Sooo behind in school. Not good.
Three midterms next week. Also not good.
I'm tellin' ya, by Friday I'm gonna keel over and die.

--

Crazy resident today: She takes her dog out for a walk. Near a pond in the common area, she stumbles into a swarm of wasps and gets stung. Her dog gets stung. They're both traumatized. In the process of escaping she drops her sunglasses and her cell phone, as well as the doggie-doo bags she carried with her. Her dog's poo, which I guess she was in the middle of cleaning up, is left on the ground. She and the dog go home and puff up like balloons.

She calls the office. She wants one of the Maintenance guys to go up and check the wasps because those things were aggressive and nasty. Fine. That's kinda in their job description, right? If there's a nest right next to the path, they should know about. BUT this resident also wants someone (of course she doesn't specify who, other than not her) to go up to the wasp-infested path and get her cell phone and her sunglasses for her.

Give. Me. A. Break. Get your own fuckin' stuff that YOU dropped. If the wasps are such a terror, you're a horrible person for expecting someone else to go brave that. If the wasps have left and you're just too chicken to go up there yourself...well, too bad.

The leader of the Maintenance Crew happened to be in the office and we were chatting before she called, so I told him about the call and he said he'd take a look, but he was having a busy day so it wasn't exactly high priority.

Lady called back an hour or two later when I got back from my lunch break (she may have tried to call sooner, but I wasn't there) to see if her cell phone was at the office yet. I told her no, it wasn't, and I hadn't seen anyone from the Maintenance team so I didn't know if they'd even had a chance to go up yet. She repeated that there was no way she was walking up there to get her stuff. She had been stung and it was horrible and she was pissed. I said nothing, because really, there was nothing to say. I wasn't going to apologize for the wasps being there, because that's an act of God and the office had nothing to do with it. I wasn't going to volunteer to go retrieve her stuff, because that's totally outside my job description. I wasn't going to say "Get the fuck OVER it" because that is a quick way to lose a job. So I said nothing other than non-commital "Hmm-hmm." She said she would call back in a while to see if her cell phone had been brought into the office. I said "OK" and she hung up.

FIVE MINUTES LATER (ten minutes max) she came to the office door and asked for her cell phone. I told her it wasn't there, and as far as I knew no one had a chance to go up to the pond and get it - just like I told her on the phone. She wanted someone to go and get it RIGHT NOW - but I told her that no one was there. The Maintenance manager was somewhere else on the property or gone for the day; the one crew member on duty was hanging party lights for an evening event, a job planned for him for days. I wasn't going to pull him from it. She gave me a A Dirty Look, but I sure wasn't going to go trotting up the path for her sunglasses. Finally she muttered something about going back to the hospital and left.

She's a very vocal resident, so I'm sure she'll call Monday and leave my bosses nasty messages about my lack of customer service and the insufficient speed with which we reacted. And all I have to say is this:
YOU'RE THE IDIOT WHO PANICKED AND DROPPED YOUR STUFF. GO GET IT YOURSELF.
YES, I REALIZE YOU ARE IN PAIN BECAUSE YOU WERE STUNG BY WASPS, BUT IT'S STILL YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO RETRIEVE YOUR OWN BELONGINGS.
Yeesh.

--

So it was already a bad day when I got to Lush, and right before we closed I got another *delightful* customer. Lush has a promotion going right now where if you spend $40, you can pick out a free BUBBLE BATH. It's a pretty rockin' deal, since it includes any bath bomb, including the $8.95 Comforter and the $11.95 Blue Skies. So this lady comes in with her posse of fresh import Asians. They don't really interact with the staff, other than to establish that they know the promotion and know the Lush products. After she shops for 15-20 minutes, she comes up to the register. She wants to spend exactly $40 to get her free item, and hands me her items very carefully. The item she wants for free she keeps separate, balled up in her hand where I can't see it. I figure it must be one of the expensive bubble baths, and she wants to make sure I don't charge her for it. Whatever.

