I figured it out my first week there.  And I did not even work a full week!

Keep in mind, I got recomended for this job through a former client of mine who did not renew his contract with my former company due to their treatment of me.  This former client is one of the most intelligent and caring persons I have ever know.  He is also a bit picky but in his profession he has to be picky.  He simply can not afford anything less then perfection.

I was honored that Len would think of me when Virgil told Len that he needed a new gal in the office.  See, Len took his office and moved into Virgil’s office.  While they did not combine their separate businesses, they combined their business space into a suite.  They both have the same type of business.

So I went on my first interview.  Virgil and I hit it off great.  He was very outgoing, very precise and I could tell he could be a challenge but I was not overly concerned considering my past co-workers/bosses.  I am simply used to working for big personality types who can be overbearing at times.  Does not phase me.  Virgil told me he liked what he saw immediately and hired me on the spot.  He said normally he would do two or three interviews but not with me.  He upped my asking salary and offered benefits at my second month progress meeting.  He told me I would never worry about staying late or working weekends.  He did diss Helen a tad saying that I would take her spot as the office manager.  He told me he knew I have no training in this business but was setting me up with classes, training and a group of go to people for help.  Anything I needed would be taken care of no matter what.  Any expenses would be paid for by Virgil.

Looking back, I should have trusted that voice that told me this was all too good to be true.  But no, I took the job.  Mostly for the money and for working with Len again.  I should have questioned why his other two longer term employees had left the company.

I got fingerprinted (which I paid for myself and have yet to be reimbursed).  I got the legal and corporate clearance needed to work in said business and went to work December 6th.  By the end of the next day I knew things were effed up.  Effed up bad.  I had walked into the most impossible situation ever.  When your boss who turns out to be Helen, the person he told me I was replacing is still there…well her first sentence to me was this, “I have only been here a few months and have no idea what I am doing.  Virgil is going to make you cry and when you do, you can come talk to me.”

Yep.  The other gal in the office had a longer relationship.  She was there for four months.  Her first hour with me pretty much had the same tone as my first day with Helen.  I learned that Janice only works three days a week.  And none of us trained at all in this field.  We were all promised we would get training when hired.

I quickly learned that Virgil will bark orders and demands for things he needs immediately or else…then only to ask you why you are giving him those very things minutes later.  Then the lectures would come about wasting his time and mine.

By the start of the second week my computer was still not there but I was organizing notes and working off the computer in the conference room.  At one moment and of course that was the moment Virgil chose to walk by, he saw I was sitting staring at my notes.  He told me that if I had nothing to do then he would have to fire me.

WTF?  Really?  REALLY???!!!  I am not there for even a week and am told THAT?  I knew things were not going to go good.

Then they all had some powwow and decided that instead of having everyone doing a bit of everything, each of us gals would be in charge of one particular part of the business.

I never got the training.  I never get answers from Virgil when I need them.  He never lets me finish a sentence.  He criticizes my soft voice by saying he can not tolerate me being so sheepish.  (I am not sheepish and I am not intimidated easily).  He stands over me when I type and corrects every little typo as I go along.  Yeah, who can type perfectly with THAT hanging over your shoulder.  He did not like that I did not type an address on a letter he was dictating to me (was going to add it after the dictation, duh!).  Things like that.

But here is what took the cake.  Literally.  Said client was having a birthday.  Friday, five minutes before it is time to go, he tells me to order a blah blah blah kind of cake from Grocery Store down the street.  I ask if it is on the same street as our address.  He says yes.  This is very important because I do live on this side of town and am not familiar with the area at all.  So I call the Grocery Store that is listed with the same street name as our business.

Turns out that was wrong.  He had told Helen to pick up the cake at the OTHER Grocery Store.  It is down the street but not on the same street!  Helen was pissed, realized she had the wrong cake and now whatthefuckdowedonow!?  I mapquested the store I ordered the cake from and went and picked it up.  Amazing I did not get a ticket for my speed.  I got the cake back, Virgil knew nothing was amiss and us gals shared the smaller “mistake” cake.  Thing is, I paid for that damn cake out of my own pocket.  I even gave him the receipt.  He never acknowledged it and I have yet to be paid.

