Dear Dailykos community:
I first started small diaries here about my work at Wal-mart, detailing their horrible pay, terrible scheduling, lousy sick day policy, and my beloved colleagues struggles with living on a Wal-mart salary? Remember my friend and front end supervisor who needed money to buy her prescriptions?, yeah, that infuriated and drove up my blood pressure too. Not to mention how my self-esteem took major hits from being considered "not good enough for any job but Wal-mart, but hey it could be worse, you could work at Macdonald's," from friends and customers?
Well, as I used to say when punching out at Wal-mart, "cue the fat lady chorus, it is over! "
Follow me after the jump, for the good news and the request for informational help.
The good news is that I accepted a job offer at a healthcare facility, with office hours-woohoo, a normal schedule!-benefits that won't leave me with astronomical deductible fees, and oh my gosh, this makes me want to cry, double my salary!
So, I want to take a moment and thank all of you here who supported me during the last two years, I worked hard to keep a low profile, because my writing skills are nowhere near where I see most of diarists, but when things were really outrageous, I felt like I could come here and receive empathy and compassion for the situation. Here where I live, if i complained about Wal-mart's indentured servant policies, the response was "well, just quit then " or worse, "you are lucky to have any job at all." Here at Daily Kos, I felt I could say my core belief of, "yes, I know I am lucky to have a job, and I still deserve a life that includes family time, rest time, and decent wages, and so does everyone else," without fear of judgement. You all have no idea what your comments and support meant to me, to know that there was one place where I could come to be heard, respected, and acknowledged as a human being with certain rights. Thank you all so much for the love and encouragement.
I want to thank Laura Clawson for her work here on keeping everyone informed about Wal-mart, and other retail stores. I could read those stories, and think to myself that we retail workers were not forgotten, and a better writer than I promoted the message that retail workers deserve better treatment. Thank you, Laura for your hard work in this area.
I also want to thank the person last year during our flood, who offered to help me save my job by driving me to work. It meant so much to me. They excused those absences, so I didn't get fired that time for missing work. That you would offer a complete stranger on the internet a ride is amazing and I thank you again for your kindness and generosity.
Now, for the help. I needed medical attention that required a stay overnight, and my insurance covered about 1/4 of the bill. The hospital sent me bills, but I thought it was covered and I take full responsibility for this part, let this issue slip by me, thinking Wal-mart's insurance would take care of it. Last year I was sued, and arranged a payment schedule approved by the court to pay off this debt. The debt collection agency just stopped deducting the amount of money out of my checking account. I called several times to get the payment plan reinstated, only to have dropped calls, placed on hold for two hours, promises of calls back, and finally, an assurance to have the payments reinstated. They never did start taking out the $100.00 a month, and I just received a letter for summary judgement from the court. The money was always there, because the payment always came out of my account three hours after my direct deposit went through. Someone said i should challenge this judgement, because the debt collection agency violated their court agreement to deduct the money on the scheduled payment plan. They said offer affidavits and request a novation? If anyone has any suggestions on how to go about this, I would appreciate the informational help only.
Thank you again for your support over the last two years. I appreciate it so much!