CraigsList Scams for Job Seekers

Here's a link to a lengthy article I recently wrote, regarding one of the frustrating aspects of looking for work during these difficult times.

It's Always Darkest Before The Dawn

The past couple of years have been strange for me. That time period has had its high points, but it's had its low points as well.

On the one hand, I've made some excellent contacts in connection with my desire to launch a Christian ministry of the arts known as the Christian Arts Initiative. (For a PDF document pertaining to that vision for ministry, click the sidebar link entitled Christian Arts Initiative, or click here. For information about one of the contacts I made in connection with that vision, click here.) I've also made a lot of progress towards that goal in some other respects.

On the flip side, my life has been going downhill faster than a Soapbox Derby racer, in terms of my financial situation. My efforts to find a job have been fruitless for the most part. I have done a few side jobs and received a few charitable donations which have kept a roof over my head, but my housing situation is still very, very shaky on account of back rent which I owe. My job search is made more difficult by the fact that I no longer have a phone of my own, so I am forced to use pay phones (which are getting harder and harder to find in this age of cell phones) just to contact potential employers and check my voice mail messages. And there are other ways in which my lack of a substantial income is really hurting me.

The question, therefore, is whether or not my ambitious plans for ministry will be derailed by practical considerations. If I end up sleeping on the streets or in homeless shelters, it's highly likely that a lot of the progress I've already made will be nullified. That would break my heart.

I'm trying to be a man of faith and believe that the best is yet to come, but it isn't easy. So I could use your prayers (if you're a believing Christian), and I could also use any tangible help which you might feel led to offer.

Mark Pettigrew
30 W. Chicago Avenue
Room 1212
Chicago, IL 60610

773-509-8126 (Voice Mail)

mwp1212(at)gmail.com

What Happened To All The Pay Phones?

Not long ago, RCN (my phone company) cut me off because I fell too far behind on my phone bill. (I currently owe $220.) I didn't want to fall behind, but I had no income other than a small check I was receiving every month from a woman in Missouri. I was scarcely able to pay my rent, much less pay that phone bill. (I should mention that a substantial part of the $220 was late fees, not charges for actual phone calls.)

I figured that if worse came to worst, I could continue to search for work by using a pay phone for the purpose of making calls related to my job search. I'd have used the pay phone in the building where I lived, except that it often got so noisy in the residential lounge that I could barely hear myself think, much less hear someone at the other end of the phone line. (That's one of the drawbacks of living in a building inhabited by large numbers of rude and thoughtless people. They're often so loud that it's virtually impossible to hear dialog when watching shows on the TV in the lounge.)

It was very annoying for me to have to walk over to the Omni Hotel or Northwestern Medical Center in order to make such calls and in order to check my voice mail messages (at 773-509-8126), but it was doable. That's what I've been doing for the past couple of months.

No more. I went to the Omni Hotel today, and I discovered that there was no longer a pay phone in that building! That was upsetting enough, but when I walked over to Northwestern, I discovered that their pay phones had been removed as well, with the exception of one last pay phone (in the Feinberg Pavilion) which (for all I know) could easily be removed soon as well.

What's going on? I have no idea. The fact that pay phones were removed from multiple unrelated locations seems to suggest that Ameritech itself is to blame. (That's the company which was identified as the phone service provider on all of those phones.)

I guess that explains the lousy service I've been getting from them when I've tried to make long distance calls from those pay phones. They no longer have any commitment to good pay phone service, probably because they're getting out of the pay phone business in Chicago.

The one pay phone remaining at Northwestern (in the Feinberg Pavilion) has a sign indicating that AT&T is the company behind that phone. So maybe that's why it hasn't been removed yet. But the way things seem to be going, I wouldn't be surprised to return to that location and find that phone missing as well.

It might come as a surprise to some people, but not everyone in the world has a cell phone! Some people just can't afford their own cell phones. Plus, people who do have cell phones sometimes find themselves in need of pay phones because they left their cell phones at home, or their cell phones were lost or broken. What are they supposed to do if they can't find pay phones in such situations? Build smoke signals?

It's a weird situation when one can buy a phone which will take photos and play MP3 files and YouTube videos and games, but one can't find a simple public pay phone with which to make a call when one needs to make a phone call.

It's really a scary situation for me. I am never going to get myself out of the financial pit I'm in if I can't get a job. But how am I supposed to get work if I can't even find a phone with which to check my voice mail messages or contact potential employers? True, I do tell people that e-mail is the best way to reach me whenever I speak with them. But they don't always heed that advice. And there are a number of Help Wanted ads where they don't even list an e-mail address, so my only choice if I want to be considered for such jobs is to call them on the phone during normal business hours.

I shudder to think what would happen if I could no longer use the computers at the Apple Store or the library for sending and receiving e-mail. I'd be almost completely cut off from potential employers. That's unlikely to happen at the library, but I've seen a lot of changes at the Apple Store since they first opened their doors here. Today, it's possible to just walk in the door and use one of their computers to send and receive e-mail. Tomorrow? Who knows?

I do have a friend who might conceivably let me go over to his apartment in the evening and check my voice mail messages. But I don't want to constantly impose on him. Besides, I have to be able to make calls during the daytime, too, if I'm going to call potential employers, most of whom are only accessible during business hours.

One possible solution may lie in the fact that there's a Life Development Center (LDC) on the 5th floor at the Lawson House YMCA. They have long offered certain services in connection with the search for employment. They've allowed me to use the fax machine to send out resumes. (They insist on operating the fax machine themselves, even though I'm perfectly capable of doing so myself without any help.) If I explain the dire situation in which I now find myself, perhaps I can persuade them to allow me to regularly use one of the phones in that office in order to make job-related calls during the daytime. I really hope so.

Obviously, the ideal would be for me to pay my phone bill at RCN so I could get my own phone service again. I definitely plan to pay that bill when I'm able to do so. But first I have to get a job and a decent income!

It's highly unlikely that anyone from the phone companies will ever read this blog post, but just for the record, I think that the current dearth of pay phones stinks. Of course, if they want to give me a cell phone for free (even if it's just a prepaid phone with a limited number of minutes), I might revise that opinion. But that's not likely to happen.

UPDATE: Here's a link to a document (created with Google Docs) containing some additional notes on this subject.

Even Christians Get The Blues

If I were a perfect Christian, I would always be upbeat and positive. I would always be confident in the Lord's protection and provision. I would never become fearful, worried or distressed. But I am not a perfect Christian.

