When talking about the American Dream and how some people feel who work dead-end jobs for years on end, in Social Problems class, I often have them look up “What happens to a dream deferred?” by Langston Hughes. It’s a short little poem, easily googled and found, and we read it out loud in class. How does it feel to live in America and never reach success, to spend a lifetime struggling to get there but never quite make it?
This morning I realized why I can so easily relate to that poem. It’s not that I am stuck in a dead end job. I most certainly have a challenging and rewarding job that fulfills me in many ways. I have a good salary, twice what I earned at a university library before going back to school and achieving my PhD. I get to work with young adults, foster critical thinking, think and talk with them about how they would like to shape and affect society. I have a chance for advancement in the form of promotion.
The reason I can relate to the poem has more to do with the struggle over the years, just to pay our bills and get to where we are now. This morning I called our auto company, for the simple reason I wanted to make a payment online, and it did not recognize my account number and birthdate. It kept kicking me out and saying I had not entered the correct information. So I call the company.
We first have to give our address, phone number, account number, e-mail address, to check identity. That being done, I explain to the lady my predicament. Instead of understanding the screen I was on, she resets my login password. I had been able to log in but not to get past the NEXT screen, which asked for my account # & birthdate. I LIKE my old password and did not want it changed. However, by this time the deed is done. Then my phone accidently disconnects. This begins the process ALL OVER again, so I have to call their number, wait through the recording of all the things that do not address my problem, hit “6” for “other” and eventually get to a real human being. I go through all the identity checks once again. They have a new technique now of asking you some mundane question such as, “What are your plans for this weekend ma’am?” I have zero patience for these questions at this point and told him so, saying, “No offence, but I’m not going to talk w/ you about my plans for the weekend, I just want this issue resolved.” He resets my password once AGAIN. I now try to log in with his new password, sent to my e-mail account. It doesn’t work. From HIS end, it is letting him log in to the account. From MY computer, at home, it does not let me log in, even though I cut and paste the new password he sent me. Finally, we give up. I’ve spent the last 25 minutes on the phone with them and still cannot log in to my account. I have to go to work.
At the office later, they call me, because once you are late on a payment they have a system of total harassment that kicks in and they call you 5-6X/day. I explain to the lady my predicament. Suddenly she cannot HEAR a word I’m saying. She tells me I will have to call back but that I can ask for her, and will be transfered to her. She gives me her name. I hang up. I call back. The man I’m talking to with an accent from India says he does not have the capability to transfer me to anyone. I give up and make a payment by phone. I ask him to change my bills to send them to me in paper form instead of being available online. His response, “Ma’am, I cannot do that for you, you have to do that for yourself online.” He tells me he will reset my password so that I can easily log in online. Have a good day, good bye. ———–???????????
The reality of paying bills and struggling to keep everything in line today is that you have to go through this tedious process, face this frustration and deal with people somewhere on the other side of the world trying to explain to you what you owe and how to log in to your account, over and over and over and over again, and eventually this whole struggle gets to you. You feel humiliated. You have people address you in condescending ways time after time, and not treat you as a full intelligent human being. “Ma’am, I need to tell you that your account is 14 days behind….” “Yes I know, that’s why I’m trying to make a payment.” “Ma’am your request for deferment was denied.” “Well your new password works for me, ma’am, I’m not sure why it won’t work for you.” “Well you can mail us the payment but then it will be late…………”
After many years of struggling through hardship, struggling through my husband’s unemployment that is not my husband’s fault, struggling through doing our best to pay our bills but running into hardships or medical issues and not receiving any understanding from people on the phone whose job is to placate you and (bottom line) just get the darn payment, it absolutely breaks you down. I feel the dream deferred feeling. I know it, it is a part of my being. I turn to God, take a deep breath, say a prayer, feel His ever-loving presence in my life telling me He loves me, and realize there is so much more to the meaning of life than this frustrating phone call. I appreciate the beauty of life around me. And I move on.
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Langston Hughes
Doctor Grandma 