Never Really Homeless, But I Felt Like I Was

I have compassion for individuals who are homeless because of circumstances beyond their control. On the other hand, I can understand why people don’t want them squatting in their front yards. Homelessness is a sad, tough problem with no easy solution.

I never actually was homeless, but there was one time in my life that I felt as if I were. And during another time, technically, I guess I really was.

In the late seventies we lived rent-free in an old bunkhouse on a ranch north of Tucson. I lived there at the whim of the owner who didn’t like me, despite never having done anything to cause her to dislike me. Initially, both late Other Half and I had been promised work there, but my bookkeeping job fell through. In hindsight, I suspect that the owner never intended to hire me.

To make a very long story short, I hated living there. I never had felt so lonely before--- or since. I don’t suffer from depression. Good thing, too, because living in that place was depressing. The ranch was located in the Catalina Mountains, aka the middle of nowhere.

After doing a few household chores, I had nothing to do for the rest of the day. Because of the drug drops rumored to be taking place at a nearby airstrip, I was warned not to wander outside the ranch grounds. So my leisure activities generally were limited to: 1) hanging out with the ranch cats, or 2) visiting the foreman’s wife and watching what seemed like endless soap operas while listening to her complain about everything and everyone.

I frequently woke up at night wondering if I would ever get off the mountain. Worse, not having been employed for months, I wondered if anyone would ever hire me again. Oh, yeah, I did have a job in town for a short while. I quit after a couple of weeks. I just wasn’t cut out to be a bartender.

Eventually, I did get off the mountain.

After a week of unsuccessfully looking for work, I walked into the personnel office of a big box store and almost begged the clerk for a job. She called the controller, who came down and interviewed me. I walked out with a job in the accounting department. I think the controller hired me against his better judgement because he realized I was semi-desperate for a job. After I had worked there for a couple of months, he told another employee, “I hired her off the street. I didn’t think she would stay.”

But I stayed for a little over two years. Fun times.

I left the store when I went to work at the university. I am grateful for that university job, not only because it later looked good on my resume, but also because of the many college credits I was able to accumulate for a very low cost.

Fast forward several years. Those university credits transferred to another college during the time of my second experience with perceived homelessness.

I was living in an apartment that was close to my job and to the college I attended. But it wasn’t my apartment; I was never on the rental agreement. Fortunately the landlord was cool with me being there. And the legal tenant acted as a buffer between me and . . . well, not going for the long explanation at this time.

However, it didn’t take me long to discover that there was an individual in the area who was not thrilled to see me there. And unlike my experience with the ranch owner, I confess that this person probably had a valid reason to feel that way. Person probably was delighted to learn I was moving back to the West shortly after finishing my last class.

I still joke about living at the post office box I rented for several years while I was completing the requirements for my degree.

I Confess That I Once Worked at Walmart

I belong to a Facebook group that is focused on the county where I grew up. Having left that area (for the second and last time) almost twenty years ago, I don’t think I’m qualified to comment on the current lack of job opportunities there. I don’t want to jump in on what is essentially a local debate about the pros and cons of building a new Walmart Supercenter in the largest city and closing the existing smaller store.

I confess that I worked part time at a Walmart store in that county for several years in the 1990s.

I was employed there while I (finally) finished the requirements for my bachelor’s degree. Working as a Walmart fabrics and crafts associate wasn’t my idea of a dream job, but employment opportunities were slim in the college town where I attended classes.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of online complaints about Walmart. Two of the major complaints that got my attention were 1) Walmart jobs pay so little that employees often must apply for public assistance in order to support themselves and their families, and 2) Walmart jobs are “soul killing.”

I agree that low paying, associate level big-box store jobs generally are not great jobs for the long run. However, I think those jobs can be good temporary jobs for students or retirement jobs for people who want or need to keep working after retiring. And retail jobs worked for me as “interim jobs” three times while I looked for a better job.

Apparently, I was one of the more fortunate Walmart associates. Unlike some employees, I didn’t need any sort of public assistance while working there. Nope, not even food stamps. I had the resources to pay for my education, personal expenses, and share of the household expenses without help from anyone else.

I didn’t find the job to be soul killing, probably because I knew I wouldn’t be working at Walmart for almost forever. At that time, my hobby was making handcrafted beaded jewelry, so I was working in the department that was the best fit for me. I also had a rudimentary knowledge of sewing, thanks to a few years in 4-H and six months of home economics in the ninth grade. Although I sometimes had to deal with annoying customers, most of the time I enjoyed helping people with their craft or sewing projects.

I did find the job boring at times, usually on a Monday evening when business was slow. During those times, I tried to sneak over to the bargain fabric tables and reorganize the way too high displays of what seemed like a half-zillion bolts of material. That chore was a never-ending battle and a losing one, especially on the busy weekends. That’s when customers managed to destroy the displays within 15 minutes after I had reorganized them.

Coworkers sometimes asked if I intended to apply for a full-time job at Walmart after graduating from college. I was tempted to laugh and say, “Are you crazy, why would I want to do that?” But I was brought up to be nice, so I explained that I was working toward a degree in English with concentrations in writing and literature, and I hoped to find a job where I could use my writing and editing skills.

Trouble was, I knew that job probably didn’t exist in the area where I currently lived.

And I was right. In order to find any job that was even remotely connected to my major, I had to move. I moved back to the Southwest, to a larger city where I had an employment history and where I knew I could find better opportunities.

After working as a document analyst/quality checker at the company I refer to as The Zoo, I was hired as a staff assistant at a nonprofit organization. I was promoted to an editing position fifteen months later. I worked at that organization for almost eight years before I decided to retire from full-time brick and mortar employment.

In hindsight, working at Walmart wasn’t my best job, but it wasn’t my worst job, either.

Would I ever want to work at Walmart again? Honestly? No, but I was grateful to have that job when I needed it. And I met some very nice people there, both customers and co-workers.

Mystery Shopping and Name Badges

Some retirees earn extra cash as mystery shoppers. Not me. I’ve been there, done that, and don’t think I’ll do it again.

In the late 90s, I shopped a restaurant chain in Current City for about a year. I felt like a spy, which, in a way, I was. Taking notes was difficult with servers hovering around, asking if everything was okay. If a server seemed suspicious, I pretended to be editing a writing project.

Most of the time I was able to write positive comments about the food and service. However, I usually wrote up at least one employee for not wearing his or her name badge. Maybe it seems nitpicky, but I would not give an employee a pass on that item.

Once upon a time I worked for Major Big Box Store. Management constantly wrote up employees who weren’t wearing their name badges. Before leaving home, I always made sure that I had my name badge—well, except one time. That evening I borrowed a name badge from an associate who had clocked out for the day. Nobody noticed that it wasn’t mine.