So I am sitting here watching the Word Cup match between the United States and Australia. I know technically the match has already been played, but if they aired it live here I didn't see it, and as the old NBC slogan says, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you. Not that I expect the United States to win here, it would be more likely that a naked woman would walk through my front door and ask me to ravage her body that the United States would win this matchup. I will spare you a glog on the festivities, because I am a newbie at watching rugby, so my knowledge of all things rugby is extremely limited. I can tell you that there are some really good teams, (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Great Britain) and there are those that suck, like the United States. Beyond that I am pretty much at a loss.
Work was okay today I guess, not great, not terrible. It has been a little bit slower the last couple of days, just because the Art Institute students are on break. Because they are more like a technical school than a traditional college, their school year runs on quarters rather than semesters, so they are in school all year round, with 4 two week breaks sprinkled in throughout the year. As it happens,. we are in one of those breaks. Which is fine with me, I am using the time to make sure I am getting some other things caught up. I was all happy that Saturday I had managed to get my invoices off of my desk, but by noon today they were already replaced with about another 7 of them. Plus, because of the slower pace of business, Ed decided he would stagger the start times for Sammy and I, I would work our normal 7a-3p, but Sammy would be slid back to 11a-7pm, and we would just eliminate the 3p-11p guy on Monday and Friday of this week.
And of course there were no issues with Sammy and I, we just went in and dominated in our typical fashion. But the guy I am feeling sorry for right now is Chuck. Well, maybe sorry is too strong a word, I am not really losing sleep over his situation, but I have a sense this guy is on his way to a significant crash and burn, because he threw his lot in with the wrong people. I have said previously that by and large I don't trust the people that I work with, save for maybe a couple, so I would be less than likely to cast my lot with them on anything outside of work, especially some of the newer ones who I don't even know well enough to not like yet (just wanting to beat the Christmas rush there).. One of the newer ones is Chuck, who is equal parts brown noser to a sickening degree (think Pip from South Park) and stupid. To his credit, he does seem to want to work, at least so far in his young Smithfield News career, and when he came to us a few weeks back he was basically homeless. So I appreciate that he wants to get himself on his feet and be productive, I wish more people were like him in that regard. And he has been working hours that are comparable to my 6 day weeks, if not even more.
On the bright side, because of his employment with us he was able to find an actual home. The problem I would argue is in the home he found. He and some other people that work for us (more of the newer employees) have opted to go in on renting a house together in Pittsburgh's South Side. I want to say there is between 4 and 6 of them living in this place. The rent is well out of my price range, $1600 a month plus utilities, though if it gets divvied up properly it could be quite manageable. The problem is when they they got this place, the only name on the lease is Chuck's. You can see where the problem is already. If someone decides to not pay their rent, Chuck's ass is the only one on the line. He has set himself to be hung out to dry. And one of the people he is rooming with has missed the last couple of weeks of work for a family issue. So Chuck has volunteered to cover his rent, believing that eventually he will be paid back. A couple of the people that are going to live there are girls, Chuck has already told one of them that he will help her with her portion of the rent. And they haven't even turned on the utilities yet. Maybe someone will eventually pony up their name to be on one of those bills, or maybe they are waiting for Chuck to sign his life away on those as well. But heating an entire house in winter in Pittsburgh can be a costly proposition. A $300 a month gas bill is a safe bet, though it could be significantly more, depending on how well or poorly the house is insulated. They want to get cable TV, slap on another $80-$100. And we haven't even turned on the electric yet and we are already looking squarely at a 2 grand a month venture, with possibly the only person that could be held accountable being Chuck. Ed and I both warned him of this possibility, not enough to say he shouldn't do it (I wouldn't tell him what to do or not do), only that he is putting himself at a considerable risk. He would b e far better off on a smaller place, maybe one roommate that he knows he can trust than to get involved in this type of venture with a bunch of people knowing any one of them could walk away at any time and leave him high and dry.
The reason I bring this up now is that Chuck worked the overnight shift on Sunday, so when I went in Monday morning he was there, getting ready to leave for the day, the thing being he was waiting for his replacement to arrive, which also happened to be one of his female roommates. Calls to her went unanswered, she just doesn't show up. The only plus to this I guess is that Chuck knows where she lives, so he eventually leaves to go home (and presumably get her out of bed). She finally shows up, about three hours late and I am just left thinking, these are the people Chuck threw his lot in with, one who hasn't worked in two weeks, another that is showing up late for work. There is no way he is going to make enough money working for us to pay for all of this nonsense he has gotten himself into. He has been with us less than a month and already he is in the office asking Ed about a raise. That is just a sign of desperation to me. I don't want him to be back to living on the street, but I have a feeling his roommates are going to make that decision for him.
Okay, that's all I got for today, I still have a second half of the rugby match to watch. The US is already down 22-5, but anyone with internet access probably could just look up the final rather than wait for more belated updates from me, so I will just go ahead and scoot.
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