The In-Kind Contribution Letter Was Received After I Had Filed The Report: Fill & Download for Free

Well, I didn’t quite get fired, but I got one serious, formal write-up, and my manager, the head of HR, tried to write me up for something else, and she ended up looking really, really stupid.But still, it was obvious I needed to get out of there, and grad school was what to do next. It was already April or so, thus most schools would not accept me. But I got an excellent GRE score, and blasted that score out to maybe 50 schools with rush/priority or whatever the option was called. Eventually I found a decent (in the top 25 or so) program that had rolling admissions.Anyway, back to the job. It was the HR department. It was my first “real” job after I got my BA. Occasionally I noticed old (at least 5yrs old) org charts indicating that HR once had had a VP and Sr. VP, but when I was hired, Manager was as high as it went, and she reported directly to the President. I think she got her BA at a very mediocre-to-bad place, since she had no formal learning about HR. The lightbulbs got changed, and she was checking in on staff whether they were an improvement to our working conditions. I made some off-hand joke about the Hawthorne Effect. She didn’t get it even after I explained it to her.We were a good sized credit union, Federally insured, of course, and had some sort of special relationship with the military because we had branches in some odd places just so a military base could have a financial institution. Well, an African-American disgruntled applicant (or pre-disgruntled person, since she actually never applied in the end) wanted to see our Affirmative Action Plan. The manager never actually spoke with the disgruntled person; rather, I, the youngest and least senior member of the department (and also the only male) had to shuttle back and forth from the Manager’s office to the front desk, repeating lame variants on “Well, it’s a secured document,” “We do not have access to it at the moment” and excuses like that. Eventually the disgruntled lady left in a huff. I was the worst possible person to be trying to calm her down, because of my skin-color (I’m white), gender (I’m male. While I am far from intimidating, and really tried to keep the situation low-key and collaborative, using a male is more likely to bring about escalation of conflict even in an office setting. My age didn’t help (many people consider it insulting to be forced to deal with an a person who is inexperienced, powerless, and likely somewhat incompetent due to their lack of experience. All these issues were exacerbated by the fact that the Manager’s office was right in plain sight about fifteen feet behind the front desk and I kept going back to her office for advice/support.Many of you may not know much about required Federal filings in the US, but Annual EEO-1 reports are required if a business meets any requirement listed below:We were more than large enough >500 to require one just based on the simple number of employees, regardless of anything else.We were a financial institution, almost all of which must file. We met all three of the possible criteria for filing. If you even meet one of the criteria, you must file (besides the # employees issue by itself).Held Federal Contracts >$50,000. It’s remotely possible that I’m wrong about this one, but with our branches on bases, I’m pretty sure we had *some* dealings with the Feds, even just “who will pay to resurface the parking lot” or other minor stuff that could exceed $50,000 pretty easily if you add them up/Federal Depository in any amount. I am almost certain we handled direct deposit for military members on several bases in AK and WA, and the Philippines until Pinatubo erupted.Again it’s possible I’m wrong, but I think we handled savings bonds and Notes.So. We should have been filing annually. They’re not fun, but not terrible either. The manager didn’t do them because she had no idea what they were or that we needed to file them. We also needed an Affirmative Action plan, updated annually. This was the report the disgruntled lady wanted to see, and while the EEO-1 is considered confidential, disgruntled lady had a Federally mandated legal right to read our Affirmative Action plan. But there was no such plan to read and we hadn’t been one for years. . .Anyway, I did not get in trouble for that one, although my manager was not happy when afterward I pulled one of her BLR binders and showed her the requirements for EEO-1 and Affirmative Action (BLR binders documented every HR-related law or regulation. They came in print and provided extensive commentaries/explanations/clarifications. Once a month, a packet would arrive for updating the binders. Those binders took up a *lot* of shelf space.).The reason I was able to easily pull out exactly the right binder and go to the right section was that I was enrolled in an HR class that was part of the MPA program at the University and had studied the issues surrounding discrimination, Affirmative Action, and sexual harassment recently. With her permission I used the BLR binders as a resource (if you’re curious, an MPA is a lot like and MBA, but is meant for non-profits and government workers). Anyway, I filed the required paperwork for tuition reimbursement once I had my grade in hand. The main requirement for reimbursement was that the class(es) you were taking needed to be related to your current job. Guess who oversaw the reimbursement program? My manager, of course (ultimately the President signed the paperwork, but she decided which which ones were worthy of his signature). My reimbursement denied of course. Recently I had gotten a small promotion for handling Employee Benefits instead of screening job applicants. I still had the same co-workers, same horrible boss, and only moved to a desk about ten feet away from my old one. She explained to me that benefits were more of a payroll issue than an HR issue, and since I was no longer an truly an HR worker, the class was not related to my job.Oh, two really nasty situations arose while I was doing benefits.We had a recently hired teller who became pregnant (she probably had 90 days on the job, since that’s when health insurance and such kicked in). My manager was dedicated to proving the pregnancy was a pre-existing condition. Evil. And the manager handled it like the disgruntled lady.The other benefits nastiness involved our retirement plan. *now* I understand Annuities vs defined benefit vs defined contribution, but back then I didn’t know much of anything about retirement plans. We