Some days are better than others. Sometimes I am able to enjoy the day in a relatively carefree manner. But when funds start to run low and I don't know where my next paycheck is coming from, I start to think about just how close I am to the possibility of a disaster which will leave me homeless and living in the street or in a homeless shelter.

On past occasions, my depression has become so severe that I have contemplated suicide. I've also experienced physical symptoms, in recent years, which I know are direct results of the depression. Shortness of breath, an excessively fast heartbeat, tingling in my extremities (such as my fingertips) and other similar symptoms have accompanied some of my episodes of depression.

It's possible, of course, that those symptoms have been tied to the hypertension I discussed in an earlier blog post. But it's also possible that at least some of the hypertension is directly attributable to the depression. Stress is listed as one of the causes of hypertension, and an unemployed person who is running out of time and money is generally under a lot of stress.

Nevertheless, the Lord has taken me through those times of depression, and I'm still alive and kicking. Well, alive at any rate. I don't do a whole lot of kicking.

Considering the fact that I've been unemployed for the bulk of 2007, I have done fairly well in comparison with similar experiences in the more distant past. But I've still had moments of anguish, despair and fear during the past year, and even in the past few days.

When I experience such moments, I find that the best way to find relief is to fight back. I have to actively speak positive thoughts which are full of faith in Christ, even though those thoughts may not reflect the way I am really feeling at the moment.

Sometimes, I remind myself of various scriptures which encourage me. At other times, I sing a little song to myself. It goes like this:

God is gonna' take care of me,
even though how is hard to see.
Faithful to him, I have got to be,
for God will take care of me.

In the middle of the darkest night,
I have got to put up a fight,
resist the Devil with all my might,
for I'm walking by faith and not by sight.

Is it a magical formula which instantly makes all of my worries disappear? No. But it does seem to help a lot.

Unemployment Blues

I've often heard it said that finding a job, when one is unemployed, is a job. If only that were true.

In my opinion, looking for a job is often a lot harder than working at a job once one has procured employment.

With a typical job, one has a reasonable amount of certainty that one's hard work will pay off. As long as one is employed, there is a reasonable guarantee of a paycheck every week, every two weeks or every month.

When one is unemployed, on the other hand, one can easily spend many hours trying to find work, only to turn up empty handed at the end of the week.

With a job, one may have to deal with the stress of the job itself (especially when working for people who treat one with great disrespect), but one doesn't have the added stress of trying to figure out how to obtain adequate food, how to keep paying one's bills, and how to keep paying one's rent (or mortgage) in order to avoid homelessness.

When one is unemployed, a substantial amount of time can be spent just trying to procure emergency assistance so that one can survive until one is able to find employment. And that's assuming that such assistance is available. Often, depending on the type of help one needs, the help one needs is not available.

When asking for help, rejection can cause depression, and to a state of mind which is not at all conducive to a successful job search. Even when help is available, asking for such help can be stressful and humiliating. Feelings of guilt and low self-esteem are not uncommon.

With a job, it isn't always perfectly clear what one ought to do in order to please one's boss, but it's still a lot easier to figure out what is expected of one when one is on the job than it is to figure out which strategy is most likely to succeed in terms of procuring a new job.

When searching for work, there are known strategies which increase one's chances of finding work, but there are no guarantees. One can do all of the "right things" and still turn up empty handed for any number of reasons.

I've had more than my share of jobs, and I've gone through more than my share of periods of unemployment. If I had been in complete control of my own life, I would have gotten one good job and kept it for the rest of my life. But that has not always been something within my power to control. So I just keep plugging, trying to do the best I can do in difficult and stressful circumstances, and hoping that in the end, it will be enough.

So far, I've managed to survive. But that is by no means guaranteed. And besides, it would be really nice, for a change, if I could do a lot more than just survive.

Falling Between The Cracks

In the past few years, there has been much talk of "faith based initiatives" and the many ways in which the Church can do a better job than the state when it comes to helping the needy.

In theory, I believe that the Church is better equipped than the state when it comes to charitable works designed to help the needy. The Church was involved in charitable work long before most local, state and federal governments became involved in such work.

The governmental practice of avoiding anything even remotely hinting of religion has often meant that their hands were tied when it came to addressing the spiritual causes of problems such as criminality, drug abuse and teen pregnancy.

However, it would be false to claim that the Church always did a better job of addressing social needs than the government. In some cases, what the Church has to offer is really pretty lame.

I have been in a position in which I needed emergency help on more than one occasion, so I have had the opportunity to look into what types of help are actually available. Certain types of help have been relatively easy to find and procure. Other types of help have been considerably more difficult to obtain.

In this blog article, I want to look into at what types of help a person might conceivably need. I want to look at what the Church does right. I also want to look at what the Church could be doing much better.

FEEDING THE HUNGRY

Food is a fundamental need for all human beings. To their credit, many churches seem to understand that fact. Some support "soup kitchens". Others work with local agencies such as the Chicago Food Depository, in order to distribute food obtained from secular sources by means of food distribution centers staffed by church volunteers.

In neither case could it accurately be said that it is possible to obtain enough food to meet all of one's needs, but at least the churches do seem to be involved, to a greater or lesser extent, in feeding the hungry. In conjunction with government "food stamps" (which fairly easy to qualify for and receive), the programs offered by the Church can be sufficient to keep a person from starving to death.

That isn't to say that such programs are beyond reproach by any means.

For example, the scheduling is often done very poorly. Often, if a church has its own soup kitchen, that soup kitchen will only be open one or two days a week at most. If all of the soup kitchens would coordinate their schedules, then it would be theoretically possible for a person to eat every day of the week, just by going to different soup kitchens on different days. Instead, I've seen cases in which two or more churches will both schedule their soup kitchen days on the same day of the week, at the same time, so that it's literally impossible for an individual to benefit from both programs. Even though two or more churches are offering soup kitchen days, it may be that a particular needy person is unable to take advantage of all the help which is theoretically available, for the simple reason that the person cannot be in two places at the same time. That makes no sense to me.

Another thing that makes no sense is when a needy person has to spend so much money on transportation to get to and from a particular soup kitchen that whatever savings were realized by getting the free meal are lost by paying for the trip to and from the soup kitchen.

Here in Chicago, a round trip ticket on the bus and/or subway generally costs about $4.00. One can buy a good meal at McDonalds for that kind of money (if one drinks water rather than a soft drink). One can go to the grocery store and buy enough food for a good meal for that kind of money. (A meal consisting of ramen noodles and a can of chicken, for example, can be had for less than $3.00.)

