The Modern Economy Strikes Again

Photo de Annie Sprattsur Unsplash

As I mentioned a couple days ago on my Buy Me a Coffee page I’ve added a couple banners to the website for Hostafrica using their affiliate programme to help with the hosting costs of the chatmail relays as I’m now getting the concequences of my main client going half time in October and then having to terminate my relationship with them following a very long story. In the meantime I have a 4€k invoice that is stuck in suspense as they’re going through a procédure de sauvegarde, which is really not making things easier.

So back to prospecting 24/7 and more urgently, I’ve had to drop my salary down to the legal minimum wage and getting a supplement from the remaining time I had left on chômage.

To put this in to context, from my salary I get after everything is 1 200€, my rent is 1 056€ including charges, and electric is somewhere around 150€, in effect my work is entirely funding my landlord and the national grid.

What I get from the chômage right now somehow is much less since they’re working on 30 day cycles since yet another unneeded and unwanted reform from Capitain For Sure. I get after everything is around 500€, half of that is already gone when paying off the credit card (technically not unemployed so insurance don’t count), and the rest is juggled between Jarod’s meds, prescription food, and whatever else I can run with.

This is to say, things are pretty bad right now, probably worse than they were two years ago, in an economy that is so fucked up right now I genuinely don’t understand how we haven’t burnt down the houses of billionaires as they sleep.

What does this mean here with this blog post, we’ll I’m kind of asking for a bit of help again from #mutualaid. While there are certain things as business expenses I get back, and that I’ve made sure that if anything the main server in Finland can stay online for at least the next 6-12 months, everything outside of business costs is in flux.

I would appreciate it if you’re potentially looking for webhosting to consider Hostafrica, if you use my link I get a 5% commission which I can use towards the VPS bill. If you are able to (I know this is a huge ask right now) donate on my Buy Me a Coffee page any amount that helps towards food and Jarod’s costs primarily.

On the topic of Jarod his prescription food and meds are about 90€/month, so far his food hasn’t gone up in price yet (about 50€ with P&P for 3kg) and his meds are 19€/10 pills (I normally have to buy two packs).

Food wise, well there is some good news here, I’ve got more content for the Taste of Poverty for supporting members coming soon, bad news is yet again its the cost that’s in the line of fire behind electric, internet, Jarod, and all that other stuff that comes at me.

In the background, my main goal here is to get a handful of clients for a more sustainable set of invoicing, don’t even talk to me about a full time job at this stage, you’ll be unsurprised to hear that I’ve been ghosted more times than I wish to count and after the last round of that it’s not worth my time when I have a better chance between my smaller client and contract work either being fixed term projects or occasional interventions. I know this sounds pretty silly/bold/insane, but I’m here making SMIC and business expenses between two clients, where as I’ve been rejected from working for SMIC full time at a supermarket at least six times already (I lack experience apparently).

If you have any need for any kind of Customer Service type job (frontline, lead, supervisor, department head), trying to set up your VoIP telephone or ticketing system, or just need a little help with your Wordpress site, DM me @[email protected] and we can have a chat.

One small exception to this, is for insurance reasons we can’t work with US based businesses or other jurisdictions that have the ability for a class action lawsuit (Canada surprisingly OK). It’s too spicy for our insurer to touch. There might be a workaround using Malt, but no promises, and since this is France, if the insurers say no it can’t happen.

On a personal side, I’m not likely to have the kind of meltdown I did back in the times I wish to forget, I’m a little bit burnt out in all honesty, this time not from work but everything that is happening around us and to keep that at bay, I’ve invested myself in to the CSE at the coop and have re-unionised with la CGT. I’m also looking at ways I might be able to get involved with FDN not just to keep busy but also to contribute and learn new skills for capitalism.

Is this all keeping me awake at night, yes obviously, at least things aren’t as hopeless as they were a couple years back. Amazingly rough, so if you can spare a little bit or have a lead for work, again I’d really appreciate that.