Dhivael/Anne’s Hyperactive Blog

As of Monday, January 16, 2005 my mom was employed in a financial division of a large, multi-national company. This large company is, according to Wikipedia, the world's largest corporation in terms of market capitalization. Whatever that means exactly. I just know they're big.

Founded by Thomas Alva Edison in 1890, they now make plastic for Nokia phone bodies, appliances, submarine stuff, train stuff, light bulbs… They own NBC, Universal Studios, part of the Sci Fi channel, Court TV, A&E, Telemundo, TiVo and who knows what all…

Yes… GE.

General Electric

To be more specific my mother worked, for 'GE Money Home Loans'. Betcha didn't realize GE does home loans? They do credit cards, too, for various places. Look for 'GE Consumer Finance' next time you're filling out an application at, say, JC Penny for a credit card.

GE's employee benefits are one of the best, if not the best, in the country. 10 or 11 floating holidays, 10 vacation days per year, generous amount of sick days, 100% tuition reimbursement, low-interest loans for family members to attend college, employee discounts all over the place, ability to earn FREE airfare and hotel rooms for vacations, etc. etc. etc.

They gave out CRUISES and leases on luxury vehicles, among other things, for bonuses.

My mom made about $10k (before taxes) as a bonus in November at this job. What was left after taxes went to pay off various bills (thank goodness my mom paid off her car then!) with some left over for Christmas money.

We were looking forward to her earning $100k this year. We were saving money so we could move to a large house, large yard. I was going to get a car, finally, as was my brother. College this year was a done deal, with their generous school loans (somewhere between $5-9k at 5% interest, per year). We even discussed a trip to Europe happening in a couple years.

After years of being poor, then middle class, we were finally going to be well off.

Then, on Tuesday, with my mom still home sick, she got a call from Human Resources saying that everyone at the office had been laid off. All across the country, nearly everyone in GE Money Home Loans (around 99%) had been laid off. The few people that are left are in the process of finishing up loans and clearing things out. There were about 50 people in the office here in AZ, which had JUST (within the past 2 months) been remodeled and expanded. Across the country, my mom says there were around 300 or so employees in this division.

Many people my mom worked with had just bought new houses, new cars, were having babies solely because they were making fantastic money and they figured that GE wasn't going anywhere. It's GENERAL ELECTRIC. It's been around for 110+ years. It's not going anywhere. Alas… it has.

The one story about GE Money Home Loans that my mom found online said that they were doing this due to outsourcing. Outsourcing to where? To India? If it was the US, I would guess that they would've simply transfered people to whatever the new division was instead of firing them.

How many people are going to get a home loan from someone in India? I admire Indians (people from India, not Native Americans) for trying to better themselves in the global market by learning English and taking jobs like tech support and the like.

But, let's face it, a majority of them are not taught by a native English speaker. They end up with heavy accents, bad grammar and are barely understandable. When you're in the home loan business, you need a firm grasp of English because people will ask questions that simply could not be put into a 'FAQ' script to be read. People have to be convinced, believe it or not, to refinance their house so that they'll save $1000/month in mortgage payments and credit card bills (as an exmpale, many people will happily go on paying for, say, a $1500/month mortgage + $100/month on their credit card bills when they could refinance instead, get mortgage payments of $1100 and use the refinance money to pay off their credit card bills… what would you do with an extra $500 month? Kinda unbelieveable that people have to be convinced to do this sort of thing).

How many people will stay on the phone with a heavily accented person long enough to be convinced that they want to refinance?

Not many, I'm guessing.

If they had paid my mom $100k this year (and it wasn't too uncommon for some people to have made 2-3x that on ocassion), that would've meant she'd done something like $10mil, maybe more (I don't have the sheets here with me), in business for General Electric.

If they pay an Indian, say, $10k (a generous sum, for India) and they've barely do $1mil, if that, in business… Can anyone else see how very WRONG this is?

