Word: hardding
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...Zachery still wonders, as he reflects on the upward path his life followed from that chance encounter. His was the textbook tale: a foot in the door, some hard work and enterprise, and another American gets ahead. Twenty-two years after his lucky break, Zachery was a veteran firefighter earning north of $60,000. Like most firefighters, he always had a second job - delivering pizzas, driving a street sweeper, installing meters for the power company. Eventually he started his own business, demolishing houses condemned by the city. He supported an aging mother, a son in college, a new wife...
...Hard Work Is Not Enough A couple of facts stand out when you meet Paula Stevens for the first time. No. 1: she is not afraid of work. She has done everything from catering sandwiches for rock bands to light landscaping for rich old ladies. Her résumé starts at age 9 and runs to 56 without significant interruption. Stevens has stories from inside the health-care industry, the hospitality industry, the computer industry, the casino industry. She knows the day shift, and she knows the night shift. Also, she could make conversation with a statue. That...
...always managed to make ends meet," Stevens said over breakfast at a burned-toast diner near her home in Independence, Mo. "I was working day and night, but that's what happens in this country if you're not educated. Anyway, I'm not afraid of hard work...
...hard time to be 56, going on 57, and looking for work," she said matter-of-factly. "They're not allowed to say it, but you see it in their eyes: Why hire an older person who might have some medical issue when there are young people behind you in a line that goes clear out the door? I really can't blame them. Businesses are struggling, and insurance is a big problem." That's when she can manage a face-to-face encounter at all. Many employers take only online applications nowadays, a fact that discounts her charm while...
...makes you a loser. And that brutality explains another strain of anger beginning to bubble up from the newly bankrupted. People like Paula Stevens and Joseph Zachery weren't flipping houses or lying on their loan applications. They didn't pile up mountains of credit-card debt. They worked hard for what they had and shared their modest portions with others. Each readily admits to making occasional mistakes with money, but even Warren Buffett has made occasional mistakes with money. Their bitterness stems from a feeling that they've held up their end of the social contract...