The Other Side of the Coin
I work in a cubicle, similar to most engineers I know. I have three direct neighbors. While I am sure that we all try to be as polite as possible, it is hard not to overhear each others conversations now and then. Each of them are aware of my work projects as I am theirs. That is why I practice a good bit of discretion when making personal calls at work. Most of the time, I will make a trip out to the parking lot by my car before making a call to my fiancé or to home or what have you.
However, my disciplined approach to discretion is not universally shared by my co-workers. I am alluding to one in particular who somehow manages to treat the thin cubicle walls separating our desks as if they were a fortress of solitude. He will from time to time, take calls on his speaker phone and that includes personal calls.
Suffice to say, if I were a bad man, I would have everything I needed right now to commit some form of massive fraud. There have been numerous occasions where I could have casually jotted down his social security number, credit card numbers, home address, and other security question related information.
I know about his problems at home and the crippling amount of debt he shoulders.
- He has at least a dozen credit cards, some of which are maxed out.
- He overextended himself near the real estate top expecting a future raise to help him pay the mortgage.
- He has some of his debt in a debt management service.
- Collections agents are calling his work.
You would think such an existence would trigger some emotional response. I would have expected a backlash of some sort to flush all of his troubles away in a massive wave of change. But it never happens. He goes to work each day and trudges along for the paycheck so he can give it to creditors at the end of the month.
To make matters worse, he keeps on buying things. He recently bought a Nintendo Wii for his kids, had a bit of gardening done, and several other miscellaneous home related purchases. Some of those, I overheard him having to split the purchase onto two or more credit cards.
I feel bad for him sometimes. It is not my place to come to his rescue with whatever personal finance wisdom I have. He made his bed over the years and now he will sleep in it for better or worse, mostly worse. At this point I am just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am expecting that eventually I will begin overhearing the details of his bankruptcy.
Sometimes I cringe when I go over budget one month or the next. I try to save my pennies and be as frugal as I can with the tools I am given. At the end of the day, it could be worse. For all the griping I do, there are others who would kill to be in my position. I have no high interest debt, my student loans are manageable. I am living well below my means and I plan on keeping it that way.
I promise myself I will never be in the position my co-worker is in right now. That is no way to live. Success is not an option. It is the only way.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:30 am
[...] seems as though my co-worker, who I have mentioned before is in a pickle. I had heard inklings of it in the past but looking through his records was a [...]