:: Searching for Puck... ::

:: Thursday, January 22, 2004 ::

Things aren't going any better, unfortunately.

I almost walked out of work yesterday because my boss, boldfaced, put his mistakes on my shoulders. I take deliveries from the phone calls we get coming into the pizza place,and we have a set delivery area, supposedly. However, it's often stretched or shrunk depending on the size of an order and how much it is. Old Bridge is very close to Matawan/Aberdeen,where the shop is. A woman wanted a pie and she lived right on the border. Glen always tells me to ask him about deliveries out of our area because we're kind of hurting for sales lately because of some really idiotic business decisions on the part of the owner. I asked him about that one, and he said to take it.

We have a very slow driver, Gavin. Not only is he slow about delivering, which I could deal with, but apathy drips off the guy and he's an asshole to me and expects me to scurry around and get his order all together so he just has to come in and pick it up, which is not, and never was, my job. He was so slow in one delivery that Glen had to pick up the slack and take deliveries himself. This isn't unusual. However, Glen came back from the Old Bridge delivery screaming at me that how many times does he have to tell me that we don't take Old Bridge deliveries, this despite the fact we DO take Old Bridge deliveries sometimes and I physically went up to him, face to face, told him about that delivery, and got his confirmation to take it, even getting detailed directions to the house. In a further act of complete lack of intelligence, Glen said, in front of customers, that I wasn't doing my job, and that that delivery was the third one I'd taken for Old Bridge that day, of which we were only 2 hours into, only had taken about 10 deliveries, and, after hand-checking them myself after such an outrageous statement, failed to turn up a single delivery that was even *near* Old Bridge apart from the one I had taken at his approval, let alone THREE. I tried to argue the point with him and he held up his hand to me and said "This discussion is over", like I'm some sort of bratty 12 year old asking for a longer curfew.

Usually, I just let this shit happen, but I've had enough from that place in six months to last me a god damned lifetime.

I followed him to the back, calmly told him that, no, the discussion was NOT over, and to pull up the delivery screen and show me the three deliveries I took. He mumbled something, pointed halfheartedly to the one he approved, then stabbed it with his finger and said "See?" - first he denied even approving the order, despite the fact that Gavin was right there for the entire approval conversation - then he said that I told him it was on LakeRidge Road (Which, I'd care to mention, does not exist) when I said it was in the Lake Ridge Development, by the sign, which anyone in the area can clearly locate. When I told him that he was wrong, which any idiot looking at the computer could have seen, and I felt disrespected, especially in front of the customers, he actually laughed at me and told me that if I didn't like it, to get my things and leave. When I tried to further the point, he walked away from me and locked himself in the bathroom.

This on top of the fact that I'm doing the work of two girls (Alicia quit and they decided it would be cheaper to make me do her work and mine then to hire another girl) working Mondays with the owner who can't even use the computers so I have to trial-and-error figure out what the hell to do when there's credit card problems and can't use the bathroom in case the phone rings, and furthermore who has called me "honey" and "sweetie" in lieu of my name since me met me (I doubt he knows my name) and who drips patronization like Gavin drips apathy - and that, for the first 5 months I worked there I was getting legal paychecks, and yet when Bob took the business back over I started getting cash, and only $7 at that (I make $7.50), and when I raised questions on it the first week it was "only temporary" and it was "What I'd be making after taxes." So, according to the government, I don't have a job - and am thus denied part of my income tax refund next year, worker's comp if I get hurt, and unemployment if I get laid off. Additionally, my taxes are going in Bob's pocket, at the cost of the aforementioned negatives. I understand if your business has money troubles, but don't dock my pay and supplement it with lies and bullshit. I was hired at a certain amount. I'm not getting that amount. I'm taking crap, lies, and stress while still not getting that amount. The only reason I'm still there is some VERY poorly placed feeling of loyalty to the business, the need for money, and the need for a job that flexes around my school schedule.


So I get home from the work bullshit, and I call my dad to wish him a happy birthday. One very stressful half hour later, the following conclusions are reached.

