My Elderly Friend's Inadvertent Revenge to the Late Susan Sontag

Over late lunch, my elderly friend, who is a native New Yorker and whom I met again after a few years of not seeing him, shared me again details of what happened between him and the late Susan Sontag, the writer. They're neighbors in one of those buildings in a complex built pre-war time (and whose original owner committed suicide during the financial crash in the early 20th century) somewhere along 9th Avenue and 23rd Street, with my friend living on the 9th floor and Susan Sontag on the 19th floor (which is actually the 20th floor because the building doesn't have a 13th floor). I heard the story from him many years ago but I made him repeat the story to me; I thought it's a good way to see Susan Sontag in a different light as a highly accomplished writer who was very much a human being like all of us reading this material. I have to say right now that I admire Ms Sontag's works; I read so many of her movie reviews and even an article on photography, the specific title of which I fail to recall now. My classmates and I read this article in high school, and were required to write and talk about the work in school.

My elderly friend, who's also a retired English teacher of at least 50 years, and whose real name won't be mentioned here, one day was walking with his partner and crossing 9th Avenue, and they saw a huge luggage right on the corner of the streets. Being someone who turns into cash stuff that he finds on the streets of New York City (NYC) as well as those his neighbors have refused (he noted in wonderment how these people could afford to just toss away valuable stuff easily), he was wondering what was inside the heavy luggage. He was soon opening it, and thought there could be valuables inside that he can turn into cash by selling them outright to interested customers all over NYC. They immediately went back inside the condominium to check the contents of the heavy luggage more closely.

As soon as he and his partner were  standing before the elevator of the building where they live, Susan Sontag and a heavy set man were coming out of the elevator. He was immediately being asked by both why he has that heavy luggage with him. He told them he picked it up from the corner of the street and thought someone must have left it there as thrash. Such a situation is really common anywhere in NYC; you'll see all kinds of stuff on the streets of the city such that you can furnish your whole apartment with finds from the streets where you walk about in your daily life here. It's a matter of fact of living in NYC, which some residents may refuse to openly admitting. The streets of NYC are literally laden with valuables; you just have to open your eyes and have the courage to do something most would like to deny doing. And it soon became an embarrassment somehow as it looked like to me this unexpected encounter with Ms Sontag but my friend decided to right away to hand over the heavy luggage to the heavy set male companion of Ms Sontag.

And on one occasion, he saw Ms Sontag crossing the street, and said 'Hello, Susan', which to me sounded like my elderly friend was just being normal when you're with neighbors. And Ms Sontag was pissed and told my friend something to the effect of "How dare you talk to me?", to which my friend replied something I forgot now, but which led to Ms Sontag screaming at him right there on the street.

My elderly friend who's been a freelance individual who makes the most of what NYC has to offer him to lead a happy life didn't really take such behavior from Ms Sontag personally. And one evening, as what is usual with my elderly friend, he went about checking the fire escape stairs inside his building. He found a huge dark bag that he brought back to his apartment. In it, he saw many pieces of Ms Sontag's panties.

I asked "How do you know they're Ms Sontag's panties?"

"They're with several boxes of personal stationery of her. I heard she just died, and her son must have thrown them all away. I still have her stationery. I actually thought of selling her panties on Craigslist but eventually thought against it."

He also told me how Ms Sontag's apartment, which she bought for $1million was sold by her son for $3million soon. And renovation works were soon taking place in the apartment but they stopped right after the trials of the Ponzi artist Madoff started. The unit was sold again for $8million unfinished. And again sold at $11million to a family who my elderly friend says seldom stays in the apartment.

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My book review on Patricia O'Conner's 'Woe Is I'

Re Net-Worth Obsession as Applied to Myself

What Am I Thinking After Reading This NYT Article: "Forced Down the Job Ladder From Executive Pay to Hourly Wage"

"Nine months ago Mark Cooper lost his job as the security manager for the western United States for a Fortune 500 company, overseeing a budget of $1.2 million and earning about $70,000 a year. Now he is grateful for the $12 an hour he earns as a janitor."

