Captain's Journal

finnglas:

finnglas:

I’m going to give you the best piece of Adult Life Is Hard advice I’ve ever learned:

Talk to people when things go to shit.

I don’t just mean get it off your chest, although that’s good. I mean: Something’s wrong with your paycheck/you lost your job/you had unexpected emergency car repairs and now you’re broke so your credit card payment is late. Like, not just 15 days late. We’re talking, shit got crazy and now you’re 90 days late with compounded interest and late fees and the Minimum Payment Due is, like, $390, and you’ve got about $3.90 in your bank account. Call the credit card company. 

I know it’s scary. I know you feel like you’re going to get in trouble, like you’re gong to get yelled at or scolded for not having your life together. But the credit card company isn’t your parents; they’re just interested in getting money from you. And you can’t squeeze blood from a stone or money from someone who doesn’t have any. So what you do is you call them. You explain you’re experiencing temporary financial hardships, and you’re currently unable to bring your account up to date, but you don’t want to just let it get worse. Can you maybe talk to someone about a payment plan so you can work something out? Nine times out of ten you’ll be able to negotiate something so that at least it’s not just taking a constant, giant shit on your credit score.

- Can’t pay your power bill? Call the power company.

- Can’t pay your full rent? Talk to your landlord.

- Had to go to the hospital without insurance and have giant medical bills looming in your place? Call the hospital and ask if they have someone who helps people with financial hardships. Many do.

- Got super sick and missed half a semester of class because flu/pneumonia/auto-immune problems/depressive episode? Talk to your professor. If that doesn’t help, talk to your advisor.

You may not be able to fix everything, but you’ll likely be able to make improvements. At the very least, it’s possible that they have a list of people you can contact to help you with things. (Also, don’t be afraid to google things like, “I can’t pay my power bill [state you live in]” because you’d be surprised at what turns up on Google!) But the thing is, people in these positions gain nothing if you fail. There’s no emotional satisfaction for them if your attempts at having your life together completely bite the dust. In fact, they stand to benefit if things work out for you! And chances are, they’ll be completely happy to take $20 a month from you over getting $0 a month from you, your account will be considered current because you’ve talked to them and made an agreement, you won’t get reported to a collections agency, and your credit score won’t completely tank.

Here’s some helpful tips to keep in mind:

1. Be polite. Don’t demand things; request them. Let me tell you about how customer service people hold your life in their hands and how many extra miles they’ll go for someone who is nice to them.

2. Stick to the facts, and keep them minimal unless asked for them. Chances are they’re not really interested in the details. “We had several family emergencies in a row, and now I’m having trouble making the payments” is better than “Well, two months ago my husband wrecked his bike, and then he had a reaction to the muscle relaxer they gave him, and then our dog swallowed a shoestring and we had to take him to the emergency clinic, and just last week MY car broke down, and now my account’s in the negatives and I don’t know how I’m gonna get it back out.” The person you’re talking to is aware shit happens to everyone; they don’t need the details to prove you’re somehow “worthy” of being helped. They may ask you for details at a certain point if they have to fill out any kind of request form, but let them do that.

3. Ask questions. “Is there anything we can do about X?” “Would it be possible to move my payment date to Y day instead so it’s not coming out of the same paycheck as my rent?” The answer may be “no.” That’s not a failure on your part. But a good customer service person may have an alternate solution. 

Anyway! I hope that helps! Don’t just assume the answer is “no” before you’ve even begun. There is more help out there than you ever imagined.

Hey guys, this is an old post, but it’s still relevant, and I thought I’d re-up it for living in COVID times when a lot of people are losing income. Don’t be afraid to toss that in when you call to ask for help! “I’ve experienced a loss of income due to COVID-19″ is gonna be all you need to say for most places, because wow let me tell you how much this is the case. A lot of places are setting up COVID-19 specific relief policies, so this may be even easier than normal. 

