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71F and sunny this afternoon. Thanks to last night's rant, I wasn't outside with Yvette today until 12:10PM. But... it's Friday, so... everything's fine. And today is finally September 15th!
"I went to my job orientation yesterday, and watched a bunch of videos. Found out I'm being assigned to an elementrary school about 20 minutes east of here. And my first day will be Monday, at 3PM.
My employer has a strict social media policy, which means I'm gonna invent a fake name for them right now... and that fake name is, Geostaff."
Wow! I forgot about that social media policy!
Okay, folks, from now on, the job I recently accepted is for, "District 313." And the school I'll be working at is called, "DK Odlaw Junior High."
But yeah, that orientation on Thursday, September 15th last year counted as my first day with GeoStaff, even though my first day at Grape wasn't until Monday the 19th.
And... now I can honestly tell banks I've been with GeoStaff one full year... and full time the whole way!... Yeah!.. that's the ticket!
In other happy news, as of this morning, Amazon says says my stuff will now arrive on SUNDAY!.. and everything has shipped!
So this gives me some of Sunday, and all of Monday to get the two storm frames glued together!
Because... yes, I still plan on calling in on Monday.
It'll be interesting to see if Jeremy is at work today or not. According to my theory, we'll never see him again, but my theories are often garbage.
What I didn't mention last night is that Chantele did call late in the shift to tell me that women would be in to do the four hour area at 3:30AM... and not to worry about that.
But she also said a new, permanent employee for the four hour area will be starting today, at 5PM.
So, that'll be interesting.
If Jeremy is gone forever, and I call in, that poor woman's in for a confusing day on Monday.
But the clock is ticking on the storm window project!
September is half over, and Dad's funeral is five weeks away!
I need to get all the holes drilled tomorrow, and then, if the stuff arrives early enough on Sunday... get one frame clamped together Sunday, and the other one clamped together on Monday.
If I can get the square dowel tacked down on the first frame, I can accurately measure the size of my window panes, and order them from Glasshopper to have for the following weekend.
Also, if there's time, I should clean up the exterior of the sash windows and re-paint them.
And dammit!.. I still have to order window glazing... for the old sashes, and the new storms.
Well, anyway... we'll see how much I can get done.
My theory was garbage!
As soon as I pulled around toward the dumpsters, I saw Jeremy's car parked by the back door... along with another car that looked familiar, but I couldn't place it.
I walked in, and there sat Jeremy and Ronnie, the guy who had been filling in at Cloud back in February when I started over there part time.
Why was Ronnie here?
No time for that.
I told Jeremy I thought he was dead, and smiling, he said he almost was! He caught a flu or some similar virus, but... turns out he's diabetic, so it really messed with him and he did spend some time in the hospital over those four days.
So, it WAS a case of, at death's door, which I had deemed unlikely.
Also, there was a huge crate full of supplies in the garage... meaning that he HAD ordered supplies, but they had just dragged their feet in delivering them all week until today!
But, even though the part of my theory about Jeremy quitting and ghosting was garbage... there was still a few bizarre twists to the evening that betrayed the other part of the theory... that GeoStaff is in freefall... to be true.
And it's still possible, that Jeremy wasn't sick after all... which we shall get to below.
The first twist was, of course, Ronnie!
Chantele told me last night that a new hire for the four hour area was going to start tonight at 5PM... and here was Ronnie, to do that area instead.
Ronnie had heard nothing about a new hire, and neither had Jeremy.
So, after Jeremy left and the kids were dismissed for the weekend, Ronnie and I got to work in our different areas and waited to see what would happen at 5PM.
Would Chantele show up with the new hire and have Ronnie train her?
But nobody showed up at 5PM.
Ronnie got done around 6:30PM and left.
I took my lunch at 7PM.
Then around 7:40, when I was out in my car smoking, I saw Chantele's car pulling in!
So I ditched the smoke and greeted her in the garage.
She was only there to drop off some inspection certificates. She had a whole handful of them, and said she had to drop them off at sixteen different schools tonight.
She said, "Tony is gone. I take Tony's schools. Seven more schools, I have now. So I will be in and out very fast, from now on."
Tony, if you'll recall, was my original manager when I started last year, at Grape.
Tony punched me out the night Dad died... so that I'd get credit for the whole shift, and then got me my three bereavement days to cover the rest of that week.
Great guy!.. and also very dedicated to GeoStaff!
But he's gone!
I asked Chantele what happened to the woman who was supposed to start tonight.
She seemed confused at first, but then said that she would be starting Monday instead.
I couldn't help but see the parallel with Rosa... and the many times Chantele had confidently stated Rosa would be to Cloud at a specific time... only for her to roll in hours later, or not at all.
After Chantele left, as I did my post lunch garbage run, I thought... well, if Jeremy just called in, four days in a row, and this new hire just called in on her very first day... I dont' feel bad at all about calling in on Monday.
And then I daydreamed a bit about what a nice three day weekend it was gonna be.
But cleaning my final bathrooms, after the garbage run, my phone rang.
