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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2sfazEL:
Oh yeah. I was trying to explain it, and it’s kind of hard– it’s not like it’s made me blasé, it’s just that I’m both better-equipped to appreciate things, and less wowed by them, because whatever it is, I probably encountered at least a mention of it, or something related. Like having had all-school Passover seders; now I just know what one is and how to act and there’s no confusion or mystery. We never had cocktail parties, of course, we were a high school, but we had tons of receptions and such, and I learned how to stand around in an Appropriate dress with a glass in my hand and a little napkin and how to make conversation and overcome my natural awkwardness enough to at least vaguely understand how things are supposed to work. I know what the waiter can and cannot be expected to do, I know what to do with my napkin, I know which fork I’m probably meant to use in general, and whose glass is whose, and how to pass a pitcher with the handle positioned for the recipient. A lot of it was just being surrounded by people bred to that sort of shit, though– tons of that was taught by peer-pressure or absent-minded correction from faculty.
It’s privilege, is what it is– that’s what privilege is, it’s not like they gave me a ton of stuff or actively equipped me with overt tools and things, it’s just that they steeped me in an atmosphere such that I’d seen all that before and won’t ever be intimidated by someone’s Fancy Manners or whatever. I’ve known More Important People than you, you’re not that special, Mister Whoever You Are.
That’s expressly what fancy private schools are for. You make connections, you learn how to hobnob, you become unintimidateable.
It was academic too– the group of us bonded over getting to college and being presented with advanced-level course reading lists consisting entirely of books we’d already read and done papers on. But a lot of it was social. You get inoculated against being intimidated by a lot of the stuff that intimidates people, because you’ve seen it before from a perspective where it wasn’t being used against you, so you’re not concerned by it.
Yeah. It’s among the poshest, I think. It’s funny, though, because it’s gone beyond posh into so-fancy-we-can-be-casual-about-it. There’s no uniform and only the most rudimentary dress code (the students vote on it) and all kinds of informality, and the more I think about it, the more it’s an ostentatious display of overwhelming fanciness. We’re so fancy we don’t have to look fancy. You know?
No, it’s not surprising. The middle class has eroded a lot since we were kids, and one of those things is being able to take your kid to the doctor when she’s sick, and know that if you get in an accident, you won’t lose everything.
My one friend said that since she has a high-deductible plan and has to pay everything in cash until the deductible kicks in, she notices more stuff on the bill. One thing? The pediatrician’s office charges fifty dollars more on weekends. So she’s made her daughter, her beloved 2-year-old precious gem, the main source of joy in her life, wait out an ear infection or a fever or similar until Monday, because it’s an extra fifty dollars they can’t afford. It’s agony for her to do it, every time, but it’s happened more than once, because fifty dollars is a lot of money.
This is a civilized nation. This is 2017.
This same friend, her wife started a business, and it’s really taken off, she’s doing really well at it. It’s been brutally hard, but they didn’t lose it to the medical bankruptcy, thank heavens. They didn’t lose it to nursing the wife’s mother through her terminal lung cancer, or taking in two severely disturbed foster children, or having their own baby. It’s been great, and it’s doing even better.
But she really ought to expand, and my friend would love to, in a couple of years, quit her regular job, and work for her wife, so they can drastically expand the business.
They won’t be able to do that if the ACA is destroyed.
My day job, the camera store, is such a small business that the moment the exchanges were available through the ACA, they stopped offering health insurance plans of their own. The plans had become so expensive, and didn’t offer the employees very good options (that was the plan where i couldn’t have asthma medication because only generic prescriptions were covered and there are currently no generic inhaled steroids on the market because of some chicanery circa 2013 with getting a patent renewed for no reason)– so they said, we’re not buying these anymore, and we’ll give you all raises to cover the costs of buying your own plans on the market.
So we all did. There aren’t any plans through the company anymore.
How many other small companies do you think did this? And how many people quit their jobs and started businesses or freelancing gigs, and now can’t go back to what they were doing before?
Nobody’s done a study on it because nobody wants to know, but this is going to just absolutely torch a lot of people’s lives, and probably destroy the economy, and I can’t believe anyone seriously wants this to happen.
But apparently, Republicans do.
