The Legal Thought Pages

A lot of people ask me what I do for a living. I say I’m a Chicago SEO writer. They stare blankly at me. I then say that I’m a Chicago search engine optimization writer and they continue to stare blankly at me. I decide to get more specific and say I’m a content writer. I catch myself and say that I’m a web content writer. Before they nod politely, I say that I write the content that you would see on a web page. Finally, I get through to these people and they say they know what I’m talking about. At this point, someone inevitably asks me why I didn’t become an electrician or a carpenter. They’re making a lot of money these days, aren’t they? Well, I’m sure that they are, but I’m not exactly handy and people tend to get afraid if I’m holding a hammer for any reason. I think that I might have hammered a nail once, but I’m not completely sure. Anyway, working a trade is good for some people, but not me. I chose a different path in life and me and my bank account suffer for it every single day. Especially at the end of the month when I have to pay rent.

I have to get some order in my home office. Since we decided that we needed to redo our floors, things have been in a bit of a chaotic state. The room I am using for our home office still needs to be painted and the window treatment needs to be updated. The bathroom upstairs also is in need of a good update. I have been trying to get my work done amongst all this upgrading that’s going on around here. I am looking for new data storage solutions too. I have too many boxes of papers and books that need sorting. I have a bad habit of not filing papers when I am done, but waiting until they pile up to the sky it seems. I think I need some help in straightening out my filing system, and I know jut the person who can help — good old Marty! She is always looking for ways t o make some money to add to her college fund. That girl is tenacious when it comes to making extra money. She is always coming up with good ideas. She is bound and determined to help her parents send her to college.

I’ll be so relieved when I don’t have to set foot in a lawyer’s office again. Don’t get me wrong. Who I’m working with is wonderful. He’s a Philadelphia bankruptcy lawyer and he definitely has a sense of humor. He’s helped me so much throughout this entire process. I never could’ve made this step without him. It’s the bankruptcy itself that I’m having such a difficult time with. The fantasy is definitely over. I’ve been in denial for so many years. It’s not easy to look back over the last several years and realize all the mistakes I’ve made. Changing my habits isn’t going to be an overnight process. I’ve been consistently improving. I’ve become so used to buying whatever I want, but I can’t do that anymore. I just want to make sure that I don’t wind up making the same mistakes after this is all over. Like I said, my lawyer is really wonderful and he’s walking me through all of it and making sure we have a plan in place afterward. We’ve spent a number of hours talking about budgeting issues and other things. He wants to follow up with my progress after this is all over which I’m happy about. I want to make sure I stay on the right track!

One day, the vice president of marketing and sales for my hotel chain came in and fired me. This is what eventually sent me to looking for lawyers under Flint bankruptcy on the internet. I was fired because I had criticized the local advertising campaign for the hotel, which featured Michael Moore. Guests were telling me that they would never come back if we kept using him as a reason to stay in Flint. I really don’t care about Michael Moore one way or another, but what I did care about was my job. I was the General Manager of the hotel, and if my numbers crashed any lower I would be out of a job. We used to count on business travelers, who were in town to visit auto and auto related industries. But the steep drop off in auto sales forced us to try to attract vacation travelers. The advertising agency for the hotel chain got the idea of featuring Michael Moore. They took a cue off his one documentary about the head of GM, and called the campaign, “Roger, Tom, Dick, Harry and Jane and Me in Flint”. They didn’t use all those names, of course. That was just the title. It featured a guest walking out of our hotel with Michael Moore, and Moore saying that he and so and so were going to visit Roger, but were going to see a bit of Flint first, and that our hotel was the perfect place to stay for a few nights.