CHAPTER 41
(Trusting big money to someone I've never met)
December 31st, 2018
It was the biggest "Oh Shit" moment I had been facing in years. I knew I had a big decision to make and it involved putting complete trust into a stranger's hands. Spencer. We have never met in person and I doubt he would ever be able to find the free time to learn more about me. Spencer had somehow turned my UC appeal into a big game of trust and I knew that tonight was the deadline to make my decision. Trust fully in Spencer and hope he pulls through or take the ball from here for an easy slam dunk?
I knew if I did what the letter told me to do Spencer would most likely be upset for meddling with his work. The letter I had received from the UC board demanded that if I wanted a continuance for my UC hearing that still hadn't taken place I must respond in writing. However, because I had hired Spencer previously to this letter he insisted I not respond and that he would be taking care of the response. It was a really bad gamble for me. Months prior to suing Celadon I had called Spencer and I misconstrued a very clever sales pitch for a tongue lashing.
"Were they paying you! Had they been paying you up until then?!" He had berated.
I was within a hairsbreadth of hanging up the phone because he was yelling at me. (Subsequently the tongue lashing only made me smarter and helped me create my owed wages spreadsheet).
I didn't hang up the phone like an average attorney shopper would have done.
"Well yeah they were paying me."
Spencer played the mock courtroom scene. "So then how do they owe you money? You just stated they had paid you!"
I tried to break it down for him. It was a good mock Rainmaker scene but he had initially asked "if they had been paying me?" He had not asked "if they had been paying me in FULL". I hadn't yet procured my PT job at the pizza shop and had no weekly income so I really couldn't spare the $295.00 to hire him right then and there or I would have. But one thing was for sure, I was going to put professionally together a one sided spreadsheet proving I was owed money for all 25 weeks. "Iron sharpens Iron" so they say.
I remained calm. I don't know why you would berate a customer that hasn't paid yet but I came to the conclusion his berating could possibly be a test to test my patience. As a trucker, we are required to have an EXORBITANT AMOUNT OF PATIENCE. I knew hiring Spencer was a big gamble because he had already helped me win five years ago. So why would he want to help me a second time? I thought to myself. I put myself in his shoes. If I was an appeals specialist would I want my clients I had already helped keep crawling back or would I lose my patience and tell them no more help go get a job?
I've never exhausted my unemployment but I had read online that the UC agency has a habitual claimant list that gets compared to those lists at the grocery stores of bad check writers. I didn't have a steady job history and I was surmising Spencer would most likely allow the "one and doners" claimants cases to supersede mine as those people had mortgage payments and little kids mouths to feed. I knew anyway I looked at it I risked the possibility of my name sitting at the bottom of his caseload. Would my brother allow me to walk into Career link with my little nephew holding an empty jar of peanut butter and try to play it off or was I stuck shelling out $100.00 for a real life looking Good Guy Chuckee doll?
I couldn't help but recall getting out of Federal prison and the welfare lady stating "It's the little kids they like to see. They're more apt to help you at the site of little kids."
I knew if Spencer caught wind I was already planning which Phillies bet I was gonna double my owed UC checks on he most likely would move at a snails pace with my UC appeal. I'd be more prepared for next time. I'd play it off like a champ.
Next trip over to my brothers house I would make voice memos of my nephews and nieces screaming so these UC people wouldn't be tempted to turn the juice off as they would assume I had mouths to feed and their conscience would bother them at rejecting my claims. I was no sucker. I had met plenty of scammers behind bars. Surely at one point I would have learned some of the shimmy sham sham tricks out there to get "the juice turned on".
(Meanwhile Back To Phone Call)
I continued. "Spencer, Of course I was getting a paycheck every week but the whole 25 weeks had been nothing but ROB PETER TO PAY PAUL!"
That seemed to pique Spencer's interest. "Well can you give me an example?"
"Sure. Almost every week it was the same. They would Back pay me say like $40.00 they stole the week before but then that very week steal $100!"
A brief pause of silence. I could tell Spencer was able to assimilate some of my complaint. "Okay, I think I understand what you're saying. But you know like I talked like earlier what you're gonna be up against?"
Yes indeed his tongue lashing sales pitch had me really second guessing myself for my upcoming civil case. I had fried my dopamine levels in my brain years ago with all the Risperidone the shrinks had prescribed to me. Video games had become a thing of the past for me because my faculties had become so slow over the years. I had stopped playing video games because being that astute just felt like too much work.
"Spencer I would like to hire you to handle my civil case as well but there's a problem."
"What's that?"
"I have already signed papers agreeing that I did not need to be reimbursed for my legal fees. So even if you helped me win I'd still be out the three hundred I had to pay you."
I had the man confused. "Well then why do you keep emailing me?"
I really didn't know how to respond to that. When I had hired him in 2013 the juice had already been turned on from the door so hiring him wasn't difficult for me. I was now literally down to my last $1,000.00 and there really wasn't much left I could do as I haven't been this destitute in literally over a decade.
Did my homemade graph prove something? Would a very wise China man agree my net graph made an interesting statement?
Was I able to pick up the subtle traces of the spoor the payroll ladies have left behind over the years? Were they just one more ink blot away from finally being caught?