My boss was an asshole. That fat bastard, with his neat little fold-out glasses called me on a Wednesday, one of my few, precious real "days off" in my current work-week. He said he needed to speak to me about my "recent absentee-ism", and to be at the office at 1:15 on Friday. I promptly ignored his message, and proceeded into my lair to smoke many-a-bowl, and watch many-a-episode of Seinfeld.
Hours pass. They turn into days. The dreaded Friday arrives....
I wake up to my screaming alarm, at 8:20am. I grimace as I stumble into the bathroom. I then wander into the kitchen, to make a small pot of coffee.
I light a cigarette, the blessed Camel Lights of Old, and ponder as to why my boss would want to see me today. I figured "as long as it wasn't a drug test, I was fine". If he was going to fire me, so be it. I had already quit that job 20 days ago...in my mind, anyway].
The phone rings at 8:40. I let the machine get it. My boss, snide and crude as always, comes on: " Uhhh, I'm gonna need you to come in at 11am today, instead of 1:15, like I said earlier." And then the unforgiving silence of the answering machine.
I grimaced, again, to myself. Having seen Office Space for the umpteenth time the night before, I thought "take this job and shove-it."
But, a part of me thought: I don't really want to be fired. Despite how much I hate this job, how much it's burying me in a hole I can never get out of, and in spite of the rude person I work for, I like this job. It's almost-ideal. Which is probably why I decided to go the passive-aggressive-route of getting fired, as opposed to just quitting.
This job was a life-preserver, thrown to me when I most needed it. After the biggest mistake of my life, and many very disturbing conversations with myself about my lifestyle and habits, and after many a lonesome night spent soul-searching, only to find black nothingness inside...the phone rang. A job offer. An interview. It was exactly what I needed at that point.
Of course, like all dreams, the cloud had a faux-old lining: The 8 dollars an hour I was promised at the interview turned out to be 6 dollars an hour. Due to the biggest fuck-up of my young life, I was getting gyped out of $2! And this was a full-time, 40-hour-a-week job! And I had things to pay off, and all that happy crappy. After all was said and done, I had about $100 to do with what I wanted with (minus gas expenses, of course) a pay-period (every 2 weeks).
In a nutshell, I was trapped.
And this job, good Lord, let me tell you about this job.
Technically, my status was a "In-Home caretaker", I think. I needed no prior experience for this job (but I had some prior experience), but there was a background check, which, as usual, proved to be my undoing.
My client, the guy that "I worked for", was a loser. lets call him " Barry". He was everything that I will eventually become, and nothing that I want to be. He spent his life playing XBOX and watching movies on the Sci-Fi Channel. Literally. All he did, every day, all day, was play XBOX, sleep, or watch movies on The Sci-Fi Channel, that he had TiVo'd. By my 2nd month at work, I pegged him as a rich-bitch; that is, a guy that is wealthy, despite his obvious inability to create wealth, and his attitude of superiority that he shows to people who have to "work" for a living.
My duties were to wash the dishes in the sink, do (very) light housework, and try not to fall asleep during the graveyard shifts.
Basically, I got paid to play video games]. All night. 8 hours a night, 5 days a week. Paid to stay up all night and play video games. How did this go wrong? Or, a better question would be: How Did I fuck This Up?
This was my dream-job. But, due to the biggest fuck-up of my life, it's gone forever. I screwed my chances in this job market, never to be taken back, all because of a bad decision almost a year ago.
This job went from my prebuescent ideas of an utopian society to a the job from Hell in 3 easy months. I was promised things, in return for other things, but it all fell apart. My new, totally-Dude-like boss(es) were never around. I went literally months without seeing, or hearing from, the big boss man. And that was when I wanted to contact them!
"It seems," the man says, adjusting his rich-boy glasses on his scrawny nose, "that you've called in..." and, Good Lord, he counted the days, right in front of me, "1-2-3-...-4-5-6-7..8...9 times since November. So, Barry decided he doesn't want you in his house anymore."
I expected this. I had wanted this. I was well-prepared. "Well..." I said, swallowing hard, smiling a little. "Thanks for hiring me."
He nodded, his double-chins wagging into non-existence, He handed me some papers to sign and date.
I signed. I dated. I stood up, walked out, and, with a smile on my face (the same one that I had decided upon all those eons ago in the kitchen, drinking endless cups of coffee, chain-smoking an endless supply of cigarettes). I opened my final 2 paychecks: about $650 total, about ~250 short of what I was owed.
I'm glad I was fired. The only main difference now is that now I need to start playing my ps2 on my time again.