The Alternative Line
by Joe Holzer
for CNY-PCA Redline Report Copyright 2016 http://www.holzerent.com
A Terribly Sad Day
The vast majority of we
Porsche drivers would rarely be attributed as “shrinking violets”. Usually, our responses to most of life’s
activities involves at least decisive decisions, even if some are later proved
to be somehow wrong. I feel I am little
different from that model, and I trust few who know me would argue with that
assessment. Those who know me more
intimately know that my life has been changed, in many ways for the negative,
in the years since “The Great Recession” started. And 2016 was a culmination which has resulted
in an uncharacteristic indecisiveness by me, even while I was taking aggressive
steps to offset some of the negatives which life has tossed me over the past
eight years.
Some background: I spent my career first becoming an experienced
manufacturing engineer on the practical, vs theoretical, end of the skills
spectrum, which I have addressed somewhat in prior articles. Then I worked nights to obtain an MBA, after
which I sought responsibilities commensurate with those talents. That was paired with a phenomenon I suspect
might have many parallels amongst my reader audience – I found myself laid off
by some of America’s best companies, largely on a “last in, first out”
downsizing basis which seemed to completely miss that I NEVER generated less
benefit for my employer than a MULTIPLE of my cost. To this day I cannot seem to fathom the math
of those choices. But they were
nonetheless reality.
So, on 6/1/1986 I decided to
stop kidding myself, and made a fateful decision to become an Independent
Contracting individual “consultant”. The
term applied is “self-employed”, which I have always found to be an absurd
term; were I able to employ myself, would I EVER be working so hard? ;-) Instead, I recognized, as I suspect most of
you readers do, that whomever is paying for my services is my “employer”,
whatever the IRS’ definition. However, I
ALSO read the rules well enough to be able to use them to my advantage, to the
point that I was one of very few supporters of the losing candidate this past
November who was not even slightly disturbed at the winner’s lack of income tax
liabilities over the past few years. But
I digress… as usual ;-)
Having made that career
decision, though, along with the fact that I had been a track instructor for
two years at that point, after getting my first Porsche in 1981 and putting a
trailer hitch on it to allow me to pull my popup camper so I could afford that
“hobby”, I decided to buy means to transport the Porsche and have lower costs
for housing while allowing me to follow the old “Palladin” parallel; “Have
Brain, Will Travel” to best meet clients’ needs for onsite services; my
motorhome and car trailer. I used them
for many contracts, eventually replacing my first “Tranny Trash” which I wrote
about many years ago, which would ALMOST reach the state boundary without
blowing the transmission, with my current, and far more robust, 92 Holiday
Rambler Imperial Custom 34 Ft unit.
Because I owned that when my
now ex wife filed for divorce, then bankruptcy just before that came through,
it became my residence of choice when all THAT started with her filing for
divorce on 12/24/2009. Yep. Perfect timing for a guy many friends refer
to as “Santa”. And it’s all in the court
papers. Anyway… No, that’s not the subject of this article’s
header ;-) But it starts to explain how
I went from a six figure income which put my daughter through Wellesley, and my
now ex through Sage to get her NP certs, to where I find myself today,
gainfully disemployed despite over 30 years of solid industrial
accomplishments, and BSME and MBA degrees, and three patents, and living now on
social security payments, seemingly because grey hair is antithetical to
today’s business needs. But that is only
a partial contributor to the subject header…
When, as the result of my
first and ONLY accident where I was the “driver at fault” my 993 was damaged at
WGI on 5/28/2013 while teaching a student, who subsequently asked if I would
teach him AGAIN, my “insurance company” chose to ignore their contract and
substitute undefined terms therein to deny my repair claims but keep my
premiums since I was 16 on ALL my vehicles, combined with my economic situation
caused by added “ethical people” who caused the collapse of Enron, representing
40% of the business of my then last industrial employer, GE Power, the best gig
I ever had, I happened to be sans client at just the time my then wife wanted
to start her own medical practice. And
when she had no prior business experience, while I had setup and run multiples,
I figured it was a good match for me to handle the business side while she
would handle the clinical.
