I may be pathetic. Come on - I can't be on time for a job that starts at 3.30 PM, and I live at 20 minutes walking distance. Do I have a second job? Of course not. And Carmello is on time at 6.30 AM coming from Co-op City, which is an hour-long subway ride. I hate him for that. I always scoffed at guys with strong survival instinct, perhaps trying to rationalize my lack of it: if I can't make it, I'd at least make making it' uncool.
It is difficult to take seriously a story in which somebody at age 32 clings so hysterically to low paid dead end job, as I do to lifeguarding. Well, I do have reasons: I like having a job to which I have no commute, and I like a job where I am largely left alone to do things on my time, I don't pay rent and I don't care much about money, and working-out and swimming is very important to me. So much, that I'd almost work for free. Then, however I do have to do some other stuff, too. And, then I am late.
I don't make a secret of it: I have a life long quarrel with time. It is in the family. My mother used to be late for days when she called that she was coming from Germany (to Yugoslavia where I lived with my paternal grandmother). I used to be late for school, even when my grandmother took me there: she was always late. Later I couldn't be on time ever: I run after an airplane two times, I always jumped in the just departing trains, I used to miss buses (so I finally bought a car in Zagreb to avoid that) and when I took a train to Toronto I made to Grand Central on time only in the 3rd try.
Besides being late I can do almost any job, and I did wherever I worked. Which always made me vulnerable and ultimately made me loose the job. Because nobody really cares about your work or about you. What people just care about is that you follow the instructions. And one of the instructions is to be on time. Simple as that. Problems with time can be a great handicap in the time-obsessed cultures like the Protestant ones.
The decision to fire, however, is not necessarily based on the lack of performance of the one designated for firing, but on the perception of that performance by his/hers superior. Therefore, such a decision is always arbitrary, and often unfairly hurts the terminated - particularly at the low end jobs with no job security, benefits or severance pay. Hence, I give myself a right not to forgive George for firing me.
Or as he said: "you are no longer employed here".
| He said that he understand me because he was also an artist, an actor. |
Abhorring vacuum, George, a Men's Health subscriber, is actually so old that not only that he is too old to become an actor now, but he is already old enough to say things like: "when I was an actor...", perfectly safe - because nobody exactly remembers that time any more. He wouldn't want to actually search for a lifeguard, do interviews and stuff. Too much work. So, he kept me around, until he found somebody around to take over. His acting was poor: he looked so fake when he said how much did he like me (and still does). What was he thinking? That he was a bad lead in a soap-opera?
Yet, he who lives in the building is never on time for his job either. He is not late much, but he makes it up more than enough later by leaving early (that's why his card is almost never punched-out'), or sometimes leaving in the middle of the shift to go home and eat and/or take a nap. Why does nobody report him? Because everybody's happy he's gone: both employees and club members are happy to see his great annoyance vanished from the club.
He made himself so universally disliked . Actually the only people that like him are his upper management, so he is totally dependent on their whims. Since what qualifications do you really need to be a health club manager? You need to read, write and speak English, have working knowledge of basic algebra, have some experience with training and fitness issues and know how to turn a computer on. Everybody in Normandie Court can do that job except for Ubaldo and Neri who don't speak English, so they have to do most of the work for least of the pay. And George left them a nice, racist, condescending note in the laundry room - warning them not to sit on the folding table - in English, and then concluding with Spanish "Comprende?".
But the upper management would probably not be pleased to know that George spends half of his work time at home. Or that membership is decreasing largely because people can't take his fakeness any more. Sorry, darling, but you are hopelessly boring. Worse - you are painfully aware of that - Maestro Salieri - but to lazy to work in the production.