He also had Helen tell me that he made a “mistake” with my salary and that he would still keep paying that amount but forget bonuses and any benefits for the first year.  I was no surprised by this point.  Everything else up to this was just all going wrong.  A huge clusterfuck.

All I can say is what a nightmare.  I dread my job.  I hate it actually.  Len has apologized over and over again for putting me in this situation.  Len hinted one day that Virgil is talking about letting me go.  I of course sobbed over that seeing how hard I was trying but also acknowledged Len is right.  This is an impossible situation.  Virgi got mad at me last week for not getting something out on time.  Never mind that daily I told him I needed answers only he could provide before I sent out the paperwork.  And I documented everything on the office calender for all to see.  I just forgot to put it in the spreadsheet everyone looks at…and Helen got in trouble for not reminding me.

He will help me in anyway.  I have to figure out who to call, who to ask questions and even then I have no fucking clue what the questions are that need to be asked.  I simply don’t know what I am doing and my boss won’t help and the other gals are in the same boat!

So.  Last Thursday Virgil tells me he is letting me go and getting someone new who has training.  Go figure.  I was so goddamn happy I could have done cartwheels.  He asked me to stay and help train the new person in the ways of the office and I if I did so, then he would give me some severance pay.  I doubt that highly.

On a good note, Len has apologized so much, saying he was not in the office much the first few months he and Virgil shared the office.  Len was out doing business at his clients homes and traveling.  So Len had very little insight into what the true situation was like in the office.  Len has asked me if I would do some work for him while I look for another job.  Which is an honor if you knew the situation fully.

Here is the worse part…Friday Len barks out that he wants me to create a spreadsheet of all that I am working on and what has been done, what needs to be done and labelled like this and that and have it done in ten minutes.  Then we would meet.

Then he told Helen the same thing.  Something new to Helen.  They met for all of two minutes before the screaming started and he told her to get the hell out and not come back until she could calm down or not come back at all.

Then he went after me.  I had my spreadsheet done.  It was done a month ago and kept up to date by the minute as need be.  He just never wanted to see it when referred to it.  It was the only way I can keep track of things.  Which is barely since they change minute to minute in his head and I just cant keep up with his insanity.

I have figured he is bi-polar.  That explains the mood swings, the abuse, the forgetting what he says five minutes ago, the irrational thought process, the being nice one minute and then an ogre the next…I know.  For I live with a bi-polar person every day and also have my share of relatives with the problem.   The thing is, my bi-polar people are on meds and are being regulated.  Len is not.  And there is no end to the crazies.

I blogged this to get it out of my head.  Just a few more days to go and it is still intolerable knowing I have to make that drive and sit through all the abuse and chaos.

Then End.

Since the attorney for the company happens to be the owners daughter, I am smelling a rat.  But hell bring it on!  Sick of waiting for Big Company greed trying to force the union and JA to do things their way even if it means breaking every single rule in the contract.

Time for us to move on.

We will see what happens.

And she kicks ass.

She talks way to much about her boyfriends.  Believe me.  There are boyfriends.

Assisted living is like a cross between high school and Peyton Place.  Keep in mind the lady/men ratio favors the men.

The ladies all compete.  Having and using a walker VS a wheelchair is the status symbol of health.

The flirting and sex talk is all very real.

If some floozy tries to steal her boyfriend, Grandma will tell the offending senior tart, “Kiss my ass!”

And then she tells everyone what she just said.

Ninety six!

Loud, undeniable sex.  Gross.

Yep.  Came from what other direction then The Trailer Trash Mama’s house.  You know, she of collecting men collecting, poor decisions and loosing custody of all 5 kids (three different daddies).

She who just recently got weekend visitation rights restored with three of the kiddies.

The disturbing thing is it was cold outside.

Which means…all the windows were closed.

This is just gross to me.