If a poor person has $4.00 to spend, and if the choice is between walking next door and buying $4.00 worth of food (without having any related transportation expenses) or taking a bus trip across town in order to get a "free" meal at a church's soup kitchen, it may be a toss-up as to which is a better choice. In fact, in such cases, it often makes more sense just to go ahead and spend the money on the food, because doing so may take far less time. When one is looking for work, one cannot afford to schedule one's entire week around the schedules and locations of various soup kitchens.

Government food stamps are far superior in that respect. One can use them, regardless of where one lives, without having to travel halfway across town in order to do so. One might have to take a single trip across town in order to apply for such benefits, but once one has been approved for the benefits, one doesn't have to keep going back on a regular basis in order to receive those benefits.

The first thing the churches need to do, if they want to sell folks on the idea that they are as good at addressing the needs of the hungry as the government, is to create a similar faith-based program which is widely recognized by grocery stores and inexpensive restaurants throughout the city or region. Food vouchers could easily be issued by numerous churches which were all participants in an interfaith program, and the administrators of the program could then coordinate their efforts with private businesses so that the vouchers could be used almost anywhere, with obvious limitations on the types of food items which could be purchased. (No $30 steak dinners or $100 bottles of champagne!)

Vouchers could be obtained from any nearby church which was a member of the interfaith initiative, rather than forcing people to spend money on transportation in order to go get their food vouchers.

Another problem with many church soup kitchens is that they tend to operate on the assumption that the person being helped is able to be physically present at the soup kitchen at the time when the meal is being served. Who does that leave out in the cold? People who are struggling to get by on the small amount of money they're able to eke out of their minimum wage part-time jobs, that's who. If their employers schedule them to work on the same days and at the same times as the soup kitchens, then they have to choose between being fed or going to work. That's ridiculous. Offering meal vouchers instead would enable people to buy meals (even in fast food restaurants, if necessary) anywhere in the city, so that they need not choose between eating and working. The same comments are applicable to people who need to feel free to travel around the city in an effort to find work. It's hard enough to find a good job these days without being anchored to one region of the city during certain times of the day or week. A good food voucher program would mean that people didn't have to choose between being fed or going to job interviews in order to find jobs which would lift them out of their difficult circumstances.

Why doesn't the Church implement such a program? My suspicion is that the administrators of many church-based soup kitchens aren't really motivated primarily by a desire to feed the hungry. Rather, the food is just a lure to get folks in the door so that they can hear the gospel.

I have nothing against preaching the gospel. In fact, I wish that more people could hear the saving message of Jesus Christ. But I think it's morally inexcusable to offer charity with such strings attached. Listening to the gospel should be something folks do because they're genuinely interested in the message, not because that's what they're forced to do if they want to receive emergency help. My message to those who have to resort to such bribery to persuade folks to listen to their sermons is that they need to improve the quality of their sermons. Then the bribery won't be necessary.

Visit any soup kitchen and stand in line in order to get a meal. You will witness a strange phenomenon. Before and after the meal, when talking amongst themselves, many of the folks in line will be cursing a blue streak. But when the chaplain in charge asks everyone to pray, many of the ones who have demonstrated just moments before that they really have no deep regard for Christ will bow their heads and go through the motions of praying for their meals. Why? Because they know that it's expected of them. It's what they feel they have to do in order to get the help they need. This kind of a scenario breeds a type of insincerity which is spiritually injurious to those who are forced by their personal circumstances to play the charity game.

HOUSING FOR THE HOMELESS AND THE POTENTIALLY HOMELESS

Compared with what's available for people who are homeless or on the verge of becoming homeless, the food situation is relatively good.

Yes, there are homeless shelters. But take a look into how such shelters are actually operated, and you will quickly see that things could and should be done much, much better than they are.

First of all, most homeless shelters only offer a place to sleep at night. During the daytime, they're expected to leave and to take everything they own with them.

In the early nineties, I briefly looked into the possibility of staying at the Pacific Garden Mission, during a time in my life when I was seriously worried that staying there might be my only option. I discovered that they offered no storage whatsoever for one's personal possessions, during the daytime. If one had a suitcase full of clothes, one was expected to take that suitcase with one every day, when leaving the facility, because they would not store it for you in a locker or storage room during the daytime.

Imagine what a drawback it would be, when applying for a job, if one walked into the job interview carrying all of one's worldly possessions because one could not find anyplace to leave those possessions!

A properly operated homeless shelter would take into account the fact that people need storage for their possessions if they are to ever get back on their feet.

I'm not just talking about storage for the relatively limited number of possessions they can carry with them. Sometimes people become homeless solely because they cannot continue to pay their rent due to changing circumstances. Yet, they may already have a lot of furniture and other possessions for which they worked long and hard, back when they still had jobs. Having to throw those things away because there is no longer anyplace to put them can be heartbreaking and emotionally debilitating.

Some organization needs to offer free storage (for limited periods of time) to such people, so that they can survive without having to give away or throw away almost everything they own. That would even include parking for people who still own their own vehicles. Not having a vehicle can be a real liability when it comes to getting certain types of jobs (particularly when those jobs are located in the suburbs). One would not expect the Church to buy vehicles for such people, but at the very least, it would be nice if help could be offered so that such people didn't have to give away the vehicles they already owned! If every suburban church with its own parking lot set aside 5 of its parking spaces for such a purpose, it would make a huge difference in the lives of a lot of temporarily displaced people.

It would help even more if suburban families with extra spaces in their own garages or driveways would offer parking for those who had temporarily lost their own homes.

------------

Another drawback, related to most homeless shelters, is that they almost all operate on the assumption that any person who is homeless is in need of rehabilitation services. To someone in need of such services, that can be a blessing. To someone who is not in need of such services, it can be insulting and demeaning to be forced to participate in such a program. More to the point, forcing a person to waste time in a rehabilitation program which is not really needed by that particular person can actually hinder that person's ability to get a job, find a normal apartment and get back on his or her feet again quickly.

Certainly, it's true that people who are either mentally ill or addicted to drugs or alcohol are more vulnerable to homelessness than the general population, but it does not follow from that fact that anyone who needs emergency housing needs rehabilitation. The only thing wrong with some homeless people is that they lack homes and/or jobs. If one is evicted for nonpayment of rent, it doesn't necessarily mean that one is irresponsible. It may simply be that one has been trying, without success, to get a job. In some cases, it may even mean that one has a low-paying job but has not yet been able to save up enough money from that job to get caught up on one's rent.

