Food Poisonings

Work has been getting really busy lately. According to a hand-drawn chart I saw, the business I work for is going to grow by about 200% in the next year alone. We’re hiring new employees and in doing so I’m meeting some really strange people.

The first round of hiring people involved in inviting 6 people in for a group interview. Within the week they were scheduled, 3 cancelled including one on the morning of. There were 2 more who just didn’t show up and the one who did was wearing high heels and has never picked up dog poop in her life (that’s basically the job).

So we decided it was time to invite even more people in to ensure we have enough for the big group interview. We invited in 12 candidates and miraculously 8 showed up.

In this 8 were a black guy we ended up hiring, a Spanish semi-hipster girl we ended up hiring, a gay guy who we wanted to hire but he didn’t respond to us until 3 days after the second interview because he’s a flake (no, not like that), a really nice girl who didn’t want the job because 30 hours a week was too much, a black girl with a really deep voice, a girl that was practically blind and kept talking about dogs with vision problems, a lazy Spanish guy (we’ve already got plenty of them working there), and a sassy overweight Spanish girl.

Originally, the sassy overweight Spanish girl was also hired. On her second day there, she told me how great the job was then informed me that she didn’t have any money to get home. She wasn’t even an official employee yet and already she’s asking me for money. I tattled on her and my boss gave her $20. She insisted that she only needed $2.50 to get home. My boss demanded she take the $20 and pay her back when she can. Then fatty got a nice lecture about responsibility. It seemed like a simple mistake she could learn from.

The first week on the job, everyone was already not a fan of her. She talked too much and was a bit of a Debbie Downer. Her sassiness was gone, thankfully, but replaced with mentioning her boyfriend (who probably didn’t exist) all of the time.

Her first week there, she also sat on an employee’s muffin. This foreshadowed a moment that would ultimately lead to her demise.

Often at work we’ll have food because my boss is hungry or wants to treat us for doing a good job. On Wednesday of her first week, we had frozen yogurt delivered to us from a former client. There were 6 leftovers and she volunteered to take them home. On Friday, we ordered Italian food. There was probably enough food for 6 people left and again she wast he one who brought it home with her.

Although most of us didn’t like her after the first week, we knew she was still young in learning. The second week, though, was the one where it was time to really wonder how long she’d last.

The week started off normally and she was as annoying as ever. But hey, everyone is. On Thursday, the same employee who had his muffin crushed, found his phone on the ground with a cracked screen. We require them to put their phones in a basket because for some reason most people (crushed phone guy specifically) cannot stay off of his when they should be working. Nobody was near the phone and according to the least popular employee on the payroll, she “found it on the ground then plugged it back in to charge.”

Using deductive reasoning, I’m pretty sure she treated that phone like it was a muffin.

I also came to learn that this same guy was asked for money from her. Not only that, she had done this with two others and it all came after she received the $20 from my boss.

On Friday I tattled again because this was getting really ridiculous. My boss agreed we’d give her one more week to really improve. Immediately after, we learned she lied about completing a task. Hey shit happens, she’s probably just dumb.

On Sunday at 6:30PM we each got a phone call from her – neither of us answered because it’s the fucking weekend – telling us that she is in the hospital. My boss spoke with her the next morning. Apparently she had food poisoning since Wednesday. I knew this was a lie because she ate a donut on Thursday. The last thing a person with food poisoning would want to do is eat. My boss asked her if she’d be in at work on Monday. She said she was going back to the hospital because she felt they didn’t treat her properly. She was informed to bring in a note and everything would be fine.

On Tuesday at 9:45AM, she was not there. No text. No phone call. No showing up to kill her coworkers by sitting on us. Hey, maybe it was pretty serious. The same thing happened Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. She made no attempt to contact us all week long so we can assume she’s done.

Technically she’s still owed pay for one day. Then again, she also owes $20 and a couple million in emotional damages.

She’s already been replaced by two people (you know how much she eats….) so her time with the company will quickly be forgotten; at least once all of the gossips stop working there.

(Delicious breakfast treat or a chair?)

Long Icy Walks

Winter has arrived and more people than ever are slipping on the sidewalk and cracking their heads open. I am not one of them, yet.

Yesterday on my long icy walk home from the train station a funny thing happened. I met a new person who wants be my friend. I don’t want to be his friend though. Hopefully after reading this you will understand why.

Early on in my trek home, I passed a house with a man standing on the stoop with the door open. He had a strange voice, like the kind you expect to ask you for change with some sob story. He did ask me for help and with a sob story about how he has a heart condition and if I could help him while he goes inside and gets his other dog. He was worried he might pass out going up the stairs and no one was home.

Since the door was already open, the worst case scenario was that he murdered the family that lived there and was now stealing their dogs. This was unlikely and since I was not in too much of a rush to get home I offered to help him. Plus I have a soft spot for dogs and I pass his house every day and he might have murdered me if I didn’t offer help.

As he walked up the stairs to get his dog I saw her appear from the bottom part then run up the stairs. So basically he didn’t need my help at all and the story should have ended there. Unfortunately it didn’t.

He was rather chatty, and I learned quickly that in addition to his heart condition he had a girlfriend, was looking for another girlfriend and had it narrowed down to a bartender and hairdressers, took a $60,000 paycut for his new job, and will pop an ecstasy pill once a year. Already thinking he was a scumbag, I lost faith that we would ever be friends when he asked me what I do for fun. People still have fun? I thought we just exist then die.

The man came off to me as a bit of a troublemaker. He had a steady job and apparently lots of money so he’s not a complete waste of human life. I found out way too much about his ex-girlfriends in the 30 minutes we walked together and this instability made me feel really uncomfortable. Maybe the openness hurt too as I knew I could never live up to what these girls were giving him. By the fourth Portuguese restaurant we passed I decided I would avoid this man the next time our paths crossed.

Unfortunately he was walking in the same direction as I was and on my street so he would know where I lived. I was very careful to plan ahead and passed my apartment building then three blocks later told him I was going to stop at the store, which I had already planned to do. At this point he asked me to take down his number and said we should hangout sometime. If there’s one thing you should know about me it’s that if I want to spend time with you I will give you my number. For him, I just typed it in the notes section of my phone that I never look at.

The conundrum here is odd. I don’t really make friends, nor do I hangout with the ones I have very often. Years ago I would have been thrilled to make a friend who wants to hangout with me. He lived nearby too which would be perfect. Now though, I have more years of being a piece of shit to reveal to him. When you’re 20, you only have two decades worth of being a loser. At 27, I have almost 3.

Since he apparently is loaded with money and knows everyone in fucking town, I thought more about maybe actually giving him a call. I’m afraid of where this might lead though. What if he needs me to help him move shit? Not like the good kind of moving shit where I feed him oatmeal and it opens his bowels. I mean like picking up a couch.

I can’t see this friendship going anywhere. I can’t see myself being completely open and honest with him. I’d end up making up lies and stories just to seem more sane.

The only thing I have to do now is cross the street each day on my way home to avoid passing by. Thankfully he’s sick so I could always just pretend like we never met and freak him out to the point where he thinks his meds are having weird side effects. Yeah I think I’ll do that.