Her first total was $32, so she picks out another item, which brings her up to $39. Then she takes something out and replaces it with something slightly more expensive to bring herself up to $40. Finally she hands over the free item she's been hoarding away from me, and when I open it up I see it's a Floating Island Bath Melt. Bath melts are cocoa butter confections that make the bath water moisturizing and luxurious. They're also, unfortunately, not part of the promotion. When I point this out gently, her face immediately darkens like a spoiled child's.
Her: "But I was here before and she said it was OK."
Me: " I'm sorry, but the bath melt is not included in the promotion as a free item."
Her: "They let me do it last time!"
Me: "They may have been able to make an exception then, but I'm not a manager and I do not have the ability to override the promotion. I can only give you bubble baths for free."
Her: **seriously, she looks like a child about to cry because Mommy won't buy her ice cream**
Her: "Give me this one free or I won't buy any!"
Me: *shrug* "I can't. Sorry."

She turns and storms out with her crew, and I start un-bagging the items in her basket and my co-workers help me put them away. As the exchange had progressed I started to recognize her - she's a semi-regular pain in the ass who ALWAYS come in and tries to twist the promotions to get better deals or asks for excessive samples or special services, like cutting bath bombs in half (which we aren't supposed to do because it's dangerous). You'd think by now she'd be so horrified by our customer service she'd stop showing up, but no luck. Oh well. I'm sure I'll see her again during the Christmas season.

So I got to work at RHA this morning and in my mailbox was an envelope from the Board of Directors. I was late (aaargh!) so I didn't have a chance to look at it; I was too busy running around making coffee and answering phones and all the rest. Finally, I settled in and got to work, and then the General Manager came out and reminded me to open the envelope. It was a Thank You note/Announcement that I had been selected as the Employee of the Year, and a one hundred dollar bill. I was so surprised by the money that I almost started crying. It was so nice of the Board to nominate me, let alone give me money. So that was an awesome way to star the day. I'll get my name on a plaque and everything - way exciting.

Fast forward a few hours. The General Manager was in and out; he had a doctor's appointment and errands to run. My Boss, who doesn't work Fridays (the whole reason I work Fridays is because she needed the day for family matters) came in to check her e-mail, and while she was here my co-worker Maria called. (You may remember her for some drama back in August.) She basically told me she wanted to quit, because her job at Rinconada was reducing the amount of money she got from unemployment when she was laid off from her other job. I was trying to figure that out - if she quits Rinconada, wouldn't that endanger the unemployment payments because she's deciding not to work? - but I was also trying not to say anything 'incriminating' out loud because the Boss was there and I wasn't sure how firm Maria's idea was. But it seemed like she was definite about it, because she wanted to speak to the General Manager, so I asked if she wanted to speak to the Boss since she was sitting just a few feet away, talking to one of RHA's Directors. (Quick background note: The General Manager is the top of the food chain, under the Board of Directors. The Boss is my direct boss, but her official title is Office Manager.) Maria did, so I handed the conversation over to the Boss, who was Not Pleased.

The Boss went into the General Manager's office to talk to Maria, and I went off to the kitchen so that
A/ I wouldn't be eavesdropping
B/ I would appear busy
and commenced washing dirty dishes.
After I heard the Boss go back into our office, I went back in. She asked me if Maria had talked to me about covering her weekend shifts. I said no, because I didn't remember having any sort of conversation like that over the previous week. She said Maria would probably not be coming in for her shifts. Right then the General Manager came in, and they talked about the situation for a few minutes. In the end the General Manager decided to fire Maria, because apparently she hadn't shown up to her shift on Wednesday, either. So when Maria called him on his cell phone number (which I had given her) that's what he said, but to be honest I don't know who officially ended it. Was she was terminated or if she quit. Bottom line, she doesn't work for RHA anymore.

I was pretty bummed. Maria was a great coworker, and she's always fun to talk to. She works hard so it's really sad that her job ended on such a negative note. (Plus, I had kinda been hoping she could cover one of my shifts next weekend so I could escape with Daddy for a quick Yosemite trip.) Several members of the Board of the Directors popped by throughout the afternoon to sign Maria's last check or to pick up paperwork. They would congratulate me on being Employee of the Year and I'd thank them for the opportunity, but at the same time my mind was constantly worrying how Maria was going to pay for her kids' education while she's out of work, hoping her gambit to increase unemployment works for her, wondering what she'd do if she doesn't find another job soon, etc.

I just got notice that my hours at RHA are getting cut super early! During the winter months, when it isn't so busy, I only work weekends. Last year, the Winter Hours started November 1st and lasted through April 1st.

This year the Winter Hours will start September 8th. That kinda sucks - I was looking forward to two more months of extra money - but since I recently started working eight hours on Fridays, I won't feel it nearly as much as I did last year. Plus, I can definitely pick up more hours from Lush if I start hurting for cash.