A related problem is that many emergency housing programs are only available to people with problems with addiction or mental illness or specific "politically correct" physical illnesses such as AIDS.

I have no problem with the idea that such people should be eligible for emergency assistance. I do have a big problem with the fact that there are so few options for comparatively ordinary people whose only fault is that they have temporarily fallen behind on their rent because they cannot find work and they cannot qualify for unemployment insurance benefits. Why should preferential treatment be given to people who have failed to resist the temptation to engage in extremely risky behavior, while those who have successfully resisted those temptations are sometimes less likely to receive the help they need?

------------

Wouldn't you think that it would make more sense to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place, than to respond to such homelessness only after the fact? I suspect that if you looked at the actual numbers, you would find that financial assistance which would help people to avoid eviction by helping them to pay back rent which they owed would ultimately be less costly than waiting until those people became homeless and then dealing with them as homeless people. Certainly, it would be far less traumatic for the people being helped.

I find it both sad and strange that many churches seem to be far more interested in financing missionary endeavors in far away countries than they are in helping people in their own neighborhoods in times of crisis. I have nothing against missionary work, but I also believe in the wisdom of the old saying that charity begins at home.

If a person in crisis cries out for help to a local church, and if those cries for help fall on deaf ears, then why shouldn't that person distrust claims to the effect that that same church is using its foreign missions money in the way that it claims that the money is being used? While it is true that donations to one's local church are not to be thought of as some kind of insurance policy, it is also true that churches which respond with indifference to the crying needs of their own people ought not to be surprised when those who have received such a response conclude that their churches don't really care about them, and when they respond to such indifference by either searching for more caring churches or abandoning the Church altogether.

In addition to the fact that local churches ought to offer emergency rental assistance programs so as to prevent people from ever becoming homeless in the first place, such churches also need to be actively involved in helping unemployed or marginally employed people to find work so that the need for such assistance is not a recurring need over a long period of time.

While it is true that some people who can work refuse to do so, it is presumptuous to assume that because a person is not currently working, that person does not wish to do so. Getting a job quickly is sometimes much easier said than done.

Even if a church has very little in terms of monetary resources, virtually every church worthy of the name has a telephone and a list of contact information for members, to say nothing of connections with other churches in the area. So what's to stop a pastor or church leader from getting on the phone and calling everyone possible to tell them about a particular person's need for help, and to urge them to pray about doing whatever they can do to help that person?

These days, many churches also have their own web sites. What's to stop such churches from using their web sites specifically for the purpose of making their members aware of specific members who are in need of help? What's to stop them from using their web sites for the purpose of appealing for help on behalf of those who need such help? It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that if it was obvious that they were actively working toward the purpose of contributing to the material well being of others, that would draw more people to their churches, and it would ultimately enhance their own prospects for success.

Most churches do have the resources to help people in crisis. The fact that churches seldom use their abundant resources for that purpose is a sad commentary on their lack of real compassion for the people who, in many cases, have made their ministries possible in the first place.

------------

One of the biggest problems I see, when it comes to church-based charities, is that those who are involved in such charities often use that involvement as a means of imposing their own views on the people they are helping.

For example, when I looked into the possibility of receiving help from Pacific Garden Missions, I learned that they were not content to merely require that participants in their programs attend their chapel services. They also mandated that it was unacceptable for participants to attend certain types of churches or to listen to certain types of Christian music (such as Christian rock music)! In short, it wasn't just Christianity they were forcing on others, it was their particular brand of extremely conservative Christianity that they were forcing on others. I even seem to recall that their was a provision in their policy handbook which stated that it was unacceptable for participants in their program to attend Pentecostal or charismatic worship services!

I couldn't help but think that if they were really convinced that their particular take on Christianity was the correct one, they would not have felt the need to force people to adopt those views (or to externally conform to those views for the duration of their stay) in order to receive the help they needed.

Homelessness is inherently humiliating for the homeless, even without adding in such factors. To be forced to temporarily abandon one's own personal convictions (about matters which genuine Christians often cannot agree upon) merely adds to that humiliation. For a person who has been a committed Christian all of his or her life to be told implicitly that he or she is a second class Christian and that he or she must temporarily pretend to hold altogether different views in order to qualify for help he or she needs is just wrong, in my opinion.

------------

Back in the early 90's, I was terrified at the prospect of having to stay at the Pacific Garden Mission --- not because I was too proud to ask for help, or even because I thought that some of their rules were ridiculous, but because it seemed clear to me that being forced to do so would actually make my situation even worse than it already was.

As it turned out, God delivered me from having to stay there. Instead, a Christian I met during that time of crisis invited me to live with him, his wife and his son in their suburban home in Lindenhurst, IL. He even gave me a room of my own, and fed me on occasions. He helped me to find a job, and allowed me to save a certain amount of money to be applied to rent at a new place before requiring that I leave his home. His name was John Speckman. His wife was Debby Speckman and his young son was named Johnny. John wasn't perfect, but I will be forever grateful to John and his family for taking a chance and reaching out to me with genuine Christian compassion. It saddens me that I have lost track of him. (He was an engineer for NutraSweet, in Mt. Prospect, IL during the early nineties when all of this occurred.)

I hope that if I am ever in such a situation again, I will be able to find similar help from another Christian. But what I would really prefer would be that God would materially bless me so that I could pass that favor on to someone else.

Even though churches often have many social programs these days, those programs simply are not adequate to cover every conceivable situation. They are often based on demeaning stereotypes which are not universally applicable to specific people in specific situations.

We need more individual Christians, like John Speckman, who will recognize the limitations of social service programs, whether those programs are church-based or government-based, and who will do whatever it takes to insure that no one who needs help fails to receive help.

I Hear The Whistle Blowing

Being stuck in a job where one is belittled and threatened with job loss on a regular basis is a really unpleasant experience. It's like being tied to the train tracks in the path of an oncoming train. One can hear that whistle blowing as the train gets nearer and nearer, but one has no ability to stop the train or avoid the collision. All one can do is hope that the train is further away than it sounds.

As comparisons go, I think that's a pretty good comparison. But it isn't really fully adequate.

