Bummin' It!

I have a friend who is driving me crazy. Actually, I have a few friends that are driving me crazy, but I want to write about one in particular. I’ll just call him “E” for now. He is about 29 years old with a college degree from FIT. He has a daughter with a woman who lives in NY. He doesn’t have a car so he spends a lot of time on public transportation going back and forth from Philadelphia to New York to pick up his daughter and to see his girlfriend (not the babies’ mother). He recently purchased a triplex in Philadelphia.

Here’s the problem. He does not have a job. He’s been here in Philadelphia for about 6 months now and has been out of work for most of that time. He lives on the second floor of the triplex, but the other two floors are empty. He had hoped to be able to rent it out, but no one is interested. Nothing has panned out for him. He’s way behind on his mortgage and child support payments. Here’s my problem. He’s been crying about being broke and not having a job for months now. At first I was playing the role of the sympathetic friend. I mean I’ve been out of work before and I know how it feels. I tried to help him out and recommend places that might have openings, but he’s not been interested in anything. I’m starting to get the feeling that he wants someone to place a high paying job in his lap.

“E” only wants to do what he went to school for, and unfortunately in Philadelphia there isn’t a high demand for graphic artist with only freelance experience. I've asked him if anyone at his old school could help him out. He said “They only had connections in NY!”. It kinda irks me that he says that because NY and PA aren’t worlds apart. Is it so odd that I would think one of his professors might have a Philadelphia connection? Gawd!

I have recommended some places to him that were not in his field and he completely rejected them.Here’s the incident that made me look at him sideways. In Philadelphia they are building another Comcast building. It’s bringing a bunch of jobs with it. I looked over their site and saw oodles of jobs. I called him to tell him that he should check out their site. About a month goes past, and he calls me crying about the same crap. Telling me that he had been searching so hard, but that he cannot find a job, because no one wanted to give him a chance (he has limited experience). I asked him if he went to the Comcast site, and he said “No”. At this point I was thinking, “Well, then you haven’t looked everywhere”. I asked him why he hadn’t looked there yet and he gave me some bullsh** excuse, something like he couldn’t find it. So while I had him on the phone I went to the site (COMCAST.COM) and started reading off jobs to him. I was even nice enough to forward them along to his Yahoo account, (none of this sounds too complicated right?). The next day he sent me a reply saying that he wasn’t qualified for any of those jobs, but thanks. Okay, (not even a customer service rep?) I let that go. The company still had a bajillion other openings. And I mentioned that to him, but I could tell that he wasn’t going to look on his own. I f***ing hate to have to spoon feed a man like they’re a child.

Yesterday, he calls while I’m at the gym. More of the same stuff. That he “can’t find a job”, and he’s “been looking everywhere”. He was also upset because he had two tenants that were supposed to move in yesterday, but they flaked out on him. They gave him some bulls*** story, and then they were dust in the wind. I said, “Well did they sign a lease yet?” He said, “No, but we had like a verbal agreement!” I let him go on and vent about how he was depending on that money. It seems that, because he thought that he would be getting some income from his tenant, that he stopped looking for a job. He started talking about wanting to go and “find” them, and I guess beat them up. Haha! Are you serious?!?!?

I wanted to scream at him. They never signed a lease; therefore they’re not obligated to give you ANYTHING. Come to find out that he didn’t even really do any real background checks on these people. “Wow! And you were ready to let them move in today huh?” What a freaking idiot! I mean really! You’re 29?!?! I feel that he should have known better. I mean if you lived in a questionable part of town, and had a young daughter that stays with you half of the year, wouldn’t you do some type of background check on the people who could be moving above and below you? Wouldn’t you wait to get a check, and then wait again to see if the darn thing cleared? I tried to stay supportive, and tell him that things would eventually work out. I let him know that there were a few jobs that I’d heard about recently. They were not in the field that he was trained in, but it was something that could possibly hold him over. I even mentioned the idea of him coming to my company. He basically said that he was not interested, and that it didn’t seem like the kind of place he’d be happy to work at. Citing the excuses of another friend of ours. LAZY STUCK-UP BASTARDS!!! I guess he see’s the line of work I’m in as below him. Whatever, as long as I’m not out on the block, LOL!

My thing is, you have a child and a mortgage. Why are you being so picky? I told him that “I’m not thrilled doing what I do”, but that “I am very thankful for this job. It was something, when I had nothing. And to this day I’m close with all of my hiring managers, and trainers”. I talked about how I’ve been hoping and praying to be accepted into the Police Academy & have a real career, but until that day comes I will keep working at this hum-drum job.
And somewhere in my little speech I slipped and said, “Beggars can’t be choosers" referring to myself also. I guess he took offense to that, because he mentioned something about male pride and got off of the phone with me soon after.

I don't really care if I've offended him. He shouldn't have come to me with a problem, if he didn't want to hear my opinions. He knows I can't keep my mouth shut. Also, I’ve exhausted myself thinking of ways to help him out when he obviously doesn’t WANT to work. The way I see it, he should be happy that there are any jobs out there. Even if they are low paying, something’s better then nothing. I really hope that he’s able to pull himself together and find something. I don’t want him to lose his home, and I don’t want his daughter to suffer because of his stubbornness.

I hope things work out quickly, because isn’t 6 months a long time to be late with the mortgage?


Peace