WorkTales

It was mid-December when my Rochester roommate Jeremy had asked me if I would bear the responsibility for having the phone and electric bill in my name. I had no idea even if I would still be here past December so I said no. So on Thursday Jan 6th I found out from Jeremy that he was moving out the next day. Now Jeremy was a good guy but hey I had only known him for about a month so I wasn’t all broken up.

Yet, I guess I should have been paying a bit more attention as the next day both phone and electricity was disconnected. I was a bit upset, I didn’t think that the other two students would be have also turned down responsibility for this. I was speaking with Jeremy to try and figure out why he is moving out. Despite seeing his lips move, I couldn’t pin it down to anything specific. Yet, this didn’t trouble me too much so I went home for the weekend.

The weekend was over and I was getting ready to go to my temporary apartment in Rochester when I get a phone call from Jeremy who says that the locks will probably have to be changed as both he and Hong have now officially moved out. While driving back to my apartment the concern that I can’t get back into it does cross my mind and it did put me into a bit of a foul mood.

I didn’t have any problems getting into the apartment but that was the only good piece of news. It became more apparent who owned what possessions in my apartment. It wasn’t only that most of the dishes and kitchenware were gone but the shower curtain was gone too. I don’t know how they managed this but the only dishes left were dirty and in stacks everywhere, but perhaps not too surprising for a student apartment. I turn up the heat in my room and went to brush my teeth.

A few minutes later I hear somebody come into the apartment and that person starts to open the bathroom door. I am quite pissed by the situation and open the door. I was really planning on giving someone an ass-chewing when I discover that the person on the other side of the door is a policeman.

My other “responsible” roommate John had the jitters as he thought he heard a noise from Jeremy’s room. There were two policeman in my apartment and while one was checking out the apartment the other was speaking with with John. Little did I know it, but that was to be the last time I would see John.

The next day Hong stopped by with the utility bills. I almost choked when I saw it was 511.22, which was not too far off the rent for the whole apartment. My phone calls were sixty five dollars but poor John’s were almost three hundred.

The apartment was empty as were Jeremy’s and Hong’s room. A few days after that I moved out too.

I didn’t have faith in my current company and so I was looking for a new job. I ended up with a small consulting company who wanted to put me at a project with IBM. Never having worked at a large company I was pretty excited but the problem was that the job was in a different city a couple of hours from my apartment.

Rather than really committing to this location by moving there I decided to take it for a trial run and to look for cheap accommodations instead. I let my fingers do walking and came up with a few different places I could check out. Most of them were not good enough for one reason or other, but the most interesting was a bachelor who owned a house and was looking for someone to share his costs. I explained my situation that I was not really moving to Rochester but looking for temporary accommodations thus I needed a furnished room.

He seemed to be a bit anxious in his mannerisms but we spoke about the costs and he mentioned that I would even have a garage for my car. It was about then things started to go down hill. He told me that he smoked marijuana and asked if I had a problem with that. Well, not knowing him I did have a bit of a problem but the room itself pretty much made up my mind. I needed a furnished room and it had no bed, no lamps, just an empty room.

There are a lot of topics that are taught in school, starting with the three R’s but also encompassing other issues ranging from sex education to nutrition. Oddly enough students only recognize some of the facts that they have learned but usually when it doesn’t really affect them.

It was after a students birthday party and there was once piece of cake left. It was just sitting on the corner of my desk.

Student Cake is not really a healthy choice, perhaps we should throw it away!

Teacher If you want me to remain happy, you will leave it right there.

Lets be realistic. Mathematics is not really going to be any different next year when compared to this year, nor is English, Biology or even German class. Yet as a music teacher there a small opportunity to change. Every year there is a music concert and the children of the fifth grade try to pick out a song that they would like to sing.

Of course the children have access to the radio and all have their favorite male and female singers, yet at age 11 they may not really understand those lyrics from Jay Z, Beyonce or Katy Perry.

So of course, most of the suggestions from the class are passed over quickly. Not sure if the parents are ready for “I kissed a girl” coming from a choir of eleven year olds.

As a programmer, I am never really surprised when at some point a program pops up an odd message to either the screen or a log file. During development virtually every developer at one point or other will encounter a difficulty that cannot be easily tracked and will add some small messages to help with diagnosing the problem.

However, I had always imagined that publishing, even on the internet, would be a bit different. While looking for other interesting articles I ended up on this page only to see what appears to be someone having a bit of fun at work in an area they don’t think will be caught at.

https://www.financnasprava.sk/sk/vyhladavanie?englishhttps://www.financnasprava.sk/sk/vyhladavanie?english

I didn’t have faith in my current company and so I was looking for a new job. I ended up with a small consulting company who wanted to put me at a project with IBM. Never having worked at a large company I was pretty excited but the problem was that the job was in a different city a couple of hours from my apartment.

Rather than really committing to this location by moving there I decided to take it for a trial run and to look for cheap accommodations instead. I let my fingers do walking and came up with a few different places I could check out. Most of them were not good enough for one reason or other, but the most interesting was a bachelor who owned a house and was looking for someone to share his costs. I explained my situation that I was not really moving to Rochester but looking for temporary accommodations thus I needed a furnished room.

He seemed to be a bit anxious in his mannerisms but we spoke about the costs and he mentioned that I would even have a garage for my car. It was about then things started to go down hill. He told me that he smoked marijuana and asked if I had a problem with that. Well, not knowing him I did have a bit of a problem but the room itself pretty much made up my mind. I needed a furnished room and it had no bed, no lamps, just an empty room.

Zach and I were chatting about current events in the news when Sophie came in. It was right before the German public holiday “Tag der arbeit” which this year fell on a Thursday and she was planning on taking Friday off. Her opening line was “Zach, as you are not here after Monday I thought I would say my good byes now”.

Zach had heard that heard some rumors that his six month contract may be cut short but earlier in the day his boss said that he was unaware of any changes. Well, half a day later apparently it was a bit more cleared up in a team meeting as Sophie was wishing him well on his next assignment.

Things had been going wrong for a while now and unbeknownst to the client and to his agency Zach was not planning to extend, he had enough “fun” for one lifetime. Thus this was not really that much of a shock, it was however a shock to Sophie that nobody had told Zach he wouldn’t be sitting there in 4 days time.

Despite how correct all this information was, nothing was really official. Our boss had to go to his daughters school to pick her up and said that he would talk to Zach in the morning. Well, morning came and morning went. No official word came from either the client nor his agency if he should be doing any kind of handover. It wasn’t clear if or when he should turn in his key or his laptop either.