By now most of my friends and family know about all the changes happening in my life right now. But I know there are some people I care about who don't know, so here it is.
First, Andy's job has been looking unstable for some time. His former boss (putting it kindly) is an idiot with the business sense of a drug-addled baboon. Cross that with blind optimism ("The next contract is just around the corner!") and you basically have... failure. The idiot cleared a quarter of a million the first year, then turned around and bought a huge tract of marshland and spent $$$ renovating a tractor shed on the property into an office building. Ending up $225K in the hole. And did I mention that this property has a diseased well and no flushable toilets? That's right. This "office building" had porta-potties for a year. Anyone needing actual sanitary facilities had to drive 15 minutes to Ashville, AL to use the loo at Walmart (remember, still cleaner than a portable toilet.) Also, this idiot hired his worthless son and brother-in-law, so that's where the rest of the money went. Anyway, we knew the business was going to fold. It didn't take much to see that coming.
Then the layoffs started. The 2nd programmer, they laid off over the phone the 1st day of his week's vacation (couldn't have told him before he left, to his face, or anything. That would require balls.)
Meanwhile, we started jobhunting last fall. (I say "we", because I did all the actual searching and filtering and responding to messages. He didn't come into the process until it actually required his physical presence.) Andy had a LOT of interest in his resume, but most jobs out there just don't pay what he is worth. We were finally looking at a situation where we could stay here and possibly be unemployed, or relocate across the country and take a 50% pay cut. Unappealing choices either way. He had a TON of interviews but nothing seemed to fit. Finally, I sent him to this job fair because we were trying to get him on with a certain defense contractor. He went and at the very end, decided to stop in at this one booth. I'm so glad he did. They practically got a woody talking to him. He scheduled an interview for the next week, and then at the interview hired him on the spot. It took FOREVER to get an offer letter, so we knew about it but had to sit on the secret for weeks.
Back at the ranch, the business folded and the idiot called everyone and told them they were being laid off "for a week". So everyone was supposed to go home and wait for a week, then if some big contract hit, they could come back to work. When Andy, knowing he had a new job, told the boss he wasn't coming back even if the business did reopen, that moron just ignored it. The idiot actually called him back the next week to say that he still didn't have money, but would let him know in another week whether to return to work. What did Skip think? That all the employees were just going to sit at home, waiting to see when they would have a job again? Then the next week, he calls again with the same story. Can't he understand, "I'm NOT COMING BACK!"Amazing. He's like one of those guys that you break up with, but he still comes to your house and talks to your mom when you're not there.
The fun part about all this is that Andy's next-to-last paycheck bounced, and he didn't even get the last one. He tried to call the guy and got this whole sob story about how Skip is hurting too, how HE has a house payment too, how he had to put his dog down because he couldn't afford the medication, etc etc. And yet, Andy was unmoved, and demanded his money. After a month of this, Skip finally gives him a cashier's check. Which, when Andy went to cash it, had a problem. A cashier's check, no good? I am not sure but it seems like it ought to be pretty safe. Anyway, he gave the bank manager a sob story (having had a good example of one so recently) and they cashed it anyway. So after 8 weeks of being without income, we got one measly paycheck with one more owed to us.
More of this impossibly long story later...
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wakeful dreamer