But poop and spider spit! I love my job at RHA!

Co-Worker Drama: Maria phoned in yesterday and e-mailed today. She's OK! Relatively speaking, anyway. Somehow she got a nasty rash earlier this week. At first the doctor said it was shingles, but now he's saying it isn't shingles but is something else. Scarlet fever, he thinks? (Who gets that anymore?) Maria didn't come to work yesterday or today, because she thought she might be contagious, so I am picking up some extra hours. She'll come tomorrow, since we have a special event that night and my boss wanted both of us to be at the Clubhouse. (I'm supposed to be at a class meeting at that time, so I'm not sure how I'm going to manage the evening yet. Hopefully I can duck in and out.)
Maria wants to take a vacation before her sons are back in school. Originally, we thought she'd be taking it in mid- to late July, but due to layoffs at her other job and then this rash business it hasn't happened. So she wants to take it now, which would normally not be an issue but I'm leaving for a school trip to Ashland, Oregon this Thursday and won't be back until Monday evening. So I can't work for her, and in fact was relying on her to cover the shifts I'm missing. (I first told her about the Ashland trip in late May/early June, and have brought it up every few weeks since so she knows that it's coming.) So I'm not sure what we'll be doing there. Our back-up worker had a heart attack last month so she's outof commission as well.

--

School drama: I don't have any school drama, exactly. I just thought I'd post my current schedule for Fall 2009:
ANTH 003. 01 INTRO TO ARCHEOLOGY M-Th 9:30AM - 10:20AM
ACCT 001C 03 MANAG ACCOUNTG M-F 10:30AM - 11:20AM
MATH 010. 11 ELEM STATS/PROBABILITY M-F 12:30PM - 1:20PM
(annoying break)
ARTS 002D 01 HIST OF ART/EUROPE & US 4.0 MW 2:30PM - 4:10PM
(annoying break)
ARTS 012. 61 DESIGN AND COLOR 3.0 MW 6:30PM - 9:10PM

I might have to drop either Design & Color or Intro to Archeology, just because that's going to be a REALLY LONG DAY otherwise. But Design & Color has Miki, one of my favorite teachers from the previous year at DeAnza, and archeology is just too damn cool. So we'll see. I toughed my way through 21 units last fall; I can totally do it again.

--

Tomorrow Sean and I will hopefully go see the 'Lords of the Samurai' exhibit at the Asian Art Museum. We've meant to do it at least once before, but laziness kicked in and we stayed home that day.

--

Shakespeare Festival, here I come! Can't wait to go to Ashland this week!

So my co-worker from RHA, Maria*, may be missing. She didn't show up for work at all Wednesday evening, which is really unusual. I mean, she has worked at RHA for three or four years now and whenever she's missed a shift in the past, she's called ahead so the office staff would know. She has never no-showed. So when my boss came in the next morning she was understandably concerned.

See, the thing about Maria is that her husband is a total creep. Like, abusive creep. I don't know how often he's physically abusive to her, but I know he has hit her in the past. He is an engineer so he makes good money, but he doesn't give her a cent of it. He pays the mortgage and that's it. Maria has to pay for everything else - her sons' tuition to private school, food, clothes, anything her sons need - which is why she has to work both at RHA with me and at her day job as an administrative assistant to the VP of a tech firm. Well, that was her day job. She lost it last week, although I didn't find this out until today. But I was talking about the husband. By all accounts he seems to be quite lousy. At one point last summer she looked into divorcing him, but she said she couldn't afford the lawyer and legal fees.

So when my boss realized Maria hadn't come in, she was worried the husband might have done something to punish Maria when she lost her job. She called Maria, and couldn't get her to answer. She called me to find out when I'd last seen/spoken to Maria, but I hadn't heard from her in days. She was really worried, so she called the police, who investigated. At Maria's home, they found the front door unlocked and nobody home. This was in the morning, perhaps around 10? If my boss doesn't hear from Maria by tonight, she'll call the police again and see if she can file a missing persons report.

