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via "Les Confessions" by dante.fs@gmail.com on 01/11/05
There is a scene in the film 'A Simple Plan' where Bridget Fonda's character is trying to persuade her husband to keep some money they've found. Outlining their working class life if they choose not to keep the money, she says :Is that what you think? Is that what you think you want? [...]I always thought her speech gave a good outline of the pitfalls of lacking cash, of being of relatively modest means in the "first world". Starvation, homelessness, etc are fortunately unlikely (for most), but the tediousness of life grind you down. Key in what she says is the bit about special occasions. Sure, you don't expect luxury in day to day life but is it unreasonable to expect to be able to "order what you want" once in a while?
And me? What about me? Spending the rest of my life, hours a day, with a fake plastered on my face checking out books.
And then coming home to cook diner for you -- the same meals over again, whatever the week's coupons will allow.
Only going out to restaurants for special occasions -- birthdays or anniversary's -- and even then having to watch what we order, skipping appetiser, coming home for dessert. You think that's going to make me happy?
The problem with this mindset, is that it can all get a bit out of hand. As I may have mentioned before, there is a guy at my work who is the sort of future version of me, to whit : He owes £70k on credit cards, was a massive gambler in his twenties, and is always trying to arrange some sort of scheme to organise himself.
But he has told me that he spent £10k on one holiday. Because when you're on holiday, you can't really deprive yourself, can you? Moreover, it's a mental state which exists only when on holiday. Whereby you escape (albeit in a very superficial sense) your class orientation for a moment. I think one of the reasons places like Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc are popular destinations for working class families is because it's a place where you can feel somehow aloof to the natives. Similar to the white colonists to North America or South Africa, there is some strange sense that no matter how lowly you might be in Northern Europe, you are elevated somehow when abroad, among the "savages" (as it were).
And of course, such a delusion can only be supported by bizarre and unsustainable spending habits. Like going to a restaurant every night. Or by spending £10k in one holiday. I doubt it is a coincidence this gentleman I speak of is from relatively humble origins.
I mention all of this to provide some sociological/psyhcological context to the following facts : my short trip away from London cleared me out for the month and I'm broke beyond belief at the moment. So much so that I had to take a short-term loan out the other day. Under the Consumer Credit Act they have to explicitly tell you the Annual Payable Rate (APR) of the loan. I was amused to read it at 443%.
Still, it was very enjoyable. I can't quite hold Edinburgh in the same esteem that others seem to - it's just another small city, albeit one rainier and colder than London. Still, there were plenty of uber pale-faced women around which puts it above most of the rest of the UK (this is not saying much, however). Overall, it was an enjoyable time (mainly down to the company), and I hope to revisit before not too long.
The journey home occurred without note, and I looked forward to taking it easy for the rest of Wednesday (my day of return). Unfortunately I recalled that I had my second job to attend. A little more on that later, but I realised how unbelievably terrible I am at sales / fund-raising.
Instead of having an early night on Wednesday I decided to go to NASIN, perhaps only for an hour or so. An hour soon turned into longer, since I bumped into Debbie, Dina, Dean, Natasha, etc - and then I ended up buying five pills and getting worse for wear. Afterwards I attended a small gathering round Dean's house, with more drinking and drug taking. So all pretty par for the course I suppose. But at one point in the evening someone remarked :
"Everyone in this room is an alcoholic. Except Dante."
Momentarily I was lifted by this exception, but then I realised it was just because I didn't have a beer in my hand. And that's only because as you should all be depressingly aware, I despise the taste of beer (or cider for that matter). So that's damning with feint praise. Or something. But this did make me think that despite the fact I was pretty drunk at the time, and had got to the point of oh-my-god-you-were-such-a-twat-last-nigh
Amongst the people I know, binge drinking 3-4 times a week seems fairly normal. One of my house mates poured himself a large vodka the other day and commented "Well, it is Sunday after all.". And it's an accelerating phenemenon. Or so it seems.
But hey, who cares. Who's up for a drinking contest?
Fortunately my liver is in a better state than it was supposed to, since I was originally planning on going out on Friday (for drinks), Saturday (for a party) and Sunday (for a club). I didn't make any of these events however since I was broke, and on a couple of occassions was simply asleep. I did attend Slimes briefly on Saturday night with my usual clubbing partner, but it seemed awfully brief, but that may simply due to lack of narcotics.
The only other thing I've done (aside from play Civilisation 4, try and do some project work and sleep) is go to my second job again (on Monday).
As I mentioned, I'm pretty terrible at it. I've only received one donation so far (that isn't actually unusual though, to put it in context). But it's not because of any lack of skillz (as far as I can tell), but it's simply some sort of mental/ethical block I have. You see, this is a fairly typical conversation :
"Hi, I'm a Social Policy Master's Student from the London School of Economics. I'm phoning from the Alumni Relations Department, is this a convenient time to talk?"Now, the problem is that when the guy says "No", to me - with my un-nuanced view of these things - means well, no. If someone says at the beginning of the call "If this is about fund raising, I'm not interested" then I take that on face value. Unfortunately, in sales, that's not really the done thing. When someone says "No", they really mean "Give me reasons to say Yes!". If someone has a specific reason to say "No", then we actually have a computer program with a list of "Common Objections" (and their retorts). The common objections include:
"Erm...what? Erm, yeah I guess."
"Right. Thanks. I see you graduated in such-and-such in 19xx...have you been back to the School since then?"
"Not really. I live in Durham. It's not really convenient."
"Oh yeah, I guess so. Well, have you kept in touch with anyone from your class?"
"No, they all hated me."
"Right...I see....so we're also phoning to try and raise money. Would you be interested?"
"No."
"Ok, cya dude."
"Howard Davies [the LSE Director] is an ex-arms dealer." (amusingly, this is true)
"The LSE has loads of money anyway."
"I'm retired."
"I don't have much money."
"You're charging top-up fee's anyway!"
And my personal favourite : "There's more worthwhile charities out there and I prefer to give to them."
The response to this one is mildly amusing : "Well, it's very admirable you choose to give your money to other charities. However, we would note that educating the next generation is a vital task. People from the poorest countries come to the LSE, and they then often return to their homeland and generate wealth for thousands of others people."
[Translation : The people doing economic and business degree's are probably drawn from the upper ranks of any poor nation anyway, and they'll go home, implement IMF austerity policies and make things worse for their own people!]
But the strangest thing about all of this, is that it actually works. Yesterday's shift (3 hours with 8 people working, raised £950). If you phone up enough people and simply ask them for money, you'll probably make a profit from doing it.
Which I suppose is mildly heartening. If I ever get really desperate, I'm going to simply wander the streets of our fair city armed with a PDA and a script which will have every single possible objection to the request "Would you like to give me a blow-job?" and their respective retorts.
It can't possibly fail.
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