When being hit by a real train, it's reasonable to suppose that one's moment of actual pain would be mercifully brief, provided that it was a direct hit. One might suppose that death would be instant, and that one wouldn't be alive long enough to really experience any pain. It seems reasonable to assume that the anticipation and the fear would be the worst part of the experience.

With a job loss, there is nothing particularly merciful or brief about it. Instead of bringing relief, the actual moment in which one is told that one has been fired merely initiates a long process in which one repeatedly does one's best to smile and act as optimistic as possible during job interviews, even though one is dying inside. It doesn't help that one is expected to refrain from criticizing one's former employers, even in situations where one was often treated with little or no consideration and respect.

It gets harder to stay optimistic the longer the job search process takes. And the older one gets, the longer the job search process seems to take. During that time, funds shrink (even if one is fortunate enough to qualify for unemployment insurance), and one's self esteem and hope for the future diminish with every incident in which one has to plead for one's landlord to be patient and to abstain from evicting one from one's home long enough for one to secure another job and get back on one's feet again.

During times of unemployment, one basically is not allowed to have a real life. Every moment spent in some endeavor other than looking for work is filled with guilt. That includes time spent sleeping. Yet, sleep offers the only relief from the constant awareness of one's predicament. With no job to go to, it's very hard to get motivated to make do with five or six hours of sleep when one's body really needs eight hours or more.

Somehow, it seems that one always gets a job at the end of the process, but the road leading to that event is often long, twisted and rocky. What makes it worse is that one is often forced at the end of the road to take yet another mindnumbingly boring job which is not much better (if any) from one's previous job.

How does one get into such a position? It's easy. No dastardly villain is necessary. All it takes is to be poor and powerless, lacking adequate resources with which to pursue the type of job for which one is really suited. Which, in my cases, is no job at all. For most of my life, I have tried to fit into a variety of job situations, but in most of those jobs, to a greater or lesser degree, I have felt like the proverbial square peg in a round hole.

I am not by any means averse to hard work. But what I long for is a "job" in which the work, no matter how hard, is so enjoyable that it doesn't really feel like work. I know that I have many viable, marketable skills. There are people in this world who are able to support themselves doing things they love. There are people who say hello to the boss every morning when they look into the mirror. Why can't I be one of those people?

Sometimes, talent can be a blessing. Sometimes, though, it can feel like a curse. It would be easy in some ways for me to resign myself to mind numbing work where job security was a distant illusion and the pay was just barely enough to pay the bills, if I had no other conceivable options, and if I didn't know that I had abundant untapped potential. But that's not the case. I long to work in a field which makes the most of my abilities as a musician, writer, artist, photographer and more. I am daily working on personal goals with that objective in mind. But every time I seem to make some progress, it seems that I suffer a financial setback which causes me to lose ground. To say that it's frustrating is an extreme understatement.

I was once accused by a pastor of being "lazy". This, despite the fact that I had only been unemployed (after being fired for failing to meet a sales quota) for a very short time.

Prior to that, the aforementioned pastor knew good and well that I'd been working 12 hours a day at a job that barely paid minimum wage. I'd spent another 4 hours a day commuting. (It was a 2 hour bus ride to and from work.) All told, I'd been spending 16 hours a day either working or riding to and from work. How that qualified as "lazy" was a mystery to me. Apparently, this particular pastor wasn't satisfied that I was spending virtually all of my waking hours in work related activities. He thought I ought to be giving up my sleep as well.

In situations like that, one begins to feel like an orange being squeezed by a huge vise, long after all of the juice is all gone.

But don't dare complain in a situation like that. Oh, no! You'll likely be accused of "whining" by people (including some so-called Christian leaders) whose personal dictionaries do not include words like "compassion" and "empathy". They'll accuse you of holding a "pity party". They'll let you know that they have no interest in your problems or your life. And then they'll expect you to joyfully put money in their collection plates. Just don't count on getting any of it back during times of crisis.

Of course, there will be exceptions. You will occasionally get lucky, or blessed, and find someone who actually practices what he or she preaches. Someone who knows that when a person is down and out, that person needs a helping hand, not a kick in the teeth. But that will be the exception, not the rule. Or at least, it has been for me.

Getting older stinks in some ways. The hair thins and then disappears. The teeth and other parts of the body begin to show their age, especially if one cannot afford regular medical or dental care. Stairs that used to be easy to climb become difficult to climb. The names of old friends increasingly show up in the obituaries.

If one has little or nothing in the form of a financial "nest egg", as is often the case when one is living from one paycheck to the next, then growing old can also be cause for fear. What if the "inevitable" job at the end of the job search process stops being so inevitable? What if one's landlord runs out of patience altogether? What if no one wants to hire one because one has accrued so many bad experiences that it's harder to get a good job reference than it is to pull the teeth of a saltwater crocodile? For these and other reasons, growing old leaves a lot to be desired.

But old age can also be a blessing, if one believes that an eternity in heaven awaits those who continue to do their best to serve and obey God in spite of this massive pile of dung known as life on earth.

Every passing day brings a person of faith one step closer to the arrival of another kind of train. Curtis Mayfield once sang the following song:

People get ready, there's a train a-comin'.
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board.
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.

I once attended a philosophy discussion group at a local secular bookstore. I may have been the only Christian in attendance. Each time they met, they would write down interesting questions they wanted to discuss. Then those questions would be read aloud, and the group would vote for the topic they wished to discuss. At the meeting I attended, someone asked, "Will science ever discover a cure for death? Would that be a desirable thing?"

What a question! That's like asking a person sentenced to prison for life whether or not that person would like to stay in that prison forever. When it was my turn to speak, I said that an eternity here on earth would be a curse, not a blessing, unless solutions could be found to all of the other problems which make life on earth such a miserable experience at times. And I did not believe that such a thing was possible, because we lived in a fallen world which was irreparably tainted with selfishness and sin.

Yes, life here on earth can sometimes be enjoyable, but even those who are relatively blessed in this life are constantly being reminded of just how far this life falls short of what it was meant to be. In this world, there are the "haves" and the "have nots". If you're a "have not", you have numerous problems to deal with, and many of those problems (although not all by any means) are related to financial needs. But being a "have" isn't necessarily much better. If you're a "have", you can't pick up a newspaper or turn on the television news without being reminded that others are suffering. How can you respond to such knowledge? You can either suffer with and for people who suffer, or you can ignore their pleas for help until your soul becomes dead and you become a hollow wraith instead of a man or a woman.

