A Change in Direction: Prologue

Notes

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Prologue

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I had been out of work for nearly two years, and my unemployment benefits were about to run out. And I wasn't sure how much more stress I could take. I felt as if I was going to pull out my hair by the roots in great big fistfuls. It was atrocious. There was no other way to describe it. I wasn’t sure how people were getting by these days. Times were grim, to say the least.

The worst part was that my hot water heater had been out in my rundown trailer for nearly two months. Taking cold showers sucked, but I would be damned if I asked my father for the cash to fix it. He was barely making it on his retirement as it was. It would be my first present to myself when I finally got a job, I kept telling myself. Besides, the cold water made my hair look great, and it saved on the electric and water bills. And it could wake you up more than three cups of coffee on a chilly October morning. 

Though I hated using food stamps, there was no other way that I was going to be able to make it. The one hundred and twenty dollars was just enough if I cut coupons and watched sales, to make it through the month. I was eating a lot of the same stuff over and over again.

But I did try not to buy any sodas or candy with them. So, in the last couple of years, I had lost about thirty pounds without even trying, between walking and riding my bike everywhere when possible and not eating any sweets. I guess that it was a plus. I wasn't a very positive person, but I did occasionally try to see the good in things. 

Sadly, I think that I would have preferred to be a bit more overweight and had my ice cream. I missed it the most, but I wasn't going to waste the government's money on empty calories that would just go to my ass. Honestly, I could have afforded to lose another thirty pounds anyway. I was still a pretty curvy woman. Not huge or anything. I just had some meat on my bones. My mother liked to say that I was a ‘healthy’ girl. It was probably just to make me feel better about myself. 

It worked sometimes. Sometimes, it didn't. But it was getting much harder to see myself in a positive light. I could barely look at myself in the mirror.

At one point in my life, I felt pretty good about myself and its direction. I felt secure. I had a degree from Louisiana Tech in Computer Integrated Science. They said that it would be nearly guaranteed that I would get a career right out of school with a BS in computers. BS was right. The only job that I could find was working on slot machines at the Casinos in Shreveport, where I had lived in my teenage years with my father. There were five casinos altogether and a racetrack. It was amazing that a city its size, less than half a million with all the surrounding towns and areas, could support that many, but they did. 

So I worked there for a few years. It wasn't so bad. The cigarette-smoke filled rooms were nearly poisonous, and most of the 'guests' were idiots. Still, the benefits were decent, the job was easy, and the pay was good enough that I was able to pay off my student loans and save a little. It wasn't really work in my field, but I hoped one day that I could move over to their IT department. It was a small one with only five or so guys for the entire boat, but it would be a step up. Or, better said, a step in the right direction.

My hopes were dashed, though. 

The recession hit, and things began to change for everyone. Gas prices went up, as did the cost of housing. So to save cash, I got a cheaper car and got a single-wide trailer for just a few thousand dollars. I figured that it was a good way to go until I saved enough money to put a reasonable down payment on a real house. I had no plans to leave the area for a while since my dad was there. The trailer was just supposed to be temporary. Now that everything had gone to shit, I was glad that I had bought it outright when I did. I didn't have to worry about having a place to live, at least. 

And honestly, you would have thought that people would start going to the casinos less and not spend as much, but the area wasn't really hit that hard at first because of something called the Haynesville shale. It was a gigantic pocket of natural gas. The people who owned land, and more importantly, their mineral rights, were making millions. And it showed at the boats. 

So, with the boom in profits, especially in the slots' area, the casinos started to upgrade their systems. They no longer used coins. Instead, they began using these paper slips that printed out your winnings. Everything became simpler, and it broke down less. They needed far fewer people to operate the machines and to give out jackpots. 

Of course, they went from having twenty people a shift to five. And though I had been there for a few years, I was still pretty low on the totem pole. Some people found positions in other departments, like security and the restaurants, but I had no such luck.

At the time, I wasn't that bothered. It kind of pissed me off, but I had about eight months’ worth of savings put back and a college degree. I figured that I would have another job before my unemployment benefits were even approved. 

Boy, was I wrong!

At first, I only applied to computer positions, but almost all of them required at least five years of experience. I hadn't even been out of college that long. I really had hopes that I would get a job working for the government after I got a ninety-eight on my civil test. Still, they wanted you to work other positions before you could move into an IT one. 

Like prison guard. I am shitting you not. They wanted me, a computer geek, to be a prison guard at Angola. A maximum-security prison in south Louisiana, for at least a year, before they would even consider moving me into the office. For minimum wage.

I thought Charlie, my father, was going to pop a blood vein when he heard that one. I had to drive six hours to New Orleans just for that interview. It was almost a mini-vacation of sorts. I got to walk around the French Quarter for a couple of hours before and sample pralines. It could have been worse. Dad went on a twenty-minute tirade on wasting people's money and time and how the Louisiana Government was corrupt anyways. I just let him go. I knew that he was just discouraged for me.

After about six months, it went from just computer positions to any office-type posts. Then at a year, it was any business position. Salespersons and things like that. Eighteen months later, I was applying to anything and everything, including McDonald's and Taco Bell. I put in applications and had interviews for six hours a day, five days a week. It became my career.

I hated feeling desperate, but I was. I had no money, and it seemed like I had no future. Wasn’t that was what college was for? To secure your future?

Apparently, I was mistaken about a lot of things. 

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