had a defined-benefit plan. One day a fairly high ranking employee called me to ask about a lump sum immediately vs. letting his money ride (I don’t know how he could pull out his retirement money and keep working, but somehow he could. (I think it had to do with being the director/CEO/President of a company that was technically separate but wholly owned by the credit union). Anyway, he was concerned that his lump sum value might shrink soon. I discussed it with my manager,and she didn’t seem to know much either. When I told her that he was insisting on a solid answer ASAP, she finally gave me a definitive answer: your retirement funds will never decrease. The plan provides defined benefits, so the value is not affected by the stock market. Your benefits just keep growing while you are working and will never go down. I called the man back, and while he didn’t seem entirely convinced (my utter ignorance and confusion in the previous call probably didn’t help).A little while later, probably after a month had passed, I heard from him again. He was absolutely fuming and ready to sue. Apparently the value of the lump sum *had* decreased, and by a large enough amount to make him extremely angry. My boss was out, so I directly called up the company that managed the plan.I didn’t know how lump sums vs annuities vs regular defined benefit plans worked, having had no exposure to retirement products at the tender age of 20 (I actually did already understand in a basic sense how defined contribution plans because they are basically just investing with pre-tax dollars and maybe a match from your employer). Anyway, the kind and patient representative of the company that managed our retirement plan explained that a lump sum was calculated based on the total amount of money you would expect to receive from the plan if you lived your full predicted lifespan, adjusted for assumptions about what investments would yield during that period. If investments in general were doing well and were expected to continue to do well, a lump sum might go up, but if investments were doing poorly and expected to do so in the future, a lump sum could go down. Or perhaps they pegged the yield to the prime rate or treasury bonds. In any case, the expectation of return on investment the company used for calculating lump sums had gone down bit, thus causing the amount of a lump sum to go down. BTW — this was 1993 or ‘94. I think that the company used some sort of rolling average, and they had just included the 1990 recession in the years they were using. Or maybe it went down for some other reason.In any case, I managed to regained the trust of the person who had lost money. I confessed my ignorance and apologized for any harm that came from it, and basically told him what had just been explained to me. He already understood the issues, since he paid attention to his statements and understood retirement plans, but at least now we were on the same page. With the boss out of the office, I couldn’t do anything to solve the problem but we would see once she returned.When she returned to the office, she blamed the whole thing on my having overstepped my bounds and made promises on behalf of the organization that I was not authorized to make (going back to her statement that “Your benefits will never decrease,” etc., only now, she said that I had made up the erroneous statements on my own). Luckily, I did not get written up or fired. I think it was because I knew that the lump sum guy had been made whole using funds from the Credit Union (not the retirement plan), and that a VP or above had back-dated the check to make the amount match what it would have been in an alternate universe. I’m not sure exactly whether they committed a crime or not, but the manager wanted to keep it hush-hush, so she did not retaliate. At least not immediately.Shortly thereafter, I was written up for violating company policy and state labor law. I was accused of arriving early, sometimes taking lunches more brief than allowed, and also, I sometimes worked late to complete a task. I probably showed up ten minutes early every day because the penalties for tardiness could quickly lead to termination. I admittedly had the habit of failing to use my last five minutes at lunch. Staying late could vary, but I usually left and 5:00 and if the task was going to take more than 20 minutes or so, I’d just leave the work to be completed the next day. By engaging in this unauthorized behavior, I was creating a dangerous legal liability for the Credit Union. I might be keeping track of my extra work time, planning to sue for failure to pay me for the extra work, and also attempt to gain a punitive award. I thought it was a very, very strange accusation, but I was clearly guilty of the behavior she had documented.So: one strike. Two more write ups meant termination.The next attempt to write me up was based on the accusation that I had misrepresented my access to the Credit Union President while conversing with one of our branch managers. I did have a conversation with that manager regarding a Tuition Reimbursement taking longer to process than she had expected. I told her something along the lines that the forms for that program needed to be signed by the President, and due to busy schedules, apparently my Manager had not had an opportunity to meet with him recently.My Manager accused me of having told the Branch Manager that *I* had not had an opportunity to meet with the President lately. The hierarchy was very rigid; only once in three years was I allowed enter the top floor where the executives were, and that was just to quickly drop something off with the receptionist on my Manager’s behalf. So meeting with the President would be absurd for somebody of my stature. While my Manager was preparing my formal reprimand, I asked if we could call that Branch Manager and get her recollection of the conversation. My Manager was convinced enough about what she had heard that she agreed. It would just be more damning proof of my having said what she had overheard.We called, and the Branch manager could not recall the conversation in complete detail because it was such a routine non-event, but she was certain she would have remembered if I had claimed to be having meetings with the President. So it was my memory and the memory of the Branch Manager against my Manager’s memory. I had narrowly avoided my second formal write-up.After that incident, the Manager and I experienced levels of defensiveness and hatred that I never knew existed. I had generally been rather obsequious and