Dont Call My House (an unrelated rant)

I realize this sounds anti-social, but I don't like getting calls to my home phone.  There are several reasons:

1. Telemarketers.  If I am working, homeschooling, or just relaxing, and the phone rings, and I pry myself out of the chair to answer the phone, I don't want to answer a survey, deal with salespeople, give a donation, or hear elections propaganda.  You are more likely to get a positive response from me if you sent an
old-fashioned letter.

2. Business Calls that won't leave messages.  Most businesses calling my house are not calling for me.  That's fine. Most of the bills are in my husbands name.  But if you are a business calling my home, you can at least leave a message.  Don't you know how rude it is to call someone's house, ask for a person and not leave a message... and no, a phone number is not good enough.  Who are you?  Who are you calling for?  Is this urgent?  If you wonder why people don't follow up, it is because you don't leave proper messages.  I don't care what your business procedures are... it's still RUDE.  ... and if you are rude, you get Angry Andrea... Deal with it.


3.  People I just don't want to speak to.  I know, horrible, right?  Here's the thing, if you are someone I am remotely interested in speaking to, you have my cell phone number. If you don't have my cell phone number, you have my email address, and can ask for my cell phone number.  Besides that, I barely know you and/or don't care to deal with you for whatever reason.  Plus, I'm just not a big talker.  As my voicemail says, "we are not available to answer the phone right now, but if this is an important message, you can reach us at our respective cell phones."  No, that is not followed by the cell phone numbers.  If you don't have the cell phone numbers, leave a message.  We might listen to it.... later.  Much later.

So yes, I tend to be anti-social, especially when it comes to the telephone, but in all my years, I have never received a message on my home-phone that had any real relevance to my life.  I should probably just shut it off, and keep my cell.


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Why Andrew Sullivan is Wrong

As I sit here watching Andrew Sullivan spout his fact that the economy is in the horrible condition it is in is because Americans have been greedy and overextended themselves.

Now he is not alone in this argument. Many talking head pundits have spouted this theory over the past week or so.

I, however am in a unique situation to see this from a different point of view.

Six years ago when I had my house built, I put down 10% cash on my house and my mortgage payments were 1/5, (20%) of our income. If my realtor and mortgage broker had their way, I would have purchased a home in a country club community that pushed 40% of our income. We knew that it was a bad deal, no matter how hard the banker and realtor pushed for a higher commission. But that's beside the point.

A lot has changed for my family in the last six years. My husband's job situation has changed dramatically, and his income has nearly been cut in half. Even with me working part time online while I still homeschool my kids, our mortgage is now nearly 40% of our income. Things are tight. Had we followed the advice of all the people (friends and co-workers included) who insisted that we were making a mistake and living beneath our status, we would be living on he street right now.

If you think about it, while the housing bubble, and mortgages, and even realtors have a hand in the current state of the economy, the loss of jobs, that no one seems to want to talk about is the biggest culprit. We are shipping thousands of new workers into the country every day to take jobs that Americans are not "qualified" to have. (Look up H1-B Visas). This includes teachers from Spanish speaking countries who are taking jobs from "unqualified American Teachers". This includes tech jobs and programmers where many Americans are now back in school training for a different trade. And then there are the jobs that are being shipped overseas.

No friends, the problem is not the greed of the average American person. It is the greed of the corporate giants who have made sure that our schools are substandard, so that they can call us unqualified and give our jobs away to people they can pay less.

Keep homeschooling your kids and teach them to start their own businesses because there is no guarantee of jobs. God bless.

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