more appreciative of the moments when I do feel like I’m alive in the world, even when they’re not exactly easy ones. I have more enthusiasm for certain types of fear now, like driving to a strange and distant city to see a band play by myself, actually talking to the host in the AirBNB there, and descending into a strange subway system without really knowing how I’m going to get anywhere I’m trying to go from there; or signing up for classes for next semester without knowing exactly what they’ll be like, and talking to the strange person sitting next to me, or even just emailing the professor to ask for an explanation of an assignment that I don’t understand. It reminds me that I’m not as trapped anymore.

This contradicts what I want to be true, which is that the farm was just a background event in my life, instead of something that defined it for all of those years. The things that I was doing in the background of this, the story about farming, were the things I now realize were actually important to me at the time: taking those pictures, going back to school, the music I was listening to while I was out in the field, pounding in tomato stakes… I was also re-learning the piano in the evenings when I still had the energy. Unfortunately, the farm did define that part of my life to a large extent because of the way it served as an obstacle to me pursuing those things. The thing is, I wasn’t really trapped there, in any real physical or consequential sense; the farm took over my life because I was unable to recognize and act on the fact that I did have access to real sources of happiness.

Also, I guess the whole time I was technically committing tax evasion?

Anyway, whenever I see one of those posts about how nice it would be just to leave society and go live on a farm or something, this is what I’m thinking of.