deferential if it looked like her anger and hatred of others was likely to surface. After my “win” from the Branch Manager backing up my side of the story, those who knew about the conflict were glad. She had always been erratic and sometimes just made no sense, but this was the first time (as far as I knew) she had been called on her bullshit and had her power and judgement questioned.Now, I just didn’t care. I spent much of an entire week attempting to get our magical new Laser Printer (bye bye, dot matrix!) to communicate with our mainframe accounts and the terrible, horrible software we used for managing some of our information about employees (the bulk of the information was still stored as hard copy in about 15–20 filing cabinets).I did it! The mainframe could print to the Laser Printer. Much of my time had been spent typing letters notifying individuals about significant changes to their benefits (gaining health insurance after 90 days, bumping up to the next level of the defined benefit plan after ten years, COBRA eligibility upon termination, etc., etc., etc.) Many different events, each with a separate report from the mainframe. I didn’t need to type the whole letter; we had the various notifications created by a printing company on CU letterhead, so I generally just needed to type their name, one or more dates, and maybe a little more for some of the letters. Anyway, once I had it going, I started with the most common notifications and worked my way through the different types of letter. It was a *very* annoying and error-prone job to get the mainframe to put the names and dates and such in the proper parts of the letter, but it was possible, and a lot more fun than typing them. In addition, it really ticked off the Manager. IT staff had connected only her terminal to the Laser Printer. But they set it up in a communal area surrounded by our staff. When she finally noticed what I was doing, she was angry, but the staff were glad to be able to get away from the dot matrix, and were looking forward to automating processes like I was doing. It was such an obvious improvement to the speed, accuracy, and appearance of our work that she backed off, which had seldom, if ever, happened before. I suspect that word of her going loony-bird about meetings with the President had made its way to the executive suite and she may have been told to calm down or something. Or, she was just having an unusually nice day. I dunno.About a week later, I was accepted to grad school. There was still time to participate in the summer construction-and-related-activities boom that happened each year in Alaska. So I left the Credit Union, planning to get the highest paying job possible for the Summer. Thus, I became trained in hazardous waste labor and earned more money in ten weeks than I would earn at the Credit Union in a year. Then my life really began, upon entering grad school.If you made it this far, great! Thanks for paying atten for so long to a relatively uneventful story.That manager was a vicious person who was probably in HR precisely because her position allowed her to be a bully as an adult. The pre-existing condition issue for the pregnant teller, was just one little event out of many. There was a young married couple in the building; she worked in the branch doing something more than a Teller but less than a Loan Officer or Management. Member services Rep, I think. He worked as a groundskeeper mowin the grass and such at first, but it turned out he actually was educated, intelligent, and diligent, so he moved to a much better position in Real Estate. A move that dramatic was practically unheard of. The birth announcement about their first child was proudly communicated to the whole organization by somebody important. If that was on a Monday, then fast-forward to Wednesday, two days later. She fired the husband for his third tardy of the year, just two days after we celebrated his child’s birth. He was not very tardy, less than five minutes I believe. The Manager in Real estate didn’t want him fired, and I believe it was that manager who brought the absurd situation to the attention of somebody on the Executive floor. The new father’s termination was rescinded the same week it occured.In another brazenly cruel situation, HR had an employee foisted upon us from Insurance. Our new co-worker had apparently worked in insurance for much of her life, but was new to the Credit Union. She had been working in Insurance for perhaps a month before she was moved to HR. It was soon apparent why the Insurance department had wanted her gone. She was probably in her mid-to-late 60’s, and I suspect that she had been a rather odd character for her whole life; her quirks were probably not due to her age. She was one of the kindest, warmest, most loving people I had ever met, but she simply could not think on her feet and get complex tasks accomplished. She wasn’t particularly useful, but she made a decent receptionist (she loved to smile and greet people coming through the door.) She could take messages just fine, and efficiently operated the receptionist phone with multiple lines to forward calls. I never did understand how to work that device very well. apart from being friendly and greeting people, we would occasionally assign her simple tasks, such as stuffing a bunch of envelopes or alphabetizing 1000 job applications. She was rather slow, and sometimes got hung up by minor complications that most of us could simply work around. So: not a fast and efficient employee, but a wonderful person who was able to contribute to the organization, just not by doing complex tasks. Attacks began. First, our Manager forbade her to have a water bottle or snacks at work. The lady countered with a note from her doctor that declared that she needed water and snacks available at all times; might have been diabetes I dunno for sure.This is the longest post I have ever created, and is one of the few with any type of narrative. Please comment about what you thought. Good, bad, boring, enjoyable, painful, whatever!