Tsk, tsk, tsk, this is one really disheartening write-up, which I read while doing one of my freelance part-time jobs. I said to myself, I'm thankful I still have my part-time jobs, and I'm still able to have clients for the various services I offer...but I wonder how long this situation will last (or even, how low this situation will get worsened?)? Some people I met here have lost their jobs 6 months ago, and they have not got any good offer up to now after months of job search. And I wonder why I hear some feedback from some friends and acquaintances who are based in Asia that show that their economies are not as badly affected by this economic downturn the US is experiencing in its worst form since Depression years.

I could not forget the write-up that I decided I should "dugg" it, and I proceeded to blog on it now. If you're up to it and have the time, please find time to read as well the comments made by NYT readers on the day it was on the headlines, & you'll get a fair idea of how people think nowadays of the worsening job situation.

Current economic situation reminds me somewhat of what I experienced back in the Philippines. I've been telling some of my friends who were born and raised here in the US. They seemed not to be getting it, like comparing the US to a country that's generally regarded as a "third world country" (but actually nowadays, among the world's "newly emerging economies."). I just continued reminding myself that I can very well be served by the lessons I've learned from working in the environment found in the Philippines. There's not much to be compared, but there are interesting similarities. My exposure mainly about the US economy's mainly here in NYC, which is far from what is generally seen all over the US. I'm just comforted about the fact that I can use much of my learnings accumulated from being employed and an entrepreneur back in the Philippines.

I myself has got to adjust so much, in many fronts. I'm now looking at the advantages of having started facing changes ever since I came here in the US in 2006. I'm just grateful I have shifted to doing freelance work, where I can offer what I am able to do, I've become self-employed; I still don't have much of the benefits most of those employed have or even take for granted. I'm grateful I'm able to pay myself for doing what I want to be doing; I'm able to do some of my work even in my pyjamas; I'm even able to refuse to deal with other ignominies of my current situation. What's is there really to think fabulous or marvelous of doing a managerial job? Honestly, you got to like being a manager, before you can even be happy about it; part of your compensation actually comes from being regarded as a manager. But on the overall, it's the same situation even if you do a lowly-ranked position---everyone works for the good of the organization. If you fail the organization, it simply spits you out in (due) time.

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The Virtue of Being a Freelancer Now

Earlier, I was happy giving coaching tips to one caller who I got to know from another friend here in New York City. This caller likes to move from Los Angeles to the East Coast, and has been studying the idea of doing massages as one of his sources of income when he moves here. I told him about the travails of doing freelance work, which concept is alien to most people who have been employed on a full time basis, and working for a company, or doing work to eke out a living. I'm far from having a stable source of income by being a Freelancer; it can get scary at times. I'm grateful to have been given positive feedback by at least 25 people in my network who are always in touch with me, and have thought positively of how I go about doing Freelance work. Some of them have referred me to some of their contacts to talk with me about how I go about doing Freelance work, and its quirky details. Some have thought a way to do it, and have started their own version. I've always wished them all the best, God willing. I share what I can share, based on my own experiences, have gathered from my constant readings, and have heard from others doing this same direction.

As my profile indicates, and what some of my postings have mentioned from time to time, I've been doing freelance work, doing mostly part time jobs, and focusing my energies on pursuing my interests and passions. Among my freelance jobs, I've done massages for both men and women (some, even well meaning friends at that, have amusing mistaken ideas about someone who does massages for a living, and on part time basis at that, but I'm not blaming them though!); caregiving tasks, housecleaning, doing volunteer work for an art gallery, doing volunteer work for the pioneering Project Gutenberg e-book site, doing helper jobs for an Interior Designer, Floral and Events Designers, and other Business Owners, teaching Tagalog to interested students, plus doing other tasks that may interest me. Many have tried this direction before, way way before industrialization has taken place, and even way before the onset of globalization and its ill effects (i.e. terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, white slavery, etc) have been felt by the world's economies. Even St. Joseph himself was a Freelancer, being a Carpenter, which trade became handy as he went about bringing the Holy Family from Bethlehem to Egypt, and back to Nazareth. And I've noted with keen interest how St. Paul himself was a Freelancer, as a Tent Maker, while he was taking action on God's purposes for him to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles in Asia Minor.