1.) Not only do I have to be on the payment plan, but my father is complaining that the other two payments are due in February and March, respectively, rather then stretched across the remaining two months of the semester. Implications are heavily made that this schedule of payments is my fault.
2.) My father REFUSES to pay for anything else in school until I reapply for Federal Financial Aid, which I was turned down for two years ago because he made too much money, and, claiming me on his income tax as a dependant, thus prevented aid. Never mind that he has moved up in rank and salary as a commissioned officer in the Coast Guard since then, I'm lying about not being eligible, and it is my fault.
3.) My father, despite the fact he STILL hasn't done his taxes from LAST YEAR, still insists that he will do them, and the ones from this year, and claim me as a dependant, thus preventing my mother from claiming me and giving me whatever money she received for doing so. This also prevents me from filing my own taxes and using the money for myself. I was also informed that my mother filing me as a dependant would be illegal, and also recevied additional heavy implications this is my fault.

Okay, for all you new folks, here's a rundown of the last couple of years of my life in financial/college terms:

Before I graduate High School: My parents make an agreement. My mother won't touch my father's pension, which she's legally entitiled to half of for being married to him for so long, as long as he promises to put me through school and take care of me.

September 2000 : I enter Berkeley College in Woodbridge. I get financial aid by my mother claiming me as a dependant. I also get a Stafford Loan for $800 (Which I will later pay back out of my own money due to my father not paying it, which he said he would.) I get kicked out of the house because my stepfather doesn't like my mentor at the time who I spent a lot of time with, fall in with a bad crowd, move into a party house, catch walking pnemonia during finals week, and move in with a two-week boyfriend after failing to have money for rent at the party house.

January 2001 : I enter Bergen Community College with said boyfriend. Do fairly well in most classes, will be the only college I actually get class credit from. Take on a full time job. Week before finals, said boyfriend starts becoming drunk, abusive, and generally bad. By August, suffer severe nervous breakdown, get carried back home bodily, and promptly black out for the better part of a week, of which I still have no memory.

March 2002 : I visit Baltimore with mentor I got kicked out the first time for, and meet someone at a convention. Fall in love. He comes to visit a month later and asks me to move in with him. On the verge of being kicked out again due to emnity on the part of my Stepfather, I hesitantly agree. Move to Baltimore. Get a full time job. September comes, I enroll in Baltimore City Community College. Pay for the better part of my tuition and books, all in some cases. Said boyfriend leaves me for a pre-med student and kicks me out the week before finals in November. Another, smaller, breakdown, and I'm home again.

January 2003 : I begin at Brookdale Community College. Again, money's tight, so I put my tuition on my credit card. It's still there.

September 2003 : Second semester at the same school, *finally*. Money for tuition comes, but about as easily as pulling teeth. Every payment has to be made late, and, at one point, when I tried to juggle some tuition money to pay bills of my own, I got kicked out for non payment for a few days. I cashed out some savings bonds and re-entered before anyone noticed. I start seeing current boyfriend in August, month before school starts. Move in with him, but cautiously, and only 6 miles from home.

January 2004 : Current semester. Woes are listed above.

My father has said he will pay for a lot of things, not the least of which includes car insurance (not a single payment to date), my new car (ditto), and a laptop (you guessed it.) I'm bad with money, I'm the first to admit. When I get money, I'm often bad at budgeting - but I'm not a Prada girl, either. When I get it in drips and drabs, it's hard to piece it all together and make it work the way it's supposed to. If I had to worry about everything *except* college and the necessary materials, I wouldn't even be writing this. Parents are not required to send a child to college, and I'm well aware of this. However, they are expected to do that more readily than anything else my father has volunteered to do - yet everything, if it is even done, is done haphazardly and at the cost of making me feel unnecessarily greedy, bad, guilty, or a host of other negative emotions, just so that my father fufills his promises. When I was younger, my father gave me money, but no sense of how to use it, and no sense of running out of it - both of which I am painfully struggling with right now in my adulthood.

I suppose that's all, for now...my first class went pretty well, but I like to keep the tones of my entries even (and also *try* to keep them short) so I'll give a full report tonight.

~Fox

:: Fox 1/22/2004 12:40:00 PM [Say what?] ::
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