If they fired (excuse me, 'laid off') 300 people, not counting management, they'd have to hire at least 3000, plus management, from India to make up for it, if not more people.

So very, very wrong. Stupidest business decision I've heard of.

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So now plans must, most likely, be put on hold for another year. No large house now. No car in a couple months. No college this fall. No trips anywhere. All money has to be carefully saved until my mom can get another job. GE will be paying her 2 months salary + 1 week severance pay + 10 days vacation, but that's not much. All together, it works out to only about $3000.

Even after she gets another job (which will never have the same wonderful benefits package as GE), my mom has said she won't be buying anything until she's got a good deal of money saved in the bank.

I just wanted to be able to go to college this year.

Next year, I guess.

I don't get sick.

Well, I do. I've got allergies, I need glasses, usual stuff. But I'm talking about getting sick from germs. I can walk around in the middle of winter, my feet covered only by flip-flips, and get little more than a runny nose. I've almost always got a runny nose in the morning, even in the middle of summer when it's 110F (43C) outside. Darn allergies. So a runny nose isn't much of a problem.

My mom always scolds me for not wearing anything on my feet. But in the first place, I hate having things on my feet. In the second… it just makes my feet colder. My feet tend to start sweating when they're cold (lovely choice, feet) so socks just make them colder. And they sweat more. And my feet get colder. And… can we see the problem here?

Every so often, I do get really sick. Feverish, dizzy, horrible coughing, stupid, etc. (No, I'm not usually stupid. Hush.) Flu, I guess. I've even had strep throat a few times. But, usually, I don't get sick.

My mom's been sick for the past week, followed not long after by my brother. Both coughing terribly, congested, much nose blowing.

Yet… here I am, right now, sick. What prompted this? Did I run around in snow (Snow here? HA! Not often), barefooted and wearing shorts and a t-shirt? Did I go outside with wet hair? (I did that a few weeks ago, nada.) Nope… I shared a drink with my mom.

I figured she was past the contagious stage and that, since my brother obviously caught it from her, if I was going to get sick I would've already. So, while we were out grocery shopping, we split a drink. Big mistake. My throat started hurting almost immediately. So finished shopping, came home, etc., etc.

This… germ, virus, whatever that made my mother and brother so sick… What did it do to me?

I have a sore throat and a stuffy nose… and if I look at the monitor too long, my eyes feel all fuzzy. I guess I have a fever, too, but that's not bad.

I suppose I should be thankful I don't get sick that often, but it can be annoying to be the only one that's not sick.

I've just woken up, about a half an hour ago. As soon as I wake up, I'm greeted by a cacophony of barking. Nevermind being trampled by at least one, sometimes both, dogs.

I proceed out into the living room and, after a few minutes of shooing away animals, I grab the laptop and turn it on. Of course, this is the signal for the cats that it's time to sit in my lap! While the laptop boots up, I spend a few moments shooing the cats away. Finally, they give up and decide that they'll steal my blanket and curl up next to me. Fine. It's better than them walking across the keyboard. I go grab another blanket.

Both dogs still want to walk back and forth in front of me, taking a detour over the laptop. One's, oh, 10-15lbs; about the size of a large cat. The other is a German Shepherd/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix. The little one's not bad, mostly annoying, but the big dog… Not only does it hurt when she steps on me, there's the serious danger of her hurting the laptop.

Eventually, my brother calls her away and she goes off to sleep atop my brother. At least, I think that's what she's doing, it's what she does to me. Any idea how hard it is to sleep with a 60lb dog on your face?