Unfortunately, that became much of the basis for our divorce, sadly. And with the bankruptcy, I could not afford
the house either, so… As an aside;
should any of you readers decide to become romantically involved with me, DON’T
ASK me to become involved in YOUR business.
Won’t happen ;-) But even THAT
was not the cause for the header…
No, another “ethical” entity,
the person from whom I rent the land on which my motorhome is sited, agreed to
terms whereby I would take his fallow non-working farm whose house had burned
to the slab in Nov. 2011 and make it like an RV Park for year-round usage, in
return for pre-paid “rent” as drawdown against that “bank” of my investment of
both capital and equity, both sweat and physical, and would include my
exclusive use of the two garage bays in the barn with horse stalls, whose
electric doors would protect my 993 from weather. He decided my life actually looked to be
livable after two years, so he would move onto the property with me, and setup
an apartment in that barn.
Unfortunately, as it subsequently turned out, his “ethics” are not a
model to emulate, and in a fit of pique because I would not allow him to steal
my SECOND Tahoe like he was stealing my first when he decided to abandon it on
the side of the road, he has physically locked me out of my garage bays and
storage area in the barn containing over $10K of tools and my belongings, but
which ALSO means I am unable to put the 993 in there and still have access to
it either.
Calls to the Police to
protect my renter rights have fallen on deaf ears, even while the thief steals
my electricity, and the wheels of “justice” seem to turn pathetically slow in
Oswego County – small claims filings to recover my use of what I already paid
for along with renter rights as defined by the state, are STILL not resolved
despite filing over six months ago, because I don’t have the wherewithal to
provide full employment for the lawyer class to seek the real damages I am
due. And in ANY case, when I DID hire a
lawyer, for the 993 damages suit, his incompetence in advising me was
legendary, to the point he refunded all I paid him. But too late to fix the car, which I wound up
having to repair mechanically, albeit not cosmetically, because I HAD to in
order to move in 2013.
In 2016 I started to actually
see the fruits of my labors coming back – not compensation wise per se, but I
had started to perform for open mic sessions, and even recorded 18 songs
including a “PCA Medly” of spoof lyrics from my 2004 appearance at the “Foat
Wuth” Porsche Parade on a CD which can be downloaded from my website homepage
at the lower right as a 144MB Zip File.
I have also been providing entertainment for Senior Lunches in many of
the towns in
No, the cause of the heading
was attributed to the combination of factors – the barn lockout, the inability
to replace the fabric roof on the 993 nor protect it in the garage, and the
very wet October, which left enough water inside the 993 that the electrics are
perhaps permanently damaged. ONLY my
ability to find another garage a half hour away to put it, belonging to a
friend, MIGHT allow it to recover. But
so far no luck. So, even if the weather
suddenly was gorgeous, I have no Porsche, something I told my divorce attorney
he would never understand when he told me it was the FIRST thing I should sell,
something I told my bankruptcy attorney was ESSENTIAL for me to keep, and
something which is causing me to lament horribly because of a situation which
has left me unable to make ANY decisions about almost EVERYTHING. So I remain in this untenable quandary, with
a landlord STILL stealing my electricity, STILL threatening me with physical
harm, STILL having over $5K of MY VALUE retained in HIS PROPERTY if I simply
“move” as suggested by the worthless Police, and STILL have no resolution in
sight from the authorities nor court.
The header reflects the
morning I discovered three inches of water in the footwell of my beloved
Porsche because the rear window had torn free of the roof before three days of
torrential downpour, and the dash lit up like Christmas, including the
Tiptronic warning system, as it drove to the storage garage in “limp home”
mode. And I am heartbroken and incapable
of deciding which foot to put in front of the other, sadly. ;-(
