Hello world!
Although this is my first Daily Kos diary, I'm willing to bet at least a few people on this site have read my name before, even if you don't recognize it. My name, by the way, is Tommie Matherne. The reason that you may have heard of my name before is because it was included in a student loan hit piece in the Wall Street Journal a bit back. While being interviewed for the piece, I was constantly told by the author that the purpose was to highlight the hardships faced by those taking out student loans and the financial pressures it induces. Knowing what I do about the journalistic integrity of the Wall Street Journal, I can't say I'm really surprised at the lie.
You see, what the actual point of the article did was to denigrate and vilify those who have to use some of their student loans in order to make ends meet. You know, because we should all be making as much as everyone else, or else it is our own faults, right? RIGHT! In the end, this article has been touted about in various places as a reference to further drag student loan recipients through hell as the horrible, terrible people we are. I'll recap my indiscretions below the orange loan rider squiggle.
I graduated with an Associate's Degree in Electrical Engineering in 2001 from ITT Tech. In case your not quite connecting the dots on the economy, that was right as there was a quite large tumble in the tech industry. This led to the market being flooded with people with degrees quite a bit more advanced than mine wanting jobs that were normally entry level simply to stay employed. So pickings when I got out of college the first time were slim. I was either going to get lucky, or I was going to have to try for jobs that I really couldn't take. You see, I am also a life-long heart patient, having a congenital defect and all that, I couldn't really work outdoors in harsh circumstances, and with most of the still available jobs for my skill set being oil-field roughneck work, I could either work myself to death, get lucky on the job lottery, or work on something unrelated to my degree. In actuality, I got relatively lucky.
I was able to get a job with a FORTUNE 100 company in their inside sales department. I say relatively lucky because while I loved the company atmosphere and the challenge presented in the job that was provided by attempting to outfit systems to the clientele the company catered to, I was not a huge believer or achiever when it came to being pushy enough for hard sales and cold calls. The inability to stay motivated while behaving in a way that I felt made me a blatant asshole ended up being too much for me, my performance wasn't up to par, and I left voluntarily rather than stick around while I burned a bridge.
Unfortunately, that left me in a tough spot. I ended up in a very tight job market with health that couldn't handle available jobs, experience that couldn't measure up for better jobs, and a child very soon to be born. So, I boomeranged and went back to my parents' home and took more menial jobs, eventually ending up as a gate security guard at a southeast Louisiana shipyard. That is, until about a year after Katrina, when I ended up moving to Montana with my then wife. There, I once again became a security guard, this time of the mall cop variety.
At that point, I decided something had to be done. Thanks to the motivation given to me by my then-girlfriend / now wife, I returned to class and pursued a different degree in the hopes of widening the range of jobs I could chase after. With my interest in computers as well as electronics in general, plus a healthy desire to learn to program, I decided to chase Computer Science this time.
Of course, entering college while working a dead-end job leaves a lot to be desired. The student loans covered a lot for tuition and books, but my wages weren't covering food. The excess of student loans every semester ended up going into my freezer instead of staying in my school finance account just to help make ends meet. It was a tremendous help.
Then again, this being my second degree, and American student loans being what they are, you don't get to pursue degrees forever, no matter how much you are willing to pay back. They cut you off at a point, and I was quickly approaching that point with the only good college around here that teaches Computer Science. So it was with reluctance that I left my first choice of college and went online. I have to admit, paying for the entire degree with the amount of money I spent on two years of the campus courses is REALLY attractive to a person in my position. I wish I would have pursued this path first!
However, what does any of that have to do with the title of this blog? Well, as I said, the original article that covered (partially, and unfairly) my story left with a lot of different things being said about me by people in the comments section whose entire knowledge of me boiled down to about seven sentences. I could either let that get me down, or I could use it as motivation. I knew myself better than they ever could. I know what I am capable of. I am going to finish my degree within the next few years, and I am already doing a hell of a lot better than I was even that short time ago when the article was written.
At the time of this writing, I have successfully jumped into the online classes and am keeping up quite well despite life sometimes creeping in the way as it has a habit of doing.
So to the writer of the original article, Josh Mitchell, to the other "journalists" who have dragged my name through the mud rather than attempted to actually understand what I was working my way out of, and to all of the sheep who commented to denigrate me on those articles' comment sections, thank you... and fuck you.