The little dog (I'll call him Growly, since that's what he does a lot) is, or was for awhile, trying to steal my second blanket. He dislikes cats, so he won't share with them. MushyKitty isn't too bad to him; when MushyKitty was going outside regularly, the dog would run up to MushyKitty and MushyKitty would run a few steps away before waiting for the dog to turn his back and then running back and batting at Growly's tail. MushyKitty doesn't like playing, but he likes playing with Growly. EvilKitty enjoys swatting Growly on the rear end, not even with claws out, just for fun. Growly always yelps and gives a couple short barks at EvilKitty, but EvilKitty continues to swat Growly whenever he goes by. Mo' (Molasses) doesn't care too much one way or the other about Growly, but Growly treats her like she's EvilKitty. So that's why Growly won't share blankets with the kitty.

Growly has settled onto the blanket I'm using, EvilKitty and MushyKitty are sharing another blanket. Mo' is off… somewhere. The large dog is off sleeping on my brother.

What a menagerie I live in.

I'm so bored. I've been wanting to go do something, which is why I bought a new bike with my combined birthday/Christmas money, but I haven't been able to because:

1.) I started sleeping during the day and staying up all night. Again. Makes it a bit hard to go anywhere. And I can't seem to get switched back to sleeping at night, staying up during the day.

2.) My mom got sick, so we've had to run to the store several times over the weekend.

Every day seems the same, with little variation. So monotonous. So boring.

I want to go bowling. I have a coupon for free bowling. If I can get it to print out. I want to go somewhere and do something, without another member of my family along.

I've had my learner's permit for over a month now, haven't driven yet. *sigh*

I don't understand people. Someone may spend weeks, months, years trying to find someone attractive who'll go out with them while they may be 'just friends' with a plainer person of the opposite sex whose company they enjoy. I don't want ugly, but if I wanted simply good looks and affection, with little or no common interests, I'd get a pedigree show dog.

In school, I was never that popular. Most of the kids in my classes were simply aquaintances. A few I would talk to regularly. An even smaller number were friends. Only one was male (in 7 or so years of public schooling, 3rd-9th grade), and I can't remember much more than that we were both in the Culture Club and had the same art class. In no way was it any sort of 'romantic' relationship. I wasn't interested at the time, not that any guys ever showed interest in asking me out either (reading Star Trek books in class can do that, I suppose).

I guess that is part of what amazes me online: guys seem interested in me, to a degree, even though they don't know my REAL name (nope, my name isn't 'AnneLions', nor is it 'Aidoann' or 'Dhivael') and haven't seen any pictures of me. For all most of them know, I could be an ugly hag: I'd like, however, to think I'm not unattractive… even if I don't wear designer clothes, don't do my hair up fancy and wear flip-flops all the time. (Taleweaver says too many people are 'obsessed' with me. I think he's obsessed with pointing out how people are 'obsessed' with me. Hi Tale!) At the very least, I seem to be rather likable and unforgetable, to both males and females online.

And I have no idea why.

Even if it is mostly losers (as my mother comments about MU*ers from time to time) online, even the losers at school did not particularly like me. Not that anybody HATED me (so far as I know), but I did not exactly have people clamoring to be my friend. Even the other geeks/nerds were not exactly friendly. I didn't try particularly hard in school to be friendly with people, nor do I try particularly hard now.

So why now? The internet certainly is interesting and perplexing.

I suppose, perhaps, the answer could be that I've finally found my 'niche'. People that're like me (now that's a scary thought…), but where were these people when I was in school?

In the end, which triumphs: beauty or brains? Online, you can only be sure of one.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when I get to college.

And so little time to do it in. While I work on other languages, I still need to improve my English writing skills, if I ever hope to be a decent teacher.

I will start writing short stories, when I can, and posting them here.

Hopefully, this will be something I remember to do later.

One sometimes wonders what the future will be like. Where will you be in a year, five, fifteen years from now? Don't you wish you could write about these thoughts and read what you thought you'd be doing, or not doing, later in your life?

You could keep a diary. Or a blog. You could write yourself a letter (and hope you don't lose it). Or you could go to FutureMe.org and send yourself an email, to be delivered at some predetermined time in the future.

Of course, this also means that you'll have to be able to keep the same email address for X years.

But, hey, it's still cool, right?