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.There’re several actors that suffered from fame so these are a few you may or may not know about:Robert Cletus “Bobby” DriscollVery few people about know him but Bobby Driscoll was a child star for Disney and started in many successful films for them. Born March 3, 1937 in Cedar Rapids Iowa, he spent his early years in Des Moines until 1943 when his family moved to Los Angeles, California after his dad was suffering from health issues due to handling asbestos. Driscoll began acting starting with the 1943 film “Lost Angel” after impressing the director with his curiosity and intelligence at such a young age after noticing a mock-up ship without any water. The inspiration for their adaptation of Peter Pan, Driscoll provided the voice and model which was then rotoscoped and used in the film. Under Disney’s employ, he was one of the most successful child actors in the late-40’s and early-50’s. He starred in movies such as “So Dear To My Heart”, “Song of the South”, “The Window” and of course “Peter Pan”. He also provided the voice of Goofy Jr. in some of the 50’s Goofy shorts. Originally one of Disney’s personal favorite “live-actors”, as he got older and began to reach puberty, Disney’s view of him changed: He initially saw him as an embodiment of his childhood but during a meeting for Peter Pan, he saw him better suited in roles as a bully rather than a likable protagonist many knew him for.When the acne and deeper voice became too much for Disney studios to cast him in any future roles, Disney let him go. Following his termination, he returned to school where he was ridiculed for his career: "The other kids didn't accept me. They treated me as one apart. I tried desperately to be one of the gang. When they rejected me, I fought back, became belligerent and cocky—and was afraid all the time."It was at this point where he began dabbling into drugs. His parents transferred him as per his request where he graduated but unfortunately, he was hooked on drugs by that point and his usage continued: "I was 17 when I first experimented with the stuff. In no time I was using whatever was available... mostly heroin, because I had the money to pay for it."His struggles didn’t end there as he struggled to find work. He had a few brushes with the law, a short-lived marriage and difficulty regaining his footing in the industry. Needless to say, this left him bitter: "I have found that memories are not very useful. I was carried on a silver platter—and then dumped into the garbage." He began going by “Robert Driscoll” to distance himself from his Disney past in hopes of finding more roles. When they dried up, he moved to New York and turned to Broadway in hopes of reviving his career. When that failed, he turned to art. He joined Andy Warhol’s The Factory to concentrate on his art on the advice of a poet he befriended named Wallace Berman. Sadly, he never recovered from his glory days and around 1967 or 68, his body was found in an abandoned building in East Village by two boys who were playing.The cause of death was heart failure due to his drug use. He was only 31. His body remained unclaimed until a year later when his mom reached out to Disney studios to contact him for a reunion with his near-dead father whom they didn’t speak to in a while. His body and identity were found, yet his remains are still on Hart Island.Despite his initial fame, Bobby was discarded when he was no longer considered cute by the man he originally saw himself in. Originally bathed in fame and adulation, he ended up alone and penniless. It’s even more backhanded knowing that after all these years, he has yet to be made a Disney Legend. This’s the price of fame. R.I.P. Bobby Driscoll.Johnathan BrandisJohnathan Brandis was born April 13, 1976 in Danbury, Connecticut. He began modeling at the age of 2 for Buster Brown shoes and began acting in tv commercials at the age of 4. At age 6, he won the role Kevin Buchanan on the soap opera “One Life to Live”. He later became best known for starring in Steven Spielberg’s hit show, seaQuest DSV. Brandis also became popular starring in movies such as “Ladybugs”, “The NeverEnding Story 2: The Next Chapter” and “Sidekicks”. He also voiced Mozenrath in the Disney series, “Aladdin” and even worked as a producer later on in his career. His role as Lucas Wolenczak in seaQuest DSV helped launch him into being a teen heartthrob. He was very popular with girls, so much so that he received approximately 4,000 letters of fan mail a week and had to have three security guards around whenever girls were present.Sadly, after seaQuest DSV ended, so did virtually his career. While he continued to appear in movie, make guest appearances and even produce his own content, Brandis never reached the amount of fame that he did on the show. His last movies were “Bad Girls from Valley High” and “Puerto Vallarta Squeeze”.With his career declining, Brandis began to drink heavily and according to friends, he told them that he was going to kill himself. On November 11, 2003, Brandis was found hanged in his apartment in Los Angeles. He didn’t leave behind a suicide note. He was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center but tragically died the following day due to his injuries.Such a tragic end to a bright star.Brad RenfroTo begin with, he had a rough life from the start. Brad Renfro was born in July 25, 1982 in Knoxville, Tennessee. He grew up in a trailer with his grandma after his parents divorced. He allegedly didn’t have a good relationship with his dad. His big break came in the form of the 1994 thriller film called “The Client” that was based on the book by John Grisham. Director, Joel Schumacher wanted a “tough kid” who knew what it was like growing up in the gutter, "I wanted a kid who understood in the marrow of his psyche what it was like to grow up too soon”. The movie was a hit and soon, Renfro began receiving attention from Hollywood.The roles and money kept coming in as did the attention he got from it. He starred in Disney’s “Tom and Huck”, “Sleepers”, “Apt Pupil”, “Bully”, “Tart”, “The Cure” and many others such as “Ghost World”. Unfortunately, as his fame rose, so did his personal problems and they were out in the open for all to see. He was arrested a few times mainly for drug-related offenses and was either in jail or rehab. This caused his career to decline. The last film he starred in was a 2008 drama called “The Informers”. That and a short film simply called “Collectors”.On January 15, 2008, he was found dead in his apartment. According to the autopsy reports, his death was accidental and was caused by Morphine/Heroin intoxication. Since his death, questions have been raised about Hollywood’s role in how child actors are treated in the industry. Controversy about how well he was supervised came when an article from Buzzfeed theorized that despite not breaking any laws, Hollywood still failed to protect him.What also caught many off guard was his maturity and self-confidence for someone his age. Many who met him thought he was 15 or 16 when really, he was