Oh yeah. I was trying to explain it, and it’s kind of hard– it’s not like it’s made me blasé, it’s just that I’m both better-equipped to appreciate things, and less wowed by them, because whatever it is, I probably encountered at least a mention of it, or something related. Like having had all-school Passover seders; now I just know what one is and how to act and there’s no confusion or mystery. We never had cocktail parties, of course, we were a high school, but we had tons of receptions and such, and I learned how to stand around in an Appropriate dress with a glass in my hand and a little napkin and how to make conversation and overcome my natural awkwardness enough to at least vaguely understand how things are supposed to work. I know what the waiter can and cannot be expected to do, I know what to do with my napkin, I know which fork I’m probably meant to use in general, and whose glass is whose, and how to pass a pitcher with the handle positioned for the recipient. A lot of it was just being surrounded by people bred to that sort of shit, though– tons of that was taught by peer-pressure or absent-minded correction from faculty.
It’s privilege, is what it is– that’s what privilege is, it’s not like they gave me a ton of stuff or actively equipped me with overt tools and things, it’s just that they steeped me in an atmosphere such that I’d seen all that before and won’t ever be intimidated by someone’s Fancy Manners or whatever. I’ve known More Important People than you, you’re not that special, Mister Whoever You Are.
That’s expressly what fancy private schools are for. You make connections, you learn how to hobnob, you become unintimidateable.
It was academic too– the group of us bonded over getting to college and being presented with advanced-level course reading lists consisting entirely of books we’d already read and done papers on. But a lot of it was social. You get inoculated against being intimidated by a lot of the stuff that intimidates people, because you’ve seen it before from a perspective where it wasn’t being used against you, so you’re not concerned by it.
Yeah. It’s among the poshest, I think. It’s funny, though, because it’s gone beyond posh into so-fancy-we-can-be-casual-about-it. There’s no uniform and only the most rudimentary dress code (the students vote on it) and all kinds of informality, and the more I think about it, the more it’s an ostentatious display of overwhelming fanciness. We’re so fancy we don’t have to look fancy. You know?
No, it’s not surprising. The middle class has eroded a lot since we were kids, and one of those things is being able to take your kid to the doctor when she’s sick, and know that if you get in an accident, you won’t lose everything.
My one friend said that since she has a high-deductible plan and has to pay everything in cash until the deductible kicks in, she notices more stuff on the bill. One thing? The pediatrician’s office charges fifty dollars more on weekends. So she’s made her daughter, her beloved 2-year-old precious gem, the main source of joy in her life, wait out an ear infection or a fever or similar until Monday, because it’s an extra fifty dollars they can’t afford. It’s agony for her to do it, every time, but it’s happened more than once, because fifty dollars is a lot of money.
This is a civilized nation. This is 2017.
This same friend, her wife started a business, and it’s really taken off, she’s doing really well at it. It’s been brutally hard, but they didn’t lose it to the medical bankruptcy, thank heavens. They didn’t lose it to nursing the wife’s mother through her terminal lung cancer, or taking in two severely disturbed foster children, or having their own baby. It’s been great, and it’s doing even better.
But she really ought to expand, and my friend would love to, in a couple of years, quit her regular job, and work for her wife, so they can drastically expand the business.
They won’t be able to do that if the ACA is destroyed.
My day job, the camera store, is such a small business that the moment the exchanges were available through the ACA, they stopped offering health insurance plans of their own. The plans had become so expensive, and didn’t offer the employees very good options (that was the plan where i couldn’t have asthma medication because only generic prescriptions were covered and there are currently no generic inhaled steroids on the market because of some chicanery circa 2013 with getting a patent renewed for no reason)– so they said, we’re not buying these anymore, and we’ll give you all raises to cover the costs of buying your own plans on the market.
So we all did. There aren’t any plans through the company anymore.
How many other small companies do you think did this? And how many people quit their jobs and started businesses or freelancing gigs, and now can’t go back to what they were doing before?
Nobody’s done a study on it because nobody wants to know, but this is going to just absolutely torch a lot of people’s lives, and probably destroy the economy, and I can’t believe anyone seriously wants this to happen.
But apparently, Republicans do.