Good luck, stay safe, stay inside if you can, and wash your hands. <3 

(via pointed-in-a-crooked-line)

surprisedentistry:

surprisedentistry:

what i really want is a trucking game with a gay subplot but i realize that’s niche

yeah i want to drive across Nebraska in a big rig but i also want to pick up a troubled hitchhiker with a mysterious past and have sexually tense conversations while we drive by an unending ocean of corn 

(via willow-on-the-mount)

starscapades:

(via nedfuckindiscretionchicanejr)

apxlllo:

chronically ill person: i need help managing my illness and its symptoms bc im really struggling here

doctor: have you tried exercising, eating fruit and losing weight?

chronically ill person:

(via theperfectcrohn)

eandh99:

copperbadge:

spikesjojo:

You know, this would explain why Picard, the most English person ever to walk aboard a starship, continues to claim he’s French. 

Too funny and yet painful.

(via odderancy)

local-weirdo:

exigencelost:

local-weirdo:

exigencelost:

redstitcher:

exigencelost:

exigencelost:

The problem with having lesbian moms is you try to be super cool and cut all your hair off and buy a leather jacket and wear boots all the time and then you go to some event in your neighborhood and all these women three times your age start cooing “oh you look JUST like your mother when she was your age, my gosh what a blast from the past, oh I just love your hair”

And let me be very clear, okay: I’ve seen pictures of my mom when she was my age, and she looked cooler than I ever will. My mom had exactly my fashion sense except she was two point five degrees butcher and habitually took over government buildings. My other mom was about six degrees butcher than that, and SHE had a motorcycle. Both of them have been charged with felony arson. I’m the prep member of my family and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Please tell me at some point in your life some dick was like “we’re calling your parents over your behavior” only to have a bigger, more badass version of you come strolling in

Look obviously that happened many many times, usually with misogynist or ableist teachers. But I have a BETTER story than that, which is that when I was in 3rd grade, I went to this tiny alternative hippy school—it was a regular public school, it was just small and staffed/run by hippie communists—and my 3rd grade teacher was a woman who had been in an organization with my mother, and they had done direct action together more than a few times. We’ll call her D.

One day I was sitting in D’s class, eight years old and bored out of my mind, and I scratched my name into the back of my plastic chair with a rock. Was this reasonable behavior? No. Why did I do it? Only the gods can say. I don’t actually remember doing the scratching, I just remember looking at the rock in my hand and my name on the chair and going, “HUH. That’s not good.” 

So obviously I got caught, bc I couldn’t reasonably convince anyone that I wasn’t the one who had done it, since it was MY NAME, and as punishment for this act of arbitrary vandalism I was sentenced to recess detention for two weeks. It was October so this included Halloween. Halloween, to be clear, is a high holy day in San Francisco, and I was devastated to miss the informal festivities that would be occurring at recess that day, and I wept and wailed about this at home for some time until my mother decided that this was disproportionate punishment and took it into her own hands to do something about it.  

So my mom walks into D’s office on a day when my mother does not have to be at work at a scheduled time, but D has to get her students from the yard in about ten minutes, and my mom sits down and says to her old friend and comrade, “Miranda is really upset about having detention on Halloween.”

And D explains to my mother why the detention was issued, what the circumstances were, and my mother nods, and listens, and doesn’t argue, and doesn’t show any sign of getting up from her chair. And just says again “She’s really upset about having detention on Halloween.” 

And D looks at my mother, and she looks at the clock in her office, which is telling her that she has to be on the yard in 2 minutes now, and then looks at my mother again, who shows no sign of having anywhere to be, my mother with whom D has organized and successfully executed multiple sit-ins and takeovers of government & corporate offices, and D says, “Okay, she doesn’t have to have detention on Halloween.”

Tell your moms that we love them.

You can express your love by donating to their organization, Prison Radio, which works relentlessly on a shoestring budget to amplify the voices of incarcerated people in the United States!

https://donate.prisonradio.org

An important update!

(via george-oswald-dannyson)

dtjunosteel:

Nureyev is relatable because I too am gay and stressed about money

(via healingsteel)