only 12 or 13. He had a girlfriend who was twice his age and they supposedly had sex a few times. Even as a kid, he would get explicit letters from teens. A good example is one where the writer claimed that she fantasized waking up with him in her bed. Yikes! It didn’t help that they sexualized him at such a young age either. In one scene in “Apt Pupil”, he’s literally taking a shower while barely censored.Despite being what Hollywood wanted him to be, when he grew too much to handle, they let him go; sadly with disastrous results. Hollywood’s no place for a kid that young. Ever. You won’t be forgotten Brad. R.I.P.Thomas Lee “Tommy” KirkTommy Kirk was born in December 10th, 1941 in Louisville, Kentucky. He’s the first of four sons. His parents moved to Downey in LA County, California for better opportunities when he was just 15 months old. He got his first taste of acting when he accompanied his brother Joe to an audition of Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” in Pasadena, California. Joe lost the audition amazingly to Bobby Driscoll and wasn’t cast but Tommy was. "It was five lines, it didn't pay anything, and nobody else showed up, so I got the part," said Kirk. An agent from the Gertz agency saw him and signed Kirk on. He then successfully got him a part in an episode of “TV Reader’s Digest”, "The Last of the Old Time Shooting Sheriffs". His brother Joe, later on became a dentist.He became a steady in television, getting parts for shows such as “Crossroads”, “Gunsmoke”, and ““Letter to Loretta”. He was very popular so naturally he was in demand all the time. According to Dabolique magazine "Kirk was in heavy demand as an actor almost immediately. Watching his early performances it’s easy to see why – he was wide-eyed, gangly, keen and immensely likeable… the very picture of Eisenhower Era American youth, unaffected and natural, surprisingly non-annoying, extremely easy to cast as someone’s kid brother, or son, or neighbour."Later on, he moved to film. In April 1956, Kirk auditioned to play as Joe Hardy in the Mickey Mouse Club serial ““The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure”. He successfully got the part and was selected to co-star with Tom Considine. Filming began in June and early July 1956, and was broadcast in October during the start of the show’s second season. Both the show and Kirk’s acting were praised.In August 1956, Disney hired him and former Mouseketeer Judy Harriet to attend both the republican and democratic presidential nominating conventions, for newsreel specials that later appeared on the show. It wasn’t until January 1957 when Disney cast him in Old Yeller as Travis Coates. That was his big break. It was a boy and his dog story and a very good one. A classic even today still. Due to the film’s success, Disney made him the go-to whenever they needed an all-american boy for the lead role. Kevin Corcoran, who played his younger brother in the film later starred as such in the films they starred together. They were originally meant to star in Disney’s adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s “Rainbow Road to Oz”, but it was never produced.Kirk’s career remained strong until 1958 when after filming for “The Shaggy Dog”(Disney’s first live-action comedy) Disney told him he didn’t have any projects lined up for him and was being dropped. "I was thin and gangly and looked a mess... I thought the whole world had fallen to pieces," he said. He returned to television briefly until the success of “The Shaggy Dog” caused Disney to reconsider. He contacted him offering him a long-term contract and a role as Ernst Robinson in 1960’s “A Swiss Family Robinson”. Much like the former it was a success and Kirk’s career was back on track. Kirk has said that’s his favorite movie. He was then signed to two more movies upon returning from filming in the West Indies.Kirk continued to act in Disney movies. Most of them were light comedies to varying degrees of success. Amazingly, despite being hired by Disney, Kirk only met him once outside of a studio. Regardless, Kirk claimed Disney was his “good luck charm”. That all changed during filming of “The Misadventures of Merlin Jones”. Kirk knew since he was a kid that he was gay and due to the conservative time period, was deeply unhappy. In 1963 while filming the movie, Kirk who was 21, began seeing a 15 year old boy he met at a swimming pool. The boys mom found out and told Disney who decided not to renew his contract:I consider my teenage years as being desperately unhappy. I knew I was gay, but I had no outlet for my feelings. It was very hard to meet people and, at that time, there was no place to go to socialize. It wasn't until the early '60s that I began to hear of places where gays congregated. The lifestyle was not recognized and I was very, very lonely. Oh, I had some brief, very passionate encounters and as a teenager I had some affairs, but they were always stolen, back alley kind of things. They were desperate and miserable. When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn't going to change. I didn't know what the consequences would be, but I had the definite feeling that it was going to wreck my Disney career and maybe my whole acting career. It was all going to come to an end.After reviewing the complaint, Disney personally fired him: “Even more than MGM, Disney was the most conservative studio in town.... The studio executives were beginning to suspect my homosexuality. Certain people were growing less and less friendly”. Despite being let go in 1963, Disney did ask him to return to star in the sequel The Monkey’s Uncle due to the success of the first one and the fact that he made them bank.Thankfully, Tommy Kirk found work at American International Pictures(AIP). He starred in what was later known as Pajama Party(1964) where he played a Martian originally sent to invade only to fall in love with some partying teens. One of who he falls in love with played by former Mickey Mouse Club star, Annette Funicello. The success led him to star in the follow-up “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini”. Just when things were looking up for him, on Christmas Eve 1964, Kirk was arrested for suspicion of pot possession at a house in Hollywood. The district attorney’s office refused to file a complaint against him on the marijuana charge but unfortunately, the city attorney’s office did as they found barbiturates in his car. Thankfully, the charge was dismissed by the judge in early January when his lawyer proved that they were medically prescribed to him.Sadly, the