As I write this, I can see that many people would think my boss was just overreacting completely. People miss work all the time. But the timing is just very suspicious, what with Maria just losing her major source of income and all, and Maria's husband is such a dark character. I haven't met him, but the stories Maria tells seems straight out of abuse victim warning articles in womens' magazines. (She doesn't make excuses like "Oh, he loves me but sometimes he loses his temper" but rather states things in a "This is how it is, I have to do this until my kids are out of school.") I kinda think my boss may have had a run-in, a bad conversation ,or meeting with the husband before. Boss seems to be hoping that maybe, just maybe, Maria finally decided to leave the jerk and just took off with her sons. That doesn't seem likely, though. Maria is so proud that her sons are in an one of the local exclusive private schools, and taking them away from that would break her heart. They aren't little boys, either - the youngest one is entering high school this fall, I think, and the oldest will be a senior - and it just seems to me like they wouldn't want to be uprooted, they'd want to stay home and tough things out.

*shrug*
I dunno, I just hope Maria's OK, and we hear from her soon and find out what the heck is going on.


* name changed since the info is sensitive, but I've probably used her real name in previous posts. Oops.

I just had a lovely woman (that I have never seen before) come in and yell at me because the swimming pools still aren't open. They weren't open for Memorial Day weekend, they weren't open for today (Father's Day) and now Father's Day is RUINED because she was going to have people over for a barbeque and swimming and now she CAN'T and WHY IS SHE PAYING $500 A MONTH FOR THIS PLACE ANYWAY??? As she stormed off (I think I said like two sentences) she yelled "I HATE THIS PLACE!!!"

It was so ridiculous that I just had to laugh.
1/ Anyone who has Father's Day ruined because a swimming pool is out of commission has some fucked up priorities if you ask me. You should be grateful that you HAVE a family to celebrate Father's Day with!
2/ Now what the heck did yelling at the top of your lungs accomplish? NOTHING! No matter how you screech, I can't make the swimming pools fill for you!
3/ Dude, if you hate it here than move out! Seriously, I don't know why anyone would want to live in a home owner's association in the first place, but if you do then suck it up and stop whining about it! You made the choice to be here.

Once again, dear residents, I am the Clubhouse Assistant. My domain, so to speak, is a small Spanish Mission-style building (I say small because it's square footage is smaller than my house, although that is not true if you count the three tennis courts as well) that sits at the entrance of a gated community in Los Gatos.

I am NOT the police. I cannot enter a resident's home because you think he's passed out in an upper room; while I can call the police and/or the hospital, the time it takes for you (the resident) to call me, tell me the situation, and have me investigate the house you could have have called the emergency number yourself and help would ALREADY BE THERE.

I am NOT traffic control. I did not issue the citation you received when you left your car in the driveway, which is against the complex's rules. I also did not make the rules. I probably processed the citation and sent you the notification letter about it, but that's just paperwork. I can't waive your fine or let you "skip" the steps of the appeal process. I will not make a special exception just for you.
(This also goes for expired 'temporary' parking permits. You only get one, valid up to ninety days; after that you can't have another one. That's why it's called temporary. You're the fool who decided to move into a complex with such rules while owning too many cars; you can figure out what to do next.)

I am NOT a gardener or a member of the property maintenance staff. I can't unclog your drain, fix a leaking sprinkler head or mix paint colors for your home's exterior. You can fill out a request form like everyone else and the maintenance staff will take care of it when they return to their office. I am not going to call them for you unless your house is flooded or your roof has collapsed completely because it is their day off and Heaven knows, they deserve their weekends!

I'm still NOT traffic control. I can't walk up to your neighbor's car and give him a citation because he parked in a spot that inconvenienced you.

I am NOT animal control. I'm sorry that baby ducklings are in your swimming pool, but I'm not fishing them out for you. Do it yourself! (Seriously, I don't know if a former Clubhouse Assistant did this or what but I've been getting this request a lot lately.) I also can't do a thing about your neighbor's barking dogs. Well, that's not true. I can call their phone number and try to tell them to shut the dogs up. But let's be realistic, people. If the owners are home, the dogs probably wouldn't be barking.

I am NOT psychic. If you can't tell me where the problem is, like the name or address of the person you're complaining about, my ability to do something is zilch. If you're too cowardly to identify yourself, or too vague, I also can't help you all that much.
Real complaint earlier this week:

Resident: "My neighbor's dogs are barking all the time and it's really obnoxious and against the rules."
Me: "Well, I can try to call them. What is the name of the owner?"
R: "Oh, I don't know."
M: "Do you know the address?"
R: "Well, it's on AV Street." (AV has at least seventy homes on it.)
M: "Can you be more specific?"
R: "..."
M: "What is your address? I can try calling your neighbors and seeing if they know where the dogs are."
R: "I don't want anyone to know I'm calling."
M: "I wouldn't use your name, it'd be totally anonymous."
R: "No."
M: "..."
R: "Just do something about it!"
M: "I will be sure to file your report, ma'am."
R: *hangs up*

Again, Clubhouse Assistant. I make sure kids don't drown in the swimming pool, people using the kitchen don't burn the building down, and tennis players don't leave scuff marks on the court pavements. What happens out of the Clubhouse area ain't really my business.