In terms of real pleasure, both of those alternatives leave a lot to be desired. Most people minimize the discomfort by trying to find a balance between those two extremes, but that isn't easy. It shouldn't be necssary. In heaven, it won't be necessary.

In the short term, I hear a train whistle. It tells me that I may not be at my current job much longer. It tells me that leaving that job may be an involuntary experience on my part. I'm not looking forward to the arrival of that train. I hope that I'm mistaken about the inevitability of its arrival.

But that other train? That's a different story. I'm waiting for a train which is bound for glory. The sound of that train whistle is sweet music in my ears. All of the hypocritical preachers and uncompassionate bosses in the world cannot diminish my faith in the Lord who commands that train. I know in whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep my soul until that day.

An Urgent Plea for Help and Prayer

The following blog post may be of interest to people searching for terms such as Christian music, Christian art, Christian ministry, Christian charity, Christian benevolence, emergency funds, Chicago Christians, etc.

Introduction

Background Information

Health Issues

My Other Blog

The Christian Artists' Resource Center

More About Me

The Chase

My Contact Information

Concluding Comments

Postscript Re: Print Sales


INTRODUCTION

Have you ever had an iron anvil dropped on your head? Neither have I, but I think I have a pretty good idea what it would feel like, because I've felt that way a number of times in my life, and I feel that way now. I'm writing this blog article in order to explain why that is the case.

Now, you may be from the "cut to the chase" school, and you may just want to know what the main topic of the blog is all about. Well, that's why they make scroll bars and internal links and anchors. You don't have to read this entire blog post if you don't want to do so.

You can scroll to the bottom of the post right away (or click "the chase") and you can get all of the basic information you need without bothering to get any background information which would help you to put this urgent plea into its proper context.

I'm providing preliminary background information for the sake of those who are inclined to be skeptical about pleas for help, and who feel that they need to know a lot more before they will donate anything to help a person in need.

Back to Introduction

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

If you've read all of the other blog posts on this site, then you know that my primary passion in life is using my artistic talents (as a musician, writer, poet, photographer, pen & ink portrait artist, digital artist and more) as a means of doing the best I can to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, achieving the goal of making a full time living pursuing that passion has been much easier said than done. Consequently, I have struggled with finances for a substantial portion of my life, and I've often found myself working at jobs which paid poorly and which had little or nothing to do with my passion.

For the past nine months, I have been working about 30 hours a week as a telephone surveyor. It is hardly what I would describe as my dream job, but I desperately needed a job when I was hired there in the middle of February 2006, and I couldn't afford to be very choosy. Since losing my job as a legal assistant in the middle of October 2005, I had been unemployed, with the exception of a couple of very brief temp assignments doing office work.

I'd been very active in my job search, particularly in terms of responding to classified ads I had found at CraigsList, but I hadn't managed to find an office job despite my numerous job skills, which included a typing speed of 65 to 70 wpm, as well as fluency in Microsoft Word and Access (with more limited knowledge of Excel and Powerpoint).

What's worse, my former boss had successfully challenged my application for unemployment insurance benefits, and I'd never made a huge amount of money at that job to begin with, so I had very little money to live on. I was beginning to get desperate.

I might have been evicted from my apartment for non-payment of rent if it had not been for a monetary gift which I received from the church I was attending (and still sometimes attend). But that money only went so far. I didn't want to have to go to that church and ask for similar help a second time, partly because I didn't want to be an excessive burden on any individual or church, and partly because I wasn't sure that they would have said "yes" if I had done so. (Not that they aren't generous people, but their financial limitations had been apparent to me from the time when I started attending that church.) I hated having to accept charity from my church, but I would have hated being thrown out into the street even more, so I was grateful that my pastor saw my need and responded to that need.

Nevertheless, if I hadn't gotten the job I have now, it seems likely that I would have been in serious trouble. After all, it's not as if I was living in luxurious digs to begin with. When you've been evicted from an inner city YMCA because you can't pay your rent, you know that you've gotten pretty close to rock bottom, and you know that the chances of finding another landlord willing to rent to you are extremely slim.

My phone surveyor job does not allow me the option of working a full-time, 40-hour work week, but I could have had a work schedule of as many as 35 hours if I'd so chosen. It might seem as though I should have chosen to work the full 35 hours available to me, but there were a couple of reasons I didn't choose to do so (although I may still do so in the future, if necessary).

One reason was that the person who taught the training class I took told us that she highly advised that we limit our shifts to 30 hours a week initially. In my experience, it was good advice. The job can be pretty intense in the sense that it requires one's full attention from the moment one clocks in to the moment one clocks out.

Back to Introduction

HEALTH ISSUES

It didn't help that I went through a period of several months last year in which I was experiencing a lot of dental pain which made it much harder to concentrate on the job. That front tooth still needs work, although the pain eventually diminished considerably after at least a couple of months of constantly dabbing Anbesol on it whenever the pain became almost unbearable.

During the past week, I've experienced additional dental issues as a result of the fact that a crown put in by a dentist some time ago recently fell off. The remaining part of the tooth is so sharp that talking on the phone has recently been very uncomfortable, and sometimes downright painful, for me.

Dental insurance? What dental insurance? The company I work for provides virtually nothing in the way of job benefits such as health insurance or paid vacations. Having had jobs in the past which did provide such benefits, I definitely wish that my current job offered such benefits as well. But one takes what one can get when jobs get scarce.

This fall, not long after my dental pain had begun to subside, I caught a cold which seemed to be going around. I've finally gotten over that cold, thank the Lord, but it took a very long time to do so. Despite the ample use of sanitary wipes when starting every work shift, a large room full of roughly 100 telephone surveyors is a place where colds are easily spread from one person to another. A cold may seem like a trivial thing, but when one makes one's living talking on the phone, constantly coughing and hacking and sneezing can be a real trial.

And of course, there have been issues pertaining to high blood pressure and to the fact that I've been need of a hernia operation for several years now.

Now, I don't want to leave the impression that I spent all of 2006 suffering from various ailments, because that isn't the case. And I certainly ought to acknowledge that my health issues may seem trivial to some people suffering from life threatening or debillitating health problems far worse than mine. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that I have inadequate money with which to deal with these issues, the health issues I'm experiencing might seem relatively trivial.

As a conservative Christian, I generally tend to vote for candidates who oppose legal abortion and other things I consider to be bad for society. But I admit that I am inclined to support the idea of "universal health care" (provided that some of its shortcomings are addressed), for obvious reasons.

