Microstory 2174: To Be Distributed

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I had my last official meeting with my parole officer today. Since my sentence has been commuted, it’s no longer a legal requirement. You’ll recall that I was only assigned one in the first place because on paper, I went to prison, I just didn’t have to literally step foot inside of the facility. Well...I mean, I did later while I was staying in the infirmary section for my fungal infection a couple of months ago, but you know what I meant by that. I still have my community service left to do, but lots of people complete their hours without a PO at all, so the judge decided that I didn’t need one either. I hope that we can still be friends, though I recognize that this may not be appropriate, nor even possible. He’s a great guy who I think goes above and beyond in his job. He’s helped me out in a number of ways that I don’t think he was ever expected to. I’ve actually met a couple of his other parolees, and he wasn’t giving me any special treatment. That’s just who he is. He actually cares about us, and wants us to succeed, and isn’t just waiting for us to screw up. He derives no joy from putting people back in jail, though it has reportedly happened a few times over his career. I dunno, maybe I’ll just never see the man again. That would be all right too. I’m starting a new chapter in my life. I have a new job, and I still have to figure out what to do with all this money that y’all donated to me. It’s processing to my account. It could be a few days until it’s fully ready to be distributed.

I have some ideas of where it’s going to go, but I still need to do the math, because it’s going to be split amongst a number of different charitable organizations. They all involve the previously incarcerated. They need jobs, homes, and therapy to help them cope with being back in a world where their daily routines are no longer being controlled by someone else. Having been in intermittent jail, I didn’t experience much of this, I only got a taste. But it’s an overlooked characteristic of prison life. Yeah, for the most part, you’re not stuck in your cell 24/7, only eating slop, and drinking contaminated water. You usually get to go outside. But only at certain times, and for a certain duration. And it can be taken away from you if you do something that they don’t like. You can’t see your friends whenever you want, you can’t even choose your sleep schedule. That’s a hard life, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to go back to the way it was before you were placed in there. I feel compelled to give back, so I suppose I should thank you for contributing to my unauthorized CauseTogether campaign. Do not take that as an invitation to start a new one in my name. I won’t tolerate that a second time, I’ll seek legal action, and if nothing else, make you look bad for not respecting my wishes. If you want to do some good for the world, then that website has a number of other campaigns that will be more than willing to take your money. Or you can start your own that doesn’t have anything to do with me. That site also has other features besides just temporary campaigns, so check those out. I’ll post the complete list of the organizations that I choose for the 50K later, so you can give directly to them too. You could perform community service too. When I’m better, I’ll be going back to Homes for Humankind, which actually has a special program that focuses on halfway homes, which have more specific needs. I’ll probably be giving them some money too. I know that it’s not an either-or situation, where you either donate or volunteer, but it does feel like I should kind of share the wealth a little more, doesn’t it?

Microstory 2173: Fighting the Cause Captain

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Today was meant to be a day of chilling. I’m done with my last job, and I’ve not yet officially started my new job. I was trying to have a short vacation, because I don’t know how crazy and hectic things are going to be. The facilities staff at the jail are working to get a workspace available to me for Monday. Hopefully they will not have worked too hard at it, because I’m sure I’ll be recovered enough to handle much of it myself. I really wanna get in there, and find and execute my own vision, since I know they have plenty of other work that they need to be worried about. That’s why I wanted to rest for the rest of the week, so I could be prepared for that. Unfortunately, my stress levels are through the roof. When you set up a charity campaign in CauseTogether.hope, there are a number of ways that you can format it. There can be an end date, or not. You can target a specific figure, and refund everyone’s money if it’s not reached, or only refund them if a given percentage of the goal isn’t received, which could be as low as 0%. They can even place a maximum amount, which when reached, will instantly close off all further donations. This should all be told to you upfront on the campaign’s page, so if you run across one that doesn’t divulge what they’ll be doing with your money, or under what circumstances they’ll charge you, report that to the administrators, because that goes against their policy. Anyway, for the campaign that an anonymous stranger set up to pay for my medical bills, they set a min/max of $50,000 with no target date in mind. Why is that number so high? Gee, maybe it has something to do with the fact that the person who did this “on my behalf” doesn’t know me, nor my financial situation. They don’t even know how much my total medical bills are. I wasn’t planning on telling you this, but after insurance, I was only going to have to pay roughly $14,000. I have really good insurance, because the company I work for has really good insurance options.

The CT campaign has ended, because they reached their goal in a matter of days, but I don’t plan on taking a single cent from it for myself. The only reason they reached this absurdly high goal was because I threatened to give the money to an incarcerated serial killer. I don’t think I was ever going to do that. I’ve not even researched who that might be, because I hoped that this remark would spell the end of it. It didn’t occur to me that some donors might give specifically to see that happen. What can a person serving life in prison do with all that money? Give it to corrupt guards so he can get a flatscreen TV, and a king-size bed in his own private cell? I really don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it anymore. I’m fighting the Cause Captain who is still anonymous, and asking for—nay, demanding—my banking information so that they can transfer the money to me. My lawyer says that they would have ways of sneaking me the funds even without my permission. Even though I could theoretically just leave that 50K sitting there in whatever account they ended up creating, people did sacrifice their money, even if it was for all the wrong reasons, so something should probably be done with it. I don’t know what. All I know is that I’m not taking it. My therapist advised me to not get so worked up about it. The deed is done, and I don’t have the power to refund the Cause Champions. I really should donate it to some other charity. Hit me up if you have ideas, I guess. Again, it’s 50,000, so it doesn’t have to only be one charity, if you guys send me multiple good ideas.

