So, in 2006 I took on an extra job at the apartment complex I contract paint - opening and closing the pool, checking pool passes a couple of times a day, keeping the area straightened up. They started doing this after someone in one of the nearby buildings looked out their window at 3 am to see what all the noise was, and caught an eyeful of a fat naked black man doing cannonballs. I also put office notices on doors and such. For this, they knocked $200 off my monthly rent.
It was a decent gig at first, but after two years I didn't want to do it anymore. From May-October of every year I was trapped out here, couldn't really go anywhere until after I closed the pool (10 pm), couldn't do anything in the mornings until after I opened it (10 am) and I always had to be on call for problems during the day. During the off-season I still had to be available during business hours to put out notices.
November of last year, they had a rash of vandalism/burglaries at the laundry room, so they decided to start locking it. I was asked to add that to my duties in December, but not offered any extra money. Lock the room at 10 pm every night, open it at 8 am on the weekends. Supposedly this was only going to be for a few weeks, until they put in new credit card machines, so I agreed because I didn't want to rock the boat. So, trapped during the holidays. I begged off it the weekend after Christmas to visit family, and had to listen to the head maintenance guy flip his shit because he was forced to come out one fucking night to close it.
Here it is almost May, and they have just now installed the machines. So, by "a few weeks," I guess they meant "five months."
This Friday afternoon, I fell asleep on the couch and didn't check the office for notices. They'd been closed most of the day, so it slipped my mind, and I haven't been sleeping well, so there you have it. When I woke up I saw the office number on my phone, but no message. Today, when I went to the office, the maintenance guy they've been using as a temp leasing agent told me they called him last night to ask where I was. They ended up putting the notices out themselves, and he said the property manager sounded kinda pissed.
I've never raised my per-apartment painting fee out here, ever, and I have been out here a long-long time. I've worked weekends and nights before, whenever someone in the office screwed up move-in dates and they needed an emergency fix, and I didn't charge extra. I've kept my billing low on work orders and such. In two years of doing this pool/notices/laundry room gig, this is the first time I've missed putting the notices out.
What are the chances of them remembering any of this when I walk in there Monday morning? I don't even need to make a poll for the answer. Good thing I was gonna quit doing it, anyway.