Back to Introduction

MY OTHER BLOG (NOW DELETED)

Another thing that occupied my time during the first half of 2006, after getting my new job, was that I set up a second blog at a site hosted by LifeWithChrist.org. Unlike the blogs I've written at this site, I got a lot of traffic and comments on that site. I'd begun to feel that I'd found a loving community of fellow Christians. The positive feedback I got about many of the articles I'd written made me feel very good. Previously, I'd felt pretty cut off from the Christian community (even when I was regularly going to church). The blog gave me the chance to communicate some ideas I'd been wanting to share with others for a very long time.

Eventually, things went kind of sour for me, to the point that I deliberately deleted my Life with Christ blog and washed my hands of it, but I don't regret the time I spent on that blog. I like to think that I planted some seeds of good thoughts which will eventually bear positive fruit.

The time I spent working on that blog was motivated by a number of factors. One of the primary factors was that I hoped to be able to establish connections with people in order to communicate my vision for an ambitious Christian ministry of the arts to be known as the Christian Artists' Resource Center.

Back to Introduction

THE CHRISTIAN ARTISTS' RESOURCE CENTER

There isn't adequate space here to describe my vision for the Christian Artists' Resource Center, so if you're interested in the idea of a comprehensive Christian ministry of the arts, I invite you to open and print and read the following PDF files (if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader or another program capable of opening PDF files):

Proposal re: the Christian Artists' Resource Center

To Do List re: the Christian Artists' Resource Center

I believe that once I am able to implement my plans for the website for the Christian Artists' Resource Center, I can begin to make at least part of my living by selling a variety of products I have created (such as full-color flower & garden photos to be sold in the form of fine art prints, greeting cards and other projects), as well as products I'll create on commission (such as pen & ink portraits based on people's photographic portraits), using an e-commerce website I have been planning to set up for the Christian Artists' Resource Center.

(To see an online gallery of my flower & garden photos, please visit this web page. Keep in mind that the web hosting for that site is free, and I don't have any control over the contents over the banner ads on the site.)

I've registered the domain name www.artisticchristians.com, and I've paid for hosting services which won't expire or need renewal until August 2006. That's the address (or one of the addresses) which I plan to use for the website for the Christian Artists' Resource Center.

My plans for that web site go far beyond merely meeting my own material needs by selling my art and photos on the site. I also hope to develop it into a web site (and, eventually, a far more comprehensive ministry) which will benefit many other artistically talented Christians as well.

If you take the time to read the preceding "to do" list, you will soon understand why I say that setting up such a web site and doing the many other things I felt needed to be done in order to turn my vision for the Christian Artists' Resource Center into a reality is and will be a very time consuming project. (And I've added many more items to that "to do" list since that time, as a result of things I've learned via my ongoing research into the project and its requirements.)

I still feel that that's a goal I need to pursue. I've gotten some very positive feedback about the project from some very well-known and talented Christians working in the arts.

In helping me in my time of temporary crisis, you will also be investing in the possibility that the vision expressed in the "first draft" PDF files listed above will come to pass.

MORE ABOUT ME

If you still feel that you need to know more about me in order to persuade you that I am a person who is sincere about serving the Lord, I would invite you to read earlier articles in this blog (such as this article about drinking water and Christian missions), and to visit my other website at www.markpettigrew.com, and to write to me if there are any things which aren't answered in the process of doing so.

Back to Introduction

THE CHASE

O.K., either you're the type of person who has a short attention span and/or very limited time (in which case you probably skipped most of the previous paragraphs), or else you've read the preceding information. Either way, the bottom line is this:

Tonight, I reached into my "fannie pack" and discovered something that really shook me up: My wallet was gone, along with all the ID cards in the wallet at the time and approximately $600. Ouch!!!

Was my pocket picked? Did I inadvertently lose the wallet in some other way? Frankly, I'm not sure. I've tried retracing my steps, and thoroughly searching my apartment, but so far, I haven't been able to find the wallet or its contents.

To some people, $600 is a small amount of money, but not for me. My take home pay for two four-week pay periods is slightly less than $1,000, and that's assuming that I qualify for the bonus my company offers for extra productivity on the phones. (I have good reason to believe that I won't qualify for that bonus when receiving my next paycheck.) In short, I'm pretty much living from paycheck to paycheck, with only a small amount of extra money with which to pay for an occasional luxury such as a cappuccino at McDonalds. I haven't had a working TV set in 2 years, because replacing the broken TV just hasn't been my highest priority.

Fortunately, I do still have my ATM debit card, so I don't have to worry about a thief using that card to access the money I do have in my checking account, but that money is very limited. It should keep me fed for the next week or two, but it won't do much more than that. And rent is due soon.

What I need is to raise some emergency funds, fast. I don't want to ask for exhorbitant amounts of money from anyone. But if I could get a one-time donation of just $10 from 60 different people or churches --- preferably from people who share my values and goals --- that would replace the lost and/or stolen money.

Now, I know what you're probably thinking: Hey, dummy, what were you doing carrying $600 or so around in your wallet? Well, I'd just cashed my paycheck recently at the bank down the street, and I hadn't yet gotten around to depositing the money in my own bank. Ironically, right before the incident happened, I'd been planning to do just that, because it occurred to me that losing the wallet could create major problems for me.

As for the question of any "carelessness" which might theoretically have led to the loss and/or theft of my wallet, please don't go there. Believe me, I'm probably going to be beating myself up over this for a long time, so there's no need for anyone else to remind me that I might possibly still have the wallet if I'd been more careful.

If you're wondering why I provided the preceding background information about myself prior to adding this section, it's simply that I felt that it was necessary in order to help readers to better appreciate why I am in the position of needing to ask for help, and why I feel that I deserve such help (to the extent that anyone deserves charitable help).

Of course, if you're the type of person who doesn't share my interest in achieving the goals stated here, then you would have no particular reason to think that I deserved help any more than anyone else. It's all a question of what's most important to you.

Back to Introduction

MY CONTACT INFORMATION

Mark Pettigrew
30 W. Chicago Avenue
Room 1212
Chicago, IL 60610

(773) 509-8126 (Voice Mail) or (312) 643-1336 (Home Phone)

mark_w_pettigrew@hotmail.com
(Those are underscores in-between the first name, middle initial and last name.)

Back to Introduction

SOME CONCLUDING COMMENTS ABOUT FAITH (and the LACK THEREOF)

It would be wonderful if we Christians had all reached a state of perfection where we walked in perfect obedience to the Lord and perfect faith in the Lord. The reality, though, is that we're all works in progress.