Saturday Night
I had to call the police. First time for everything, right? One of the Rinconada residents came in to the clubhouse and said she had been driving and saw a garage door left open. The car parked inside had its trunk open, and there was mail scattered on the ground in front of it. The front entrance to the home, which leads into a little courtyard before you get to the main door, was also wide open. She was worried that something unusual happened, and wanted me to make the traffic control 'guard' go up and investigate. I told Worried Lady that he's not security, and he isn't supposed to leave the gate for that sort of thing. So she asked me to do it.
At this point I'm just looking at her like she's crazy. What does Worried Lady think I'm going to be able to do? I tell her I can call the resident and see if he's home, so I do. There's no response, so she begs me again to go up with her to investigate. I finally agree because the person who owns the house lives there alone, and if something has gone wrong no one else is going to know to help him.
So we go up to the house and it's just as Worried Lady said. Garage is open, garage light is flashing, etc. She had picked up the mail earlier, so it's no longer scattered on the floor, and now she's worried that her fingerprints are on the envelopes. (??) I knock on the front door and call 'Hello?' a few times, but again I'm mostly wondering what this lady thinks I'm supposed to do. I'm the freaking Clubhouse assistant, not the general manager. I'm certainly not authorized to enter someone's house without permission, and even if I did and found a body on the floor, I don't know CPR.
So I go back to the Clubhouse and the whole way back, the Worried Lady's telling me to call 911, call the police, etc. The car in the garage was plugged into the wall, and she thinks it's a bomb or something. I know that the car isn't rigged to explode - it looks like the plug might be for some sort of homemade-hybrid-battery-charger-thing - but I am worried that the resident might be inside with some sort of injury. I mean, what if he felt the pangs of a heart attack as he was plugging his car in, so he staggered into the house and collapsed somewhere inside? (Again, the resident lives alone, and since his car was there it seemed likely that he was home. And it was weird how everything was left open.) But part of me keeps whining, "If she thinks it's so important to call the police, why doesn't she do it?" So I call one of my co-workers who has been with the Clubhouse several years because I figure she'll know what to do. She suggests calling the Los Gatos police directly (NOT 911) so I do, and the dispatcher agrees to send someone out.
After a few minutes (probably 10?) a police car arrives and goes up to the house, and by the time the gets there (Worried Lady and I follow in her car) the garage has been closed up. Officer goes and talks to the resident for a few minutes, and the resident looks FINE. I'm probably glaring at Worried Lady, because when I called the police I gave them my name because she was too freakin' chicken to do it, and that officer probably thinks I'm ten kinds of crazy. He comes out after bidding the resident good night, and I apologize like one hundred times for making him come out for no reason. He's very nice about it, though. (Strange as it may sound, I've yet to meet a mean policeman. Except for this one jerk back in high school who wouldn't listen and took me back to school for truancy one day after class, but he was just trying to do his job. Anyway.) Worried Lady's husband apologizes for his wife's paranoia, and I'm left alone at the Clubhouse to fill out an incident report half an hour before closing. What a pain.
I'm glad everything was fine and dandy with the resident, though. Turns out he just forgot to close his garage door when he left the house. He probably won't make that mistake again for a while. :-p

Sunday
Sunday I went up to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco to study some Renaissance paintings and write up a paper for my art teacher. I'd actually been to the Legion before, but I didn't remember this until we started walking around the galleries. It's a pretty neat museum; not the most extensive collection on display but nice. Sean took this photo of me taking notes under the The Adoration of the Magi by Bartolomeo di Giovanni.

The painting didn't look that big hanging on the wall, but if curled up in a ball I could probably fit inside it. So weird.
In the special exhibits gallery the Legion was showcasing Faberge eggs, Tiffany glass and Lalique jewelry. I was more excited by the Alphonse Mucha prints, but hey, Art Nouveau and turn-of-the-century art is always pretty fantastic. I can't wait to study it next quarter.