When last we spoke of Geoff, he'd had the rug pulled out from under him, end of the academic career, and a few weeks of heartbreak and self pity. It still continues, in fits and starts. Instead of 10 days of not showering and drinking all the bourbon in the house, he's sort of back to living. He has showered, he goes to the market, he walks the dog. He hasn't gone to the gym but he's "thinking about it." Which are all good signs.
Then last Thursday morning, he tells us "I have a job interview at 2pm."
Oh. That's nice. What's the job?
It's in a produce processing facility. He got dressed - he doesn't have pants that fit, and his tucked in shirt had a big beer belly hanging over. He didn't shave because every year even though he doesn't raise money for it, he does "Movember." I don't know why. The pocket of the one pair of jeans that fit was worn through where he keeps his cel phone in the front. I could see his underwear through the hole so I told him to keep the phone pushed down so the pocket covered the inside of his leg and obscured the boxers.
He looked a mess.
In my head I was quoting Jerry Seinfeld "and you want to be my latex salesman..."
Off he went.
Two hours later he's home, with a stack of paperwork to fill out, direct deposit, and medical forms (he waived those since he gets insurance through me), and policies and procedures, rules and regulation, forms and agreements.
"I take it they hired you?"
"Yes, I have orientation Tuesday at 9am. Then I get to start working."
Okay.
"How much are they paying you?"
"$12 an hour."
Doug was livid. You don't just take the first job you interview for when there are so many good things out there. He had sent Geoff several jobs all paying $15 an hour or more. They had kind of a fight.
Geoff blew up that he's trying to move on with his life.
Doug said that the jobs he sent him were not just better jobs but closer jobs. Jobs in the town we lived in. He's going up almost to where he used to work. He yelled at us that we told him that he could not go back to that job and yes, we did, because we wanted him to find something better and closer.
The fighting is pretty brutal. The yelling. We've never been yelling people.
So he starts the new job, he has to be there at 6 am, so he gets up at 4, leaves the house no later than 5:15am. We're back to what it was like when he was taking the train to DC. The dog wakes up and thinks it is time to eat at 4am, and then drives me nuts for an hour. Eventually we all get back to sleep when Geoff leaves.
His hours are supposed to be 6am - 3pm, but he's been working until at least 5. We have one car, so he's been taking it, getting home at 6, and we've been a little trapped.
He found out the other day he was supposed to come in on Saturday as well, thinking his schedule was Monday to Friday, like normal. Okay, so they need people to work extra hours.
He gets a text last night that he has to come in Sunday, too. The tone of the message was rude as fuck. I'm thinking to myself "okay, so guys.... guess what. It isn't that people don't want to work, but they don't want to put up with this kind of bullshit from their employer for $12 an hour, every day of the week, for 10-12 hour shifts.
I guess pre-thanksgiving there is too much work, not enough people. So it isn't optional. It's required. I get it.
He's exhausted, and seeing the truth of what Doug said about not taking the first job. He said "they hired me under false pretenses," and I said no not really, you took a food job in an economy where there aren't enough workers and it is right before the holidays. Companies need people to work, and need a lot of work done, so this is challenging for them.
He wants to quit his job, and told me that he thinks "maybe after the new year."
How about no, quit now. It's okay. This job isn't for you. Not the best fit and that's okay. Just tell them "I can work through X date." and see what they say. Tell them sooner than later, and if they tell you to just go home, just go home. If they try to talk you out of it, tell them you need off until Monday November 29th. You're going out of town. If that's not cool, well then.
We decided that we'd go see my parents for Thanksgiving, and we need the car. So this is not negotiable.
"Oh great, I can go north to see family and friends and they'll see I'm a complete failure and fuckup." Here we go again.
So we'll head up to my parents on Monday the 22nd, we'll come back on Saturday the 27th, we'll figure out Thanksgiving (my parents have plans that I don't know we can just invite ourselves to, but we can figure something out). We'll have the dog with us, so it'll be difficult to go out to eat, or for us to bring him up to Jess. They are house sitting for our former neighbors and their dog is not good with other dogs as much as our dog is not good with other dogs. So that would be an unmitigated disaster if we tried to do something there.
I have friends who freak out or stress if they don't have a plan 100% in place in advance. We're happy to have our hotel room all set, at a decent price instead of holiday prices, and we'll get it all ironed out.
So that's the Geoff update, the us update, the Thanksgiving update. I kind of just wanted to stay here and cook, but we're locked in with the plan. The plan is the plan. And while we are there, we can work with him on applying for jobs.
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