I've done Human Resources (HR) work for over 20 years back in the Philippines. This period of exposure to interesting aspects of the nature of HR work (Among other feedback, I've always been told by those who have become involved in "Recruitment," which is an area under HR work, to have found it fascinating as one gets a bird's eye view on how one acquires a job, and how an organization hires a prospective employee) has offered me opportunities to become a Manager, one way or another, as I took lead of processes and people to work on desired outcomes of the Management. In the duration of my work, I have found out from observing trends and developments that the nature of employment has gone a lot of changes in a matter of time when I was actively employed in the corporate world. I've seen how jobs have become badly commoditized by organizations working out all creative means and ways to compete in the market. Technology, as always, has played a lot of role as to why the nature of jobs became more impersonal. The flow of capital, and the interaction of market forces have also played a very large role why values of most jobs have free falling momentum, up and down. The end consumer, the end user of products and services has been linked more face-to-face with the producers (via the internet, mainly), and many layers in between in the process of production have been removed. This impacts on what jobs have to be kept and maintained in an organization. For example, a nurse practitioner now, among other things, is basically doing tasks that are "secretarial" in nature, (ask a nurse practitioner about the volume of paperwork they handle nowadays), if you look closely at those tasks. Why is that? Primarily because Doctors shun away from doing those tasks, and they're focused on making sure they'll keep away from legal complications arising from how medical treatments these days are done. And this in turn, makes it reasonable to have nurse assistants who are actually doing tasks that used to be done by nurse practitioners before. And this happens because the Doctor has become more accessible to the patient and his family, who may just do work on information gathering about the disease by texting, calling, emailing, and other possible ways other than just talking with the Doctor during the usual medical rounds.

And we're not yet talking of disparities of income paid to jobs here (that's reserved for another posting). Suddenly, labor laws become sullied and ignored, as jobs durations have been given timed contracts that are renewed hastily and at the whims of those in management. It has become just so tough keeping jobs (both for Management, and the Employee). Even those in organizations like government offices have become so familiar to these developments. People in management have found it more profitable in the short term to farm out jobs to companies based abroad. This phenomenon continues to cost a lot of untold and unwritten anxieties to those who have lost their seemingly stable jobs to competitors outside of national boundaries. The jargon that you need to take note and memorize has been enlarged by all these developments. Jobs are out-sourced, being farmed out to third party providers. Lately, I've observed that companies in India that have earned a better reputation on acquiring farmed-out jobs from those in the First World, have been exploring the competitiveness and profit margins by investing and putting up companies as they farm out their projects as well to companies in the Philippines. I just wonder up to what point this maddening subcontracting approach to employment will go. It's been leveraging on operations, and finances, as what may deemed fit, as dictated by the market. Jobs have become so cheap, without even considering the person behind the job. I've decided this will continue as long as I'm employed. I made a move, and have since then have not come back. I've learned from those who came ahead of me.

Now, I'm happier I've moved on, and have taken steps to be in lead by doing Freelance work. This can be disconcerting actually to most people. But I keep on going. I go about looking for prospective jobs and gigs online. My favorite site happens to be Craigslist, which has been very generous in sharing its resources to the community where it has a presence (it has worldwide presence via local communities where users have been known to explore what the online world can provide to meet their various needs). It's not the fault of management or even those who make decisions for you to be anxious if you'll still keep your job from now. It's just the very nature of jobs nowadays. We're not going to have employers pay for benefits, or even reasonable pay, anymore. It's not really their role anymore, as they'll be gone soon, even before your know it. It's become so unstable for everyone, all of a sudden. This could be due to some unknown forces that we have yet to identify, or recognized. Happenings have been taking place much faster, on a rate that's just more noticeably past even before you notice that moment. But keep on holding to yourself, on your thoughts, on your vision, on your dreams, on your goals, as any one of these areas can only be the area where you'll still be in the moment, and be much in control.