So, if you notice, it's about 3:30am at the moment. And you know the wee-hours-of-the-morning blogs are never going to be good. Especially when I was going to be getting up for work around 5am, so this is not like a planned late-night adventure.
(Mom, before you read any further, remember that I am blogging. Which means that I must be more or less ok.)
So, a really great way to spend your night is to wake up at 2:30am to the sound of a key turning in your lock. Of course, you don't know it's 2:30am, because of the aforementioned sleep out of which you were just jolted. And because of your groggy state, at first you aren't entirely certain that the key and footsteps you are hearing are actually in your apartment. At first you think you were just being paranoid in that split second that you woke up, and assume that the sounds are most likely really from the apartment above or below.
That is, until you see the hall light go on.
Turns out, I do not have anything in my bedroom that could effectively crush someone's skull. At least, not anything that I could recall and locate on a second's notice immediately after awakening. (Don't worry, this is a scenario I will be amending before another night passes. A geode bookend should serve nicely for this purpose, as long as I remember not to leave it next to the bed where I will inevitably just step on it.)
Adrenaline is a funny thing. In those few moments (seriously, it was probably under 60 seconds) in which I crawled silently out of bed to brace myself at my bedroom door while I waited as the unknown entrant turned off the light and left (to only close the push-button lock-- seriously, you came in through the deadbolt, so lock the &!@$ deadbolt again after yourself! Inconsiderate trespasser) I am sort of surprised that my heart didn't seize up from how hard it was pounding. After it sounded like the apartment was otherwise unoccupied again, and I located my cell phone and ventured out of my bedroom, I'm not entirely sure what I shouted into the empty apartment, but I'm pretty sure it involved something about ripping someone's face of. (Actually, now after the fact, I am experiencing a deep sense of shame that I wasn't able to come up with something more creative and ferocious. I will have to take some notes for next time, and leave them next to my handy blunt object.)
Anyway, it wasn't till after I'd checked the time, called the management company (maintenance somewhat bewilderedly told me that there shouldn't be anyone out at that hour), and was on the phone with the non-emergency police that I realized how hard I was shaking. I'm really glad the !%*&%# did turn on the hall light and thus assure me that I was not going crazy (cue flashbacks to those first times your parents left you home alone, or you were babysitting in a strange house with its own creepy sounds, and imagining all the various intruders just around the corner). I really appreciated being able to add "oh and then I saw the hall light go on and off" during the various times I told this story to assorted members of property management and law enforcement.
So the un-exciting end of this story is that two nice DPD officers came out, looked around with their nice big cop flashlights (now there's a handy blunt object for you... wonder where I could get one of those...) and told me that it was most likely someone else who lived in the apartment building. Apparently when your property management company totally blows (oh yeah, I will be having some strong words for them in the sleep-deprived morning) they basically order like 4 different locks for the entire building, and they're all really close to the same lock anyway, so pretty much you can open other peoples' apartments. Their take on the situation: somebody was drunker than they realized, and once they looked around and saw that this was not their place, they departed. The cops went to look around (though I would have been happier if they'd vowed to knock on every door in the building and report back to me with reassurance that the drunkard in such-and-such unit really had just unwittingly wandered in) and the one wished me, "try to have a good night." Such a nice, knowingly feeble attempt to reassure someone who had all sense of security just taken away from them.
Tomorrow, I'll be calling the management company. They will be changing the lock. And after they do so (and I will tell them this in advance), I will be taking the new key and trying it on every apartment in the building. I'll stop once they do it right. The lock to my place is going to be one-of-a-kind. I'll also be getting a chain lock to install, as it appears some previous resident had, based on the holes in the door.
But the point is, I shouldn't have to do any of this. I live in a secure building, with a locked main entry and buzzer system. My door has a peephole, a push-button lock and a deadbolt (both of which are locked every night-- and any time that I'm home, for that matter-- though apparently this does not matter). I should be able to sleep at night-- literally-- and rest secure.
&*@$@%#!
...is all I have to say about that.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Job security
In case you've missed the memo, the economy is terrible. Supposedly, recovery is on the horizon. We're hearing less about home foreclosures (if only because all of the homes have already been foreclosed on). New unemployment claims are supposedly on the decline (again, perhaps because there are less people left with jobs to lose?). Stimulus packages are coming down left and right (though, don't get me started on those). But this past week, it seemed like Denver was just plain falling apart.
On Monday evening, there was a story on the news about the closing of the busy ESPN Zone store and restaurant downtown. They interviewed one of the former employees. She said that there'd been rumors about six months ago, but that they had been reassured that the site would not be closing, and their jobs were safe. On the day she was being interviewed, she had showed up for work, only to find the doors locked.
(Interestingly, the news story also included information on a new business that would be opening in part of the former restaurant location this fall. Somebody clearly new in advance that the restaurant would be closing.)
