The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!

I’ve had the good fortune to work white-collar, blue-collar, and sort of fuzzy gray-collar jobs during my life. I’ve been a low-paid mechanic and a relatively highly paid writer. I’ve built amusement park rides and made my way through a number of part-time, low-paying jobs - caterer, drummer, and ABC Sports graphics guy come to mind. I’ve been employed as a manager and as a worker bee. I was the median student in my 900+ high school graduating class and dropped out of college with 2 years under my belt to work as a freelance writer. However, it was a tough economy. I joined the Air Force instead.

I’ve never been too finicky about jobs. I change because something about the new one appeals to me. I’m decidedly lackadaisical about managing my career(s). I’d be the first to admit that my success has little to do with hard work or exceptional skills and more to do with being in the right place at the right time and having the ability to sling shit (much like I do with this blog) with the best of them. Now, at the ages of 51 and 53, Mrs. Poobah and I find ourselves in the top 3% of wage earners in this country - a designation that often labels us “rich”.

Million Dollars Homes and Testarossas
Most people in my economic class don’t consider themselves rich. I’m told even the uber-rich don’t see themselves that way. Although earning more interest in a day than some people make in a lifetime seems rich to me. I’m on the lower end of the third percentile. Folks like me don’t own multi-million dollar homes with Testarossas in the driveway, especially when living costs are as exceptionally high as here the San Francisco Bay Area. There’s as big a gap between me and the Larry Ellisons of the world as there is between minimum-wage ditch-diggers and highly paid computer programmers.

I don’t say these things to brag. I’ve arrived at this point in life completely baffled as to how I got here. I mention it because there’s a widening economic gap in this country that I’ve seen from both sides. Neither Mrs. Poobah nor I come from wealthy families. We know not only what it’s like to have less cash than bills, but some of our family members were amongst the poorest of the poor. We know how to be frugal, and to a great extent we still are. Yes, we could afford more expensive cars or a bigger house or frequent European vacations, but we don’t much indulge. We aren’t so far from our roots that profligate spending is comfortable for either of us.

I say these things because there are far too many people in my economic class with no sense of how hard it is to live on low wages. The only knuckles they’ve ever busted were scraped using their Montblancs to sign large checks or order the layoffs of a thousand people. They would have you believe that being highly paid is somehow a thankless job. They wail about the government taking their hard-earned money to give to those who have no medical care. They’d have you believe the burden of “creating” jobs is as great as working three of them to survive. They think salaries of 400 times the average worker’s are somehow justified. They cry about how hard it is to shutter a factory and send the jobs to India to meet their quarterly bonus target - although most of the crying comes in the headquarters of their personal wealth advisers.

A Little Secret: ‘They’re Full of Crap’
I’ll let you in on a little secret - they’re full of crap. I should know, I don’t find it difficult to live on high wages - I know I’m lucky. I have health-care and can afford to send my daughter to college. I can do this because I live in a 1775 sq. ft. tract house and not a palatial estate. I wouldn’t know what to do with a house the size of a Walmart if I did. Don’t believe them when they tell you how much they’re helping you by paying their “exorbitant” taxes or that you’re just jealous to complain about their userus interest rates on loans. They have way more than enough to share without adversely affecting anything other than their own outsized egos. Their attitude is let them eat cake and everyone else can scrounge for the crumbs.

Although I’m “rich”, I would dearly love to be much richer. I’d love to be able to emulate Warren Buffet and help the world with all the capital the rest of my crapweasel class has tied up in Big Dick-et items like yachts and private airplanes. I’d love to be able peel off a wad of bills to pay for the medical care of someone who’ll die without it. Nothing would make me happier than to cure disease, feed millions, or give kids an education.

I gladly pay my “exorbitant” taxes in gratitude and responsibility to a nation that’s given me so many things others cannot afford. I want to help those less fortunate than me and I try to remember that on the 1st and the 15th of every month. I give money to charities. I teach adult illiterates to read. I’ve pitched in as a disaster worker and loaned money I’ve never gotten back. And, I’ve done all those things regardless of my economic standing at the time. No matter how much I give, I know I can always give more, but I’m also mindfull that if I gave every cent and every minute of my life to curing the world’s ills, I’d still come up far short.

I only wish I were getting a little more help from the Texas wedding crowd and all the others like them.

The Poobah is a featured contributor at Bring It On!

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