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(I'm turning off my usual place nicknames for this post.)
Georgia was a little slice of hell -- when I die, it won't be brimstone for me, it'll be unending humidity.
The night we arrived, the hotel room given to us was a nightmare: dead bugs all over the place, live bugs, general filth, no smoke alarms
, mold in the microwave 
, and in general it was obvious that no one had been in the room in several months -- no customers, no cleaners, no management. My boss told us to ask for a different room in the morning. 
that, we bailed and drove 45 minutes back to a much more expensive hotel -- but at least it was clean and had the roll-in shower Mrs. Deserted needs.
My boss had said that we would stay in a hotel for a month or two while he had one of his houses refitted with a shower and the floors redone... nope, that offer disappeared right from the start. So we spent the next week trying to find a house to rent, but a town of 7500 doesn't really cater to the disabled. When we said that we would have to go to the next town over, that was met with a hard no from the man who is actually in charge... not my boss. They both INSISTED that we live in that shitty little town, despite the big boss living in the town we needed. Their argument? I would be too far away from Mrs. Deserted, so going home and back to the shop would take too long, and besides, I might hit a deer, and a college kid might back into the car. (Seriously, they said that.) Big Boss also said it was too many traffic lights -- 13! (Yes, he said that too, and yes, he counted them.) Dude, I'm from Phoenix, you go through more than that just going to the grocery store.
We spent five full days arguing that a shower without a tub is a necessity for Mrs. Deserted, and finally they conceded on Friday morning, but we said to ourselves, if we had to argue this hard for a shower, what's next?
(In case you're wondering, they were going to have to finance whatever place we moved into, whether it was a house, an apartment, a hotel, or a hole in the ground -- that's why we needed their approval for wherever we were going to live.)
Also, instead of being a contractor who could set his own schedule, I was suddenly going to be assigned a fixed schedule that started a full 6 hours before Mrs. Deserted (me=7:00 AM; her=1:00PM) and ended 4.5 hours before her (but apparently still not an employee). Never mind that we had told my boss that Mrs. Deserted would be remaining on an Arizona schedule and I would be as well -- "no problem", my boss had said before we left, because his hours are literally around the clock due to insomnia... but now that was mysteriously not possible.
Also also, instead of working mostly for my boss and then the other guy a few hours a week, suddenly it was full time exclusively for the other guy, and then a few hours a week for my boss.
Also also also, the pay kept changing: originally it was going to be $2000/month + free rent, then it was $2000/month and we'd have to pay our own rent, then it was magically $4000/month, then back to $2000, then $3200... At this point, we noped out. After we left, suddenly it had been $5200/month that we were walking away from... sure.
They accused Mrs. Deserted of being "unreasonable" for asking for what she requires, and said she was "taking me away from a great opportunity." UNREASONABLE!!!
(To anyone who lives in Georgia: WHY?! To anyone who enjoys living there: I'm sorry. Really. Look, no offense to the peaches, the trees, or the people who swear by Waffle House... but yeah. Humidity that feels like you're drowning in soup, bugs that should require FAA clearance, and attitudes that make the 1950s look progressive? Not for us, thanks.)
[deep breath]
Could we have handled this better? Probably. Could they? Definitely. Would we have stayed if they hadn't argued about the shower and housing? [sigh] Probably.
We had been living in Prescott (Arizona) before the move. We spent a total of about 9 days driving back-and-forth (and let me tell you, it wasn't great) and 5 days in Georgia... but two weeks after leaving Prescott we found ourselves living back in Phoenix for the first time in 4 years. We left Prescott near the end of May and were back in Phoenix in early June.
Yesterday, I agreed to resume working for "my boss".
Being broke is a bitch.
But I am never going back to Georgia.
Georgia was a little slice of hell -- when I die, it won't be brimstone for me, it'll be unending humidity.
The night we arrived, the hotel room given to us was a nightmare: dead bugs all over the place, live bugs, general filth, no smoke alarms
, mold in the microwave , and in general it was obvious that no one had been in the room in several months -- no customers, no cleaners, no management. My boss told us to ask for a different room in the morning. that, we bailed and drove 45 minutes back to a much more expensive hotel -- but at least it was clean and had the roll-in shower Mrs. Deserted needs.My boss had said that we would stay in a hotel for a month or two while he had one of his houses refitted with a shower and the floors redone... nope, that offer disappeared right from the start. So we spent the next week trying to find a house to rent, but a town of 7500 doesn't really cater to the disabled. When we said that we would have to go to the next town over, that was met with a hard no from the man who is actually in charge... not my boss. They both INSISTED that we live in that shitty little town, despite the big boss living in the town we needed. Their argument? I would be too far away from Mrs. Deserted, so going home and back to the shop would take too long, and besides, I might hit a deer, and a college kid might back into the car. (Seriously, they said that.) Big Boss also said it was too many traffic lights -- 13! (Yes, he said that too, and yes, he counted them.) Dude, I'm from Phoenix, you go through more than that just going to the grocery store.
We spent five full days arguing that a shower without a tub is a necessity for Mrs. Deserted, and finally they conceded on Friday morning, but we said to ourselves, if we had to argue this hard for a shower, what's next?
(In case you're wondering, they were going to have to finance whatever place we moved into, whether it was a house, an apartment, a hotel, or a hole in the ground -- that's why we needed their approval for wherever we were going to live.)
Also, instead of being a contractor who could set his own schedule, I was suddenly going to be assigned a fixed schedule that started a full 6 hours before Mrs. Deserted (me=7:00 AM; her=1:00PM) and ended 4.5 hours before her (but apparently still not an employee). Never mind that we had told my boss that Mrs. Deserted would be remaining on an Arizona schedule and I would be as well -- "no problem", my boss had said before we left, because his hours are literally around the clock due to insomnia... but now that was mysteriously not possible.
Also also, instead of working mostly for my boss and then the other guy a few hours a week, suddenly it was full time exclusively for the other guy, and then a few hours a week for my boss.
Also also also, the pay kept changing: originally it was going to be $2000/month + free rent, then it was $2000/month and we'd have to pay our own rent, then it was magically $4000/month, then back to $2000, then $3200... At this point, we noped out. After we left, suddenly it had been $5200/month that we were walking away from... sure.
They accused Mrs. Deserted of being "unreasonable" for asking for what she requires, and said she was "taking me away from a great opportunity." UNREASONABLE!!!
(To anyone who lives in Georgia: WHY?! To anyone who enjoys living there: I'm sorry. Really. Look, no offense to the peaches, the trees, or the people who swear by Waffle House... but yeah. Humidity that feels like you're drowning in soup, bugs that should require FAA clearance, and attitudes that make the 1950s look progressive? Not for us, thanks.)
[deep breath]
Could we have handled this better? Probably. Could they? Definitely. Would we have stayed if they hadn't argued about the shower and housing? [sigh] Probably.
We had been living in Prescott (Arizona) before the move. We spent a total of about 9 days driving back-and-forth (and let me tell you, it wasn't great) and 5 days in Georgia... but two weeks after leaving Prescott we found ourselves living back in Phoenix for the first time in 4 years. We left Prescott near the end of May and were back in Phoenix in early June.
Yesterday, I agreed to resume working for "my boss".
Being broke is a bitch.
But I am never going back to Georgia.
I would say "next time there will be a contract" but there won't be a next time -- if I can't do it from here then I'm not doing it.
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