On Tuesday evening, I went to pick up my CSA share at a local restaurant in the popular Larimer Square shopping and restaurant district. When I opened the door, I saw that all the barstools were up on the tables. The manager told me that the CSA boxes were out back by the delivery door. The employee I found there informed me that the restaurant was closing its doors, and they had already arranged a new pick-up location for the CSA shares. I asked if the closing was sudden. She seemed a tad shell-shocked.
On Wednesday evening, I was heading home from running errands when I passed by the delightful gourmet pizza joint just around the corner from me, that opened just last summer. Or should I say, the former delightful gourmet pizza joint. The building is now for sale.
On Thursday evening, I went to my church potluck group. Others spoke of layoffs at their companies with the uneasy security of those whose jobs have been spared, but knowing that theirs could be the next positions to be eliminated. In my job, too, the future is ever tenuous. I work for a non-profit, which means every position relies on donations and, mine especially, grants. We just ended a program year and are awaiting news on our renewal.
But more notably, the thought that has crossed my mind with each of these quietly disappearing businesses is, this is the economy in which I am an employment counselor. People who already have jobs-- and degrees, experience, and professional connections-- cannot know their own job future. Yet I am charged with helping homeless and at-risk youth, who face so many additional barriers-- from not having a roof over their head, to lacking the needed documents to get a state ID, to struggling to find childcare that doesn't cost more than they make in their own job, to being completely inexperienced-- carve out a career for themselves.
And this in a state with relatively low unemployment-- particularly compared to my home state of Michigan, which has the unwanted distinction of leading the country in that measure.
Matthew 6:25-34
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
But how are we to take all of this in an atmosphere of such rampant insecurity? Do we scorn our savings accounts, figuring that tomorrow will worry about itself? Fail to keep our resumes up-to-date? How are we to not worry about tomorrow, when at any time we might show up to work to find the doors locked, or be told that our position is being eliminated, effective immediately? And what of those who have already lost their jobs, and are now desperately job-seeking, unable to keep up in the meantime with mortages, car payments, and rising utility and food bills?
(Oh... what... you thought I was about to provide the answer? Oh, sorry. Nope. You're on your own there. But if you do find the answer, let me know. I'm sure I can find some folks who would love to hear it, as well.)
On Monday evening, there was a story on the news about the closing of the busy ESPN Zone store and restaurant downtown. They interviewed one of the former employees. She said that there'd been rumors about six months ago, but that they had been reassured that the site would not be closing, and their jobs were safe. On the day she was being interviewed, she had showed up for work, only to find the doors locked.
(Interestingly, the news story also included information on a new business that would be opening in part of the former restaurant location this fall. Somebody clearly new in advance that the restaurant would be closing.)
On Tuesday evening, I went to pick up my CSA share at a local restaurant in the popular Larimer Square shopping and restaurant district. When I opened the door, I saw that all the barstools were up on the tables. The manager told me that the CSA boxes were out back by the delivery door. The employee I found there informed me that the restaurant was closing its doors, and they had already arranged a new pick-up location for the CSA shares. I asked if the closing was sudden. She seemed a tad shell-shocked.
On Wednesday evening, I was heading home from running errands when I passed by the delightful gourmet pizza joint just around the corner from me, that opened just last summer. Or should I say, the former delightful gourmet pizza joint. The building is now for sale.
On Thursday evening, I went to my church potluck group. Others spoke of layoffs at their companies with the uneasy security of those whose jobs have been spared, but knowing that theirs could be the next positions to be eliminated. In my job, too, the future is ever tenuous. I work for a non-profit, which means every position relies on donations and, mine especially, grants. We just ended a program year and are awaiting news on our renewal.
But more notably, the thought that has crossed my mind with each of these quietly disappearing businesses is, this is the economy in which I am an employment counselor. People who already have jobs-- and degrees, experience, and professional connections-- cannot know their own job future. Yet I am charged with helping homeless and at-risk youth, who face so many additional barriers-- from not having a roof over their head, to lacking the needed documents to get a state ID, to struggling to find childcare that doesn't cost more than they make in their own job, to being completely inexperienced-- carve out a career for themselves.
And this in a state with relatively low unemployment-- particularly compared to my home state of Michigan, which has the unwanted distinction of leading the country in that measure.
Matthew 6:25-34
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
But how are we to take all of this in an atmosphere of such rampant insecurity? Do we scorn our savings accounts, figuring that tomorrow will worry about itself? Fail to keep our resumes up-to-date? How are we to not worry about tomorrow, when at any time we might show up to work to find the doors locked, or be told that our position is being eliminated, effective immediately? And what of those who have already lost their jobs, and are now desperately job-seeking, unable to keep up in the meantime with mortages, car payments, and rising utility and food bills?
(Oh... what... you thought I was about to provide the answer? Oh, sorry. Nope. You're on your own there. But if you do find the answer, let me know. I'm sure I can find some folks who would love to hear it, as well.)
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