damage was done and he was replaced in the later sequels. The experience left him bitter: "This town is full of right-wingers—the world is full of right-wingers—intolerant, cruel sons-of-bitches", he did acknowledge his mistake though, admitting he "richly deserved to be fired from the studios because of my irresponsibility. A person on drugs is not fit for work".His career regained momentum with movies of varying quality but by 1966, his personal problems began to affect his career: I was drinking, taking pills and smoking grass. In fact, I was pretty wild. I came into a whole lot of money, but I threw a lot of parties and spent it all. I wound up completely broke. I had no self-discipline and I almost died of a drug overdose a couple of times. It's a miracle that I'm still around. All of that didn't help the situation. Nobody would touch me; I was considered box office poison.”By the time his racing film Track of Thunder was done, Kirk became an addict by this point. "I was about half awake in that film. I just sort of walked through it and took the money." After doing two non-Screen Actor Guild movies in 1970, he nearly lost his SAG card. Realizing he hit rock bottom, he vowed to turn his life around. "Finally, I said, to hell with the whole thing, to hell with show business, I'm gonna make a new life for myself, and I got off drugs, completely kicked all that stuff."Three years later he publicly came out as gay in an interview with Marvin Jones. After appearing in a few movies, Kirk finally quit acting in the mid-70’s and got a job as a waiter and chauffeur before going into the car cleaning business in San Fernando Valley. Despite getting out, Kirk admitted he was “poor” by that point:“I made a lot of money and I spent it all. No bitterness. No regrets. I did what I did... I wasn't the boy next door anymore. I could pretend to be for a few hours a day in front of the camera. But I couldn't live it. I'm human. I'm not Francis of Assisi”.It’s great to know that he made it out and is taking it slow. He occasionally acts still and was made a Disney Legend in 2006:“I don't blame anybody but myself and my drug abuse for my career going haywire. I'm not ashamed of being gay, never have been, and never will be. For that I make no apologies. I have no animosity toward anybody because the truth is, I wrecked my own career”.In 2006, he claimed to have retired on “a nice pension” while living in Redding, California as of today:“As I look back on the whole thing, it gave me the chance to be in three or four movies that people will enjoy long after I'm gone. I heard Pat Boone say in an interview that the bombs are just as important as the hits, because they are all part of life. I'm not bitter. I'm not unhappy things didn't go the way I wanted them to go with my career. I tried to be a good actor and an ethical person. I'm still trying to be an ethical and honest person. But I'm glad to be retired. I live in the middle of a national park, basically, with miles and miles of wilderness. Redding ain't glamorous. Monte Carlo it is not. It's small-town life, and it suits me”.Glad to know that’s he still kicking…Corey HaimKnown for roles in films such as “License to Drive”, “The Lost Boys”, “Lucas”, and “Dream A little Dream of Me”, the Canadian actor had a string of hits in the 80’s and was a teen heartthrob. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, December 23, 1971, he initially wasn’t interested in acting. At the time, he preferred things such as Ice Hockey, collecting Comic Books, and Piano playing. He got into the biz by accompanying his sister Carol to auditions. During one of them, he was noticed and began getting offered roles. He began acting at age 10. He played a character named Larry for a kids show called The Edison Twins. The show ran from 1982 to 1986. Between that, he made his film debut in the movie First Born where he starred alongside Peter Weller of Robocop fame. Slowly and slowly he hagan reviewing attention which led to greater roles such as The Lost Boys. It was there on the set where he became friends with Corey Feldman and the two were dubbed “The Two Coreys” by the media. They bonded by hanging out in hotels and playing arcade games. Together they were a force to be reckoned with; making hit after hit. Things seemed to be great for them… but what few people knew about was the dark shit that went on behind the scenes:Feldman has claimed multiple times that they were both raped and abused by powerful men in the industry. The abuse took a toll on them, particularly Haim who’s career spiraled downwards when his addiction got the best of him. His roles were relegated to Direct-to-Videos of varying quality.Once he did clean up his act, he went on to reunite and star alongside Corey Feldman in the infamous reality show, “The Two Corey’s”. At first things went well but as time went on, dark aspects of their careers began to be brought up and soon, Haim began to relapse and become more self-destructive. This forced Feldman to cancel the show in order to try and save him. They later on reconciled behind the camera.In the last few weeks of his life, he lived close to his mom, still trying to rebuild his life. On March 10, 2010, he was rushed to the hospital after he collapsed. Despite being rushed to the paramedics at 2:15am, he was pronounced dead at age 38. The cause of death was pneumonia. After his death, they found a lot of medications prescribed to him. Many were obtained illegally using false aliases.Despite being a successful actor, he died broke and the costs for his funeral had to be covered elsewhere. Despite his last few years being less than ideal, we will never forget Corey again for bringing joy in our lives and making us smile.R.I.P. Corey 😔Fernando Ramos da SilvaBorn November 29, 1967 in Sao Paulo, he was the sixth of ten kids and lived with his parents in a slum called Diadema. When he was eight, his father died leaving his mom widowed and a single mom. In order to survive, she received a $10 pension every month and the family sold lottery tickets as a source of income. After briefly attending grade school, he joined a theater group and began acting in plays when he was eight. His big break came when he was picked out of 1,300 applicants by director Hector Babenco for the title character which he became famous for. The 1981 film, Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco is known for its gritty portrayal of Brazilian street life which he knew all too well as he lived it early on. Much like his role, you could say it was semi-autobiographical.Despite the controversy in its depiction of the street children as they do whatever it takes to survive the street ranging from pick pocketing, survival sex, drug dealing, and finally murdering, the film became successful and launched Da Silva into stardom. The film received strong reviews from critics such as Roger Ebert who described it as "a rough, unblinking look at lives no human being should be required to lead. And the eyes of Fernando Ramos da Silva, [Babenco's] doomed young actor, regard us from the screen not in hurt, not in accusation, not in regret - but simply in acceptance of a desolate daily reality."Shortly afterwards, Da Silva got a one-year contract TV Globo for a soap opera called O amor é nosso. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to last as he was fired shortly afterwards due to his perceived laziness. He was actually illiterate which may’ve contributed to that false perception. He managed to land a small role in Bruno Barreto’s Gabriela and enrolled in acting school before dropping out two days later. According to friends and family, he never settled down. After being arrested in 1984 in Diadema, the Mayor of Duque de Caxias, outside Rio de Janeiro, gave him a house in the neighborhood. His mom and some family members moved in briefly before returning to the slum a few months later due to missing it.Realizing his fame was fleeting, he returned to the life he knew best: A life on the streets. He struggled to distance himself from his role and claimed that police constantly harassed him because of his iconic role. ''I just want people to forget my image as Pixote,'' he told a reporter after his second arrest, in 1985. ''I want a chance to live as a man, without being persecuted. They created a Pixote, but they did not know how to prepare him for life.'' He wanted to play in romantic roles rather than just criminals. This would lead him on a downward spiral. In 1984, he was arrested for robbery charges in Diadema. This would be a reoccuring thing for him. The following year, he married Maria Aparecida Venancia da Silva and the two had a daughter named Jacqueline. Their relationship wouldn’t last long as 2 years later on August 25, Da Silva was shot 7 times by 3 cops who claimed he was resisting arrest. Due to Brazil having a history of police brutality, especially in the slums, few believed the official report with some claiming he was unarmed. Despite the report, a forensic examination showed he was fatally shot while lying on the ground.Both his wife and mom labelled his death as “a police execution”. His sister Maria Aparecida Luz claimed that he was a friend’s house playing cards when he learned that the house was going to be raided and fearing that he’d be arrested, fled unarmed where he was chased by the cops into another house where he was fatally shot.Despite his short life, Da Silva hasn’t been forgotten. His life was made into a movie in 1996 called Quem Matou Pixote? The sad thing is it seemed he was trying to turn his life around yet continued to struggle. The odds were always stacked against him.Corey Haim - WikipediaHow Hollywood Failed Brad RenfroBrad Renfro - WikipediaJonathan Brandis - WikipediaBobby Driscoll - WikipediaTommy Kirk - WikipediaFernando Ramos da Silva - WikipediaThank you for the views and upvotes!

The healthcare in the US is not expensive because is a system designed for profit. If that were the case, hospitals would be following six-sigma quality guidelines and follow evidence based medicine.No.It is because it is a system where EVERYONE profits from waste.1) The doctor profits when he orders unnecessary tests and procedures. BUT if he works for a system where the insurer and the hospital are the same entity (For example, Kaiser Permanente) he may be penalized/rewarded for ordering/denying tests, procedures and referrals even if they are medically necessary.The hospital profits when doctor does (1) and(2) When the good doctor fucks up. See that healthy man that whose sepsis was misdiagnosed and resulted in limb amputations? He becomes a cash cow for the hospital for the rest of his life. If the crappy doctor on the other hand, works for a system such as Kaiser's, he/she will save millions of dollars to the HMO by refusing to order necessary tests and treatments. That is why poor doctors are kept on the job for years, even though according to the National Practitioner Data Bank Public Use File;The vast majority of doctors – 82 percent – have never had a medical malpractice payment since the NPDB was created in 1990.Just 5.9 percent of doctors have been responsible for 57.8 percent of all malpractice payments since 1991, according to data from September 1990 through 2005. Each of these doctors made at least two payments. (Source Public Citizen)But what about frivolous lawsuits? you may say. Tort reform and arbitration have made pretty much impossible to sue a doctor -but to go through that issue is the source of another long post. The reality is that only 3% of valid medical malpractice cases go to trial, and the plaintiff loses 75% of the time. The chances of the hospital having to do a huge payout to a patient are extremely slim. The cost of preventable medical errors is staggering - some estimates put it as high as $780 billion a year (source The economics of health care quality and medical errors. ). Guess who gets the majority of that money - you have it right: The Hospital and doctors. Medical boards all over the country are nothing but cartels safeguarding crappy doctors. Did you prescribe methadone as a pain reliever after a tonsillectomy and the patient dies of an overdose a few days later?. A "public" letter of reprimand will suffice (see Page on ca.gov ). No probation, no suspension. If the case is pretty bad, the good doc will lawyer up and settle for a single act of negligence and leave it at that.BUT! you may say, can't the victim testify or witness the proceeding?THESE HEARINGS, THEIR FINDINGS, THE NAME OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY ASSIGNED TO YOUR CASE (IF YOU MAKE IT THAT FAR) ARE ENTIRELY CONFIDENTIAL. Imagine a secret trial in which the prosecutor and the defendant can discuss as good pals what kind of disciplinary actions they would like, and the victim is not even allowed to show how badly harmed they were?. Yup, that is the way the disciplinary hearings from the Medical boards work in the US. In fact, they still are debating whether you, as a patient, should be notified if you good doc is on probation (Your doctor’s on probation: Should you be told?) You get more transparency in your pick of