In so many words I told him I am fed up with his “imagined” problems and have had ENOUGH!

Then I told him to stop worrying our parents about his worrying.  My dad’s health is not that great since he was so sick in September.  When Dad worries, it affects his health tremendously.

Normally I don’t say things like that to The Brother.  But enough already.  My brother gets a worry stuck up his ass and can not let it go.  Literally.  It consumes him to the point he completely and I do mean completely goes off the deep end.

He takes it to the point that he sometimes has to drugged up with meds (been there, done that), see a shrink and admitted to the psych ward because he starts talking about doing himself in.  Not kidding.  (do not for one moment I am taking that last part lightly.  I take it very seriously)  His brain is hard-wired to be like this.  It is really hard on his wife and our family.  We rally around him and he still won’t let it go.

He started last week with one simple text.  “I applied for a new job.”

See the word “job” coming from him sets alarms off for all family members.  He is so obsessed with being the breadwinner that the obsession completely, fully controls his every thought and action.  It is not normal.

So when my brother starts to worry about his job,  it is The Only Thing He Can Think About.  Which means all else is tuned out.  And he makes life for everyone around him a living hell.

Everything.  EVERYTHING FUCKING THING!!!  His home, his family, his wife, his entire world.  All he can think about his his god damn job.  And whether or not he is going to loose the damn fucking job.  Last year he misinterpreted an email from his boss.  His boss merely mentioned that some jobs would be requiring some training in the new year to keep up with technology.

My brother interpreted that to being he was being downsized.  The chaos and crap that ensued was horrible for the rest of us. Not one thing we said got through to him.  He was so sure that he was going to loose his job, loose his home and loose his kids.  Extreme.  I know but that is how he deals with things.  He has no mechanism with dealing with stress.  He just looses it.

Keep in mind, he is deaf.  He has an extra capacity of being able to tune the world out.  Completely tune it out like a hearing person can not tune out.  He retreats into a self-made cocoon and it is impenetrable.

Turns out he did not read the attachment to that email and missed important info.

So, at last weeks birthday party, talking to him was like talking to a wall.  All conversations started with him was returned with a blank stare on his part and a slight nod of the head.  I finally told him that I knew he was not paying attention to anything.  He said that I was right.  That he was worried about his job.

See, he heard that his department, data entry, someday will be phased out to a new form of technology.  That combined with an upcoming meeting and yep!

He is going to his bad place again.  This time I am not going to be suckered into that again.  I am hitting him between the eyes with some hard ass reality.  Being nice, kind, supportive just seems to fuel this mess.

So is my sister.  We have to protect our parents health.

The text that set me off was simply this, “So I thought Nate (his 14 year old son) could get a job.  But Becky (his wife) says he has to be 16.”

Like his wife lied or something.  I texted him back that why is he questioning his wife and how here he goes again.  Job talk.  I asked him why that is the only thing he ever texts me about.  Why does any other topic I bring up gets ignored?  Just him and jobs.

He has not answered my last text.

UPDATE!

Apparently he thinks it is ok because he texted about his son getting a job and not him.  He doesn’t get it.  The topic is still about jobs.  I texted back and mentioned that there are more important things in life and why is he even bringing that up in the first place.   Then I hit him with, “Why do you only talk about jobs?   Why have you not responded to my texts involving other subjects, such as Dad’s health?”

Again, no response.  See?  If I go off the topic of jobs, he just…whatever.  You see what I mean?

By the time they woke up, the snow had melted.

But I saw it!  In fact I stepped up to the sliding glass door at 4:30 AM and marveled at it.

That was when a big bolt of lightning hit followed by a gingormous clap of thunder.

Scared the pajamas off me!

Lightning!

Not little lightning but big flashes.  Three in all.  Followed by big claps of thunder.

Boy did I back away from that door.

Well, jumped up and away is more like it.

Mother Nature.  You sure got me this time.

Through the years I imagined how this would unfold, how I would feel and how they would feel.

All I feel is a huge lump in my throat and tears welling in my eyes.

Why do I just feel like sobbing?