It began with Temps.
That's a separate and lengthy post on it's own.
But as a Temp I was frequently asked to drive other temps to the job site.
Which was fine, as long as the job was temporary the company would be temporary.
But this job has become permanent, and still I'm inveigled to give rides. A legacy agreement.
This time it's John.
When I was with Temps they promised me an extra 50 cents per hour to give a ride to so and so to the job. Not worth the effort or the money, really, but I did it to be a sport.
And when he lost the contract another filled in, and so I find myself giving him a ride instead. Picking him up, dropping him off, only now I'm not working for Temps and there's no (ridiculously inadequate) compensation offered.
I still pick him up. It's about 45 minutes out of my way each day, given the length of the workdays (12 hours plus), this is cutting into my "free" time substantially, and as time passes I'm begrudging it more and more.
He's pretty happy with the deal, I pick him up, drop him off, he sleeps in, gets home before me, all this in exchange for a single slice of baloney on stale white bread.
He's not the sort of person you'd take a sandwich from. He looks a little like the bum you imagine sleeping beneath the Salvation Army collection bin, white beard and hair, slim figure, lopsided features, he lopes rather than walks...
It's a bad deal for me.
The sandwich, I eat it once in a while to honor his side of the deal, make him feel he's providing value for my time and gas. But I look at him and realize that if I walked into a restaurant and saw him eating there I'd walk out. He's that decrepit. I'd rather be drinking cow's blood with African Tribes people, or eating seals-eyeballs with the Eskimos or bugs with the Chinese...
On the job he's to be seen wandering around, checking his pumps, a stream of frozen green snot embedded into his mustache.
And eating his own sandwich a fly is spotted wandering the bread, "free protein" he remarks...
In the car, suffering a bad cold he hacks for a few minutes and then coughs up a proper toad and spits it out the window. And I find myself thanking God that he rolled down the window first. "At least he remembered to roll down the window...." I say to myself.
He feels obliged to entertain me with his wit, regale me with his fine sense of humor, first thing in the morning, this the price he must pay for the free ride. I don't want it, really want just the silence and my coffee, but what do you say?
"Here's a joke for you.... a poor family... I forget it exactly....eating a rabbit the father shot...first child goes "I peed a lead pellet"...Mom goes "ah, its' from the rabbit......."I was wanking and I shot the cat""
It's murder, and I grimace, smile thinly, not sure he gets my utter disinterest in his witticisms.
And now he's taken to smoking my cigarettes.
In the beginning he'd offer me one of his cigarettes, and then use this to smoke mine for the rest of the day. His roommate had smoked all of his.
But as of late he's grown lazy, gets in the car, spots my pack of fags upon the dashboard, helps himself, tracks me down at lunch or on break for another, finishes the day with yet another, 3-5 cigarettes per day, I'm paying now time, gas and cigarettes to get him to work.
This has to end. My time is my own, and even were he paying for the other 2 this is something I don't want to put a price upon, I have to end it, and it's difficult seeing how intertwined they imagine us to be at work...
I'm furious with him, such a fucking leech and mooch, yet I'll still give him until the end of this week, to payday, to cough up some small remuneration for my time and effort, after that I'm just done...
And in this frame of mind I return home, only to find that one of my roommates had helped themselves to a half-bottle of my Scotch, leaving me but a finger, this despite me having bought him 2 bottles of his own brandy...