Vietnamese restaurant than of the doctor that makes life and death decisions for you.BUT!! you may say. How about the Insurers? Medicaid? Medicare?. Wouldn't it be in their best interest to improve safety practices and do evidence-based medicine?. Ideally, this would be the case, BUT!!!3) VENDORS do not have any sort of transparency in prices. From medications, to the cost of the band-aid, or a simple test, and you may get staggering differences in price (see A blood test can cost from $10 to $10,000 in Calif. hospitals, according to a study). Insurers negotiate prices with HMO's so this kind of magical math happens all the time.The cynic in me believes that the vendors and the insurers are in cahoots: inflate the price 1000%, and the 20-30% percent patient co-payment alone would shift the majority of the REAL cost to the patient -and even make a tidy profit. The poor fellow with the Bronze plan? please pay up the whole price, credit cards accepted, pronto.Not only that, but if the situation becomes too bad, Insurers can always raise prices. Or in the case of Medicare, instead of going against the powerful AMA and the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry, we start saving money by denying benefits to those who may need it. Prosthetic devices? See Rescind the Medicare proposal restricting access to prosthetic limbs and returning amputees to 1970’s standards of care. Same goes for wheelchairs Stop Medicare from Making Inappropriate Cuts to Complex Wheelchair Accessories. When Medicare goes into full mayhem mode, and refuses to pay for complications generated by easily preventable hospital conditions (see Medicare's no-pay events: Coping with the complications), then the hospitals start releasing the sick patients to SNF (skilled nursing facilities) and saying that the condition was acquired there.But how about the patients?, you may say4) But the patients have also a big responsibility in this whole mess. You have a kick ass program at work? You think nothing of ordering unnecessary tests "just to make sure", and "treating yourself" via chiropractors, accupuncturists and homeopaths, which are nothing but quackery (See Page on sciencebasedmedicine.org and https://www.Page on sciencebasedmedicine.org/acupuncture-doesnt-work/). You overburden hospitals when you to to the ER when nothing is wrong with you, you refuse to vaccinate your children because of something you read on the internet, you bitch when Obamacare rolls in and you say "hands off my health plan", you are the first to demand that undocumented immigrants be forbidden to buy insurance in the exchanges, even though they contribute over $13 billion of dollars to our SS and Medicare systems on a yearly basis, and get less than $1 billion back (See Page on socialsecurity.gov) -and virtually ensure that they only get care in the ER's when their conditions are often lethal and incredibly expensive to treat. In fact, you, the patient, are a very integral part of the problem when you vote and without first getting a basic understanding of the inherent complexity of this matter.As a final note, here is a little reason of by I am so passionate about the subject.This was my husband - a triathlete, a marathon runner - handsome fella uhm?On January 2013, he sprained his ankle and developed a joint infection. His doctor, hurried and careless, told him it was just the flu and did not order any blood work nor cultures, even though he had a textbook presentation of septic arthritis of the ankle joint. Despite constant follow up calls to the hospital, they kept reassuring us that this was expected. The doctor that examined him initially, suspected that he has sepsis, but never told him to go to the ER. By the time we reached the ER he was in full septic and toxic shock from a common strain of Streptococcus pyogenes. A bacteria easily treatable with penicillin.Cost of treating him on time: $30.This is how my husband looks like nowNow, the breakdown of the cost of this errorHospitalization19 days in ICU: between $15,000-$$30,000 day (due to complex presentation, intubation, wound care and dialysis)= $285,000- $570,000141 days of regular hospitalization: on low end, $1975 x $ 141= $278,485Surgical costs (aprox 15 surgeries of 4-6 hours duration each) = Unknown, but average surgery for debridement costs $15,000. I am being conservative at putting the costs of surgery at around $225,00012 weeks of acute rehabilitation: $1,040,000 (and I got this much rehab because I bitched like a rabid dog)Total hospitalization: A conservative cost of $2,113,000Litigation: Our attorney (between experts, court reporters, etc) $150,000Kaiser (let's be conservative and assume they had the same costs as us) = $150,000But Kaiser alone had to pay for their attorney. Assuming the guy worked about 200 hours in the case (which is quite conservative, as the trial alone was about 80 hours), at $400/h, we are talking about $80,000 in fees.Arbitrator: 100 hours at $550/h= $55,000Total legal costs: $495,000Victim gets zero. Arbitration rules -but for insurers!!Anthem, and now Medicare, pay approximately $100,000/year in medical costs for husband. Prosthesis ain't cheap. At 20% copay, we had to pay close to $20,000/year in copays alone, that without including caregiver costs.Husband, an engineer, used to make close to $150,000/year. Luckily we had good LTD insurance, but still, I had to stop working in engineering as the time constraints and cost of care-giving made it impossible to continue working FT. That means that SS will stop receiving close to $620,000 in Medicare and SS taxes from us during our expected work expectancy.So to add it up:Costs of initial hospitalization: $2.1 millionLegal costs: $495,000Insurance costs through husband's lifetime (life expentancy of 75): $3 millionCosts to victims: $600,000 (based on same life expentancy)Loss of Medicare and SS earnings: $620,000Loss of wages: 2.3 million (wife), 1.1 million (husband - I am deducting his disability payments)Total cost to society: $10,215,000 (in 2015 dollars)So you can understand my frustration when PCP's tell me that it would be too cumbersome to test all suspicious cases?. With the cost of Husband's case alone, we would have been able to test and treat more that 300,000 patients.To this date, doctor still practices, despite having been found below the standard of care by the CA medical board. If we are lucky, she will get a public letter of reprimand and that will be it.You on the other hand, will pay dearly, when Medicare goes insolvent, or when your insurance rates increase. All because of the waste.