It was Chantele.
This bit needs some context about her accent.
Chantele is Asian, and does have an accent which, especially over the phone, makes it difficult to distinguish the words, sometimes. And she also uses unconventional word ordering, which can be confusing.
Most of the time, this isn't a problem, because you can glean from the context of the situation, what she must be talking about.
But this was a surprise call with no context, and what she was saying... came out of nowhere.
She was saying something along the lines of, "You have 23 hour PTO left for September unused, so you don't use and I pay you."
As far as I've ever known... our PTO does not work in this way she seemed to be suggesting, where it runs out at the end of the month if not used?
Maybe she meant Sick days? But she said PTO.
I tried to get her to clarify, and... it sounded like she was trying to say that I had 23 hours of PTO that were not going to cary over into October... becasue October must be the start of a new fiscal year?.. Or maybe the start of my new year with the company.
And it sounded like she was saying I needed to use the PTO soon, or otherwise, she'd just pay it out.
Like... I thought this was the solution to my problem about Monday! I thought she was telling me, you need to take some time off in the next two weeks.
So I said, "Well, I could really use Monday off, actually."
And she said, "No. Why?"
WHAT?
I said, "Why? Well, I'm doing a house repair, and some of the parts won't get to me until Mon..."
"No!.. I telling you, too many people call in. No notice. No one can call in any more, until October! You cannot take day off until October, but I pay you... 23 hour PTO for September."
So... this bitch... actually managed to get me to confess that I wanted Monday off... here on Friday night... therebye NULLIFYING... my plan to call in sick!
And how did that happen?
And what's going on?
There's a lot to unpack, with this final twist... so buckle up!
Like, my first thought was... is this goddam blog of mine more popular that I realize?
Is Chantele just reading this every night, so she can know my next move?
That would seem incredibly far fetched!
It's probably more likely that she just sensed this coming, because, as she said, so many people are calling in sick with no notice.
Let's just go with that for now, because we need to look at the audacity of what she was actually doing!
She was telling me, You are not allowed to call-in for the rest of the month... because too many other people have been calling in lately.
Which is ridiculous!
People can't be sick, or injured this month? You just have to come in... ravaged by the Flu, or with a broken ankle or whatever?
And yeah, sure, I'm not actually sick or injured but... I can't call in because too many other people already got away with it, this month?
What the fuck? Sick days are sick days! Everybody has them to use without notice! You can't ban them because too many other people have taken advantage of them!
Okay, so why is everybody suddenly calling in, Chantele?
I'll tell you why... because GeoStaff is making everybody work 12 and 16 hour shifts between three different buildings, to cover the severe lack of staffing!
And why is GeoStaff so understaffed, Chantele?
I'll tell you why... because they start people at $13.50 per hour!.. and they just doubled down on that for the next three years!
That's not a competitive wage, even for custodians!
The union's job is to make sure the wages keep pace with inflation and the rest of the job market, is it not?
This union failed at that, this year.
This union doubled down on the theory that unlimited overtime and Saturdays is all you need to offer people, during hard times!
And now nobody new wants to work for GeoStaff... and the old guard is calling in sick with a vengeance!.. to the point where you are REVOLKING our sick days!
And this does make me wonder if Jeremy didn't see this coming and come up with a huge lie to get four days off while the getting was good!
Because he timed it perfectly!
Sick days were suspended the day he got back!
Did he really do that?
Is Chantele reading this blog?
Is black, white?
Is up, down?
I don't fucking know at this point!
My gut reaction, after getting off the phone with her was, Fuck you! I've gotten my year in! I will be QUITTING on Monday!
And to be honest, I have not ruled that out.
But after finishing my bathrooms, and my final vacuum run, smoking out in the car, I thought maybe it would be better to give my two-week notice on Monday.
So I did make sure to get everything done to a, T, tonight, including running the floor machine in the halls.
Because either it was my final night at Cloud, or... I was about to take the high road and give two weeks notice.
If I do the latter, I won't get Monday off, of course, but it would be a good way to stick it to them, in response to this no call-in bullshit!
I'd be doing the right thing, but it'd also be a big slap in the face for them on Monday.
Like, bitches, banning call-ins is NOT gonna solve your problems!
And since Jeremy didn't leave, I'll have two weeks to tell him and anybody else I come across, that D313 has 40 open positions right now, and they pay better, and it's paid lunches!
That news will spread like wildfire, in a climate where nobody's allowed to call in!
D313 will be inundated with applications!
D313 will be saying, Who IS this strange man we hired? It was weird enough that he requested, Odlaw... the most haunted building in the district... but now everybody from GeoStaff is following his lead!
Meanwhile, GeoStaff will be saying, Who WAS this crazy guy we hired? He can't decide if he's part time or full time!.. then he claims somebody stole his cart, that was sitting in plain sight!.. And now he's bringing the whole company down in flames, because he couldn't fake sick on a Monday? WHY GOD?
Who am I?
I am Patrick... fourth heir to the house of Donavan.
And the dead are with me!
°¦}