In many respects, I think I've lived a morally exemplary life. I've never used illegal drugs. I've never been drunk. And believe it or not, I'm still a virgin at age 50. (Fun? No, not especially. But then again, I don't ever have to worry about STD's or AIDS or unwanted pregnancies caused by my actions. I like to think that my obedience to God in that area will eventually prove to be a blessing for me in other ways as well.)

So do I think I've achieved perfection? What, are you kidding? I know my weaknesses all too well.

Having trouble trusting God to provide me with my needs in stressful times such as these is very close to the top of the list of my imperfections. I still become fearful when it looks as if I may lose my home or be unable to pay for essential living expenses or be forced to resign myself to never achieving my career goals. In times like these, I want to have faith, but it isn't always easy.

So regardless of whether or not you respond to this plea with any type of financial help, I would greatly appreciate your prayers. I've survived worse crises than this one, but I'm tired of dealing with setback after setback after setback. I want to make a real positive difference in this world, and it would be much easier to do so if I had adequate material resources with which to meet my needs and with which to invest in the attainment of my goals.

Back to Introduction

POSTSCRIPT: If you feel that you ought to get something in exchange for your donation, I'm willing to discuss the option of selling you one or more prints based on the flower & garden photos shown on this web page. I have digital files on CD-R disc for all of those images, and I can easily take them next door to Wolf Camera to make prints from those files. I can easily make 8x10 photo prints of those images and then send out the prints in standard Priority Mail envelopes ($4 for shipping and handling) at the post office.

If you would like a print of one or more of those images, just send me an e-mail message to that effect and let me know which image or images you want to order (specified by the number shown beneath each image). Then as soon as I receive your money order in the amount of $25 for each print, I'll have the print made from my digital file and I'll ship it to you. (The price of $25 would be so that I can make somewhere between $10 to $15 from each print sale after deducting the cost of making the print and the cost of the postage).

If you're thinking that this is a pretty amateurish way for me to sell my photo prints, well, you're right. Believe me, it isn't the way I wanted to do things. I have much more professional plans in the works for the future. But right now, I really could use some help.

Back to Introduction

A Temporary Change To This Blog

If you haven't guessed by now from reading the posts I've written to this blog, I love a good debate. Some people seem to get "writer's block" and freeze up at the very thought of having to put their thoughts down on paper or the electronic equivalent of paper. Not me.

The trouble is that my enjoyment of writing long and highly detailed analyses of various issues can be a real distraction from tasks I need to accomplish in order to address my own material need for sustenance. This is particularly true when temptation is as close as my laptop computer, and when the interactive nature of the Web offers me far more opportunities to express myself than I would otherwise have.

About a month ago, I lost my job as an administrative assistant. I've mentioned that before in this blog. I've been seeking work since then, but so far, nothing. My finances are dwindling day by day. Even if I got hired today for a full-time job, which seems highly unlikely, I'd probably only have one paycheck in-between now and December 1 when the rent is due. That rent is a mere $404, but I still need to feed myself and pay other expenses, such as my CTA pass, food, laundry, my ISP bill (so that I can continue to send out resumes via e-mail) and so forth. So there's a big question in my mind regarding whether or not I'm going to be able to pay my rent on time in December. It seems highly unlikely at this point.

Whenever one goes without work long enough that it begins to pose a serious threat to one's ability to do such basic things as paying the rent on time, guilt becomes a factor. Questions begin to knaw through one's brain. Did I do enough today? Is the fact that I still haven't found work my fault? Does the fact that I keep going through these types of crises mean that I'm a total loser? Questions like that. It can begin to negatively affect one's emotional well-being in a serious way. Nerves become frayed, and phrases such as "fear factor" take on a whole new meaning. I went through a similar experience a couple of years ago, and now it seems that I'm going through it all over again.

My conscience tells me that nearly every waking second should be spent applying for jobs or working in some other capacity to alleviate this situation, but I sometimes get distracted by such things as responding to e-mail messages about matters which are of passionate interest to me. (When one loses a job, one doesn't just suddenly become a whole different person. It isn't easy for me to just turn my interests on and off like a light switch.)

But I just can't afford to keep doing that. I realized that after spending a long time last night writing a very long response to a comment on a blog I'd written about evolution. Before I knew it, it was 2:00 in the morning and I still hadn't gone to bed. The response I posted may or may not have been sufficiently lucid and intelligent, I don't know. Maybe it was good for me to do what I did by writing it. But I just can't do that anymore. My financial survival is currently in jeopardy, and that has to be my top priority.

Therefore, this blog is being written and posted in order to announce that for the time being, I am turning off the Comments feature in this blog, not because I want to censor anyone, but because responding to such comments is too much of a distraction from the many things I'm going to have to do in order to deal with this crisis in which I find myself.

If anyone reading this should feel so inclined to do so, I would appreciate it if you would pray for me. I could really use it. I could really use some tangible financial help, too. It seems unlikely, though, that I will get such material help from anyone. My experiences in the past have not been very positive in that regard. Getting anyone to do more than offer kind words of encouragement is like pulling teeth. Kind words of encouragement are appreciated, of course, but they won't pay the bills, so they won't really relieve the stress I'm feeling right now.

Well, God will take care of my somehow. I have to keep believing that. But there are times in my life, like right now, when such faith doesn't come easily to me.

My Job Search (Part 1)

On October 13, I lost my job. I was working as an administrative assistant for a lawyer (and landlord) here in Chicago. In some respects, it's a miracle that I lasted there as long as I did. In terms of personalities, the two of us were like oil and water. Or, more to the point, like oil and fire! In my opinion, my boss had (and very likely still has) a serious "anger management" problem. She seemed to think that the fact that she was my boss entitled her to throw a temper tantrum anytime anything slightly displeased her.

I begged to differ, and I still do.

I have no problem with the fact that there are certain prerogatives which come with being someone's boss, but I don't believe that bosses are exempt from the moral obligation to treat people decently, with kindness and respect. It's called the Golden Rule, and it applies to everyone without exception.

There is a verse in the Bible which says something to this effect: "To whom much is given, much will be required." Just as our domination of the earth's environment does not entitle us to abuse the environment, so also authority over other human beings does not entitle us to abuse them. Regardless of whether a person is a boss, a parent, a teacher or a political leader, God will hold that person accountable for how he or she has used (and, in some cases, abused) that position of authority.