Frustrated

"Life does not accommodate you; it shatters you.

Every seed destroys its container, or else there would be no fruition."

– Florida Scott-Maxwell

Sometimes life things happen that are of no interest to those around you, but are so vitally important that they threaten to take you out at the knees. That's pretty much where I've been the last week or so.

The details are mundane – I clean for a multi-national corporation. The facility where I do the physical labor is managed by a second multi-national corporation. The facility recently hired yet a third multi-national corporation to oversee the management of their facility (which in all actuality isn't even theirs).

I am but a single little sole-proprietor. A woman with a vacuum cleaner, a mop and broom, some buckets and rags. A woman who's house payment and little corner of the American Dream is funded by scrub brushes and wet wipes.

Since Big, Bad, Multi-National Company #3 has come into the picture I haven't been paid. I've submitted bills, jumped through their hoops, found the spare change to buy four million dollars worth of liability insurance and tried to play nice and get along. (By the way, can you even dream up a scenario where a woman with a vacuum cleaner and a bucket can do four million dollars worth of damage??? Neither can I.)

I submitted reams of paperwork and make the requisite phone calls which were never returned. I sent emails asking for confirmations and watched my ever empty inbox. And, since the first of this year, I've also been watching my ever empty mail box for a paycheck that never comes. A paycheck for the month of November. . .last year.

Panic began to set in. My house payment is due.

After a dozen phone calls I found out the problem yesterday. They need a W-9. . .

Since November of last year no one at Big, Bad, Multi-National Corporation #3 could pick up the phone and let me know??

I've been sick with worry and frustrated by the lack of helpful management – all for lack of a W-9. It's no wonder so many small businesses fail. I sometimes feel like I'm smothering beneath so many useless layers.

The whole mess reminds me of Congress. But it makes those idiots in Washington at least come off as well adjusted!