Microstory 2169: Refund and Take it Down

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I came home today, a day earlier than we thought I would. I’m still not well enough to report for jail tomorrow, which means that I’ll incur some extra time to make up for it, and also as a punishment for missing it, but it wouldn’t make sense for me to go back when I’ll have to spend the entire time in the infirmary. I’m much more comfortable at home, and I’ve recovered enough to start taking care of myself for the most part. My neighbor will be checking in on me every once in a while, which she doesn’t have to do. My parole officer will be coming over too as a sort of welfare check. I think my therapist will show up, and not charge me for a quick session, but I’m not about that. I pay my way, I’ll tell you. I took sick leave from work, because I can’t keep my eyes open for long enough to get anything done, but hopefully I’ll be fully ready to go on Monday, so I will have only missed a week. It’s not even that I’m sleepy or tired. Have you ever seen anyone get hypnotized, even if in fiction? The hypnotist will describe weights on their subject’s eyelids. It kind of feels like that, but it also sort of feels like it doesn’t matter whether my eyes are open or not, I still can’t see very well. My surgeon thinks that that has to do with the medication that I’m on. Blurred vision is a known side effect of at least two of them. I’m gonna stop taking the narcotics, though. I’ve never done well with them, I personally can’t understand why people get addicted to these things. I’ve had to take multiple kinds over the years, and every single one of them has made me feel like crap. I’m going to be in a lot of pain while I rely solely on over-the-counter pain meds, but it’s nothing I’ve never experienced before. Pain and I have an understanding. It gets to do whatever it wants to me, and in exchange, I get nothing. I do want to circle back to that thing about my therapist. Not because of my therapist, but because of the money thing. Apparently, one of my readers started a CauseTogether.hope page for me. I want you to know that I have absolutely nothing to do with this, and I am currently working with the platform administrators to have all backers so far fully refunded, and shut the page down. I neither want nor need your charity. I’m making plenty of money, and I will be able to pay my own hospital bills. I shouldn’t have any lost wages from my time off, because the company I work for has great benefits. Really, please do not try to give me money. A nurse suggested that I could just regift it to charity, but no, I don’t want to reward this behavior. If I can’t get the page taken down, I’m donating it all to the nearest convicted serial killer, out of spite. You have been warned. Refund and take it down!

Microstory 1333: Hillside Sky Courier

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Journalism Student: Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to me, High School Dropout. I really appreciate this opportunity. I know a school newspaper isn’t exactly the kind of exposure you’re looking for, but I think my audience will really enjoy reading about someone they went to school with. I, for one, am very excited to learn about what you do.

Drone Service Founder: Thank you, but please, just call me Drone Service Founder.

Journalism Student: Okay, sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.

Drone Service Founder: No, it’s okay. Wadya wanna know?

Journalism Student: First, why don’t you tell me a little bit about what your company does?

Drone Service Founder: Well, I’m not sure we can call it a company just yet. We’re nowhere near making a profit. Right now, we’re in the middle of a major fundraising round. We can’t do anything until we buy our first fleet.

Journalism Student: How big of a fleet are we talking here?

Drone Service Founder: We hope to have thirty drones total by the end of the year.

Journalism Student: How much is that going to cost?

Drone Service Founder: I’m not at liberty to discuss the financial side of our business.

Journalism Student: Right. Well, why is it important to have a fleet? Can you not just get started with one or two drones, and expand from there?

Drone Service Founder: Our future clients will want a reliable service. They don’t want to call us, and be turned away, because we can’t help them at the moment. Even if we contracted with a single company, they would expect deliveries to multiple locations, and we’ll always need to be ready to scale up. It’s all about availability.

Journalism Student: I see. So, I know that it says some of this on your website, but what exactly will you be delivering?

Drone Service Founder: It’s a bit of a misnomer to call us a delivery service. That implies we sell products, and deliver them to customers. We do not sell anything but a service. Here’s how it works. A company will have, let’s say, a hundred people working for them. Let’s say they—no, no, no; scratch that. Let’s say we’re talking about a school district. Yeah, that makes sense here. They have buildings all over the area, right? Let’s say they have fifteen locations; elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, administrative buildings. Those people all need documents to be printed and copied, right? Well, they could hire someone to work at each location, whose job it is to handle only the work those people need. Or they could set up an entire building where all they do is print things for the teachers and administrators. But how do you get all those documents to the end users? You could drive around the city, sure, that’s probably how they do it now. Or you could call us. My drones don’t worry about traffic, or wait at red lights. They zip over everything, and drop what the client needs, where they need it, and most importantly, when they need it. That’s key here. If we can scale up enough, and manage our client base, we can promise deliveries measured in minutes, rather than hours.

Journalism Student: What about the cost to the clients? Will it be worth it for them to hire you, instead of just sticking with however they’re doing it now?

Drone Service Founder: We’re still working on the details, but this will come at an affordable price. Our overhead is lower than you would think, and our labor costs are really low. I’m here with my first investor and partner. We hired someone for legal, and one general laborer. I’ll probably hire a mechanic to maintain the drones themselves, and an accountant to keep us square. Beyond that, we shouldn’t need anyone else. Every company in the city could contract with us, and we won’t likely need to hire too many more people to keep up with it. Automation is key.

Journalism Student: What do you say to people who are already worried about robots taking all their jobs?

Drone Service Founder: I’ll remind them that we’re a new company. You can’t expect us to arbitrarily hire a staff for jobs we don’t have need for. We don’t plan on letting anyone go. Six plus people, and no room for downsizing.

Journalism Student: Wow, that’s interesting. Let me write this down. No room for downsizing.

Drone Service Founder: So, listen, I’m glad you called. I’m hoping I’m not misreading this. Can we go off the record for a moment? I would like to discuss something personal.

Journalism Student: Umm, okay, sure.