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Salamander
Fire Walking

The Weird and the Working
Sun Jan 22 2012

I am definitely gainfully employed again. I think (hope) that I've finally climbed over the steepest part of the learning curve on the new job. I've been assigned my permanent shift, and it's going to pretty much be a life-changer - 3:30 pm until midnight, with every other weekend on. The weekends won't be the 3:30-midnight shift (necessarily), so I'm going to have to learn how to deal with shift work for the first time in my life. I was told I'd be working 20 hrs/week plus every other weekend, but it's starting to look more like 24 hours a week or even 32 hours a week with every other weekend right now. Adding the weekends in, that makes 32-40 hours a week, at least for the time being.

I've also successfully arranged to keep some hours at Big Box Pharmacy. Yesterday I worked there for the first time since just before Christmas. The Head Pharmacist Who Can't Schedule to Save His Life was never particularly nice to me before, but yesterday he was out-of-his-way kind to me. Turns out that the week after Christmas Big Box Pharmacy was told there was a total hiring freeze, and he has been unable to get coverage for the shifts I used to work. He's actually rearranging the schedule to accommodate my hours at the new job. This coming Friday I'll work there from 9:00 to 3:00 and then go straight to my second job for the 3:30 start time. I'm hoping he'll give me a couple of days a week like this, and I know he's interested in using me the Saturdays I'm not working the other job. I might finally achieve an income that covers my monthly expenditures.

I had The Grey Cat on a 9:00am/9:00pm insulin schedule, and am now trying to figure out how to manage her diabetes on my work schedule. I've also gotten a new foster cat who is also diabetic, and I'll have to figure her out as well. Part of me is dismayed that there will now be very little "me" time in my life, but I suspect I'm not going to have much time to dwell on that once this ball gets rolling.

I learned about a very weird situation during my shift at Big Box Pharmacy yesterday. One of the women I was friendly with there (one of the few who was in my age range) was apparently arrested shortly after I started working my second job. The story goes that the arrest was for an unpaid fine from 2003 and that my friend has no idea what the fine was for. She'd been living with her sister for financial reasons, and I do know from first-hand experience that her sister is a psycho-nut-case. Co-workers are theorizing that the sister must have thrown out the notices about the fine so that my friend never knew about it.

Apparently the other co-workers at the pharmacy banded together and paid her fine. However, the story continues, my friend will not be released from jail until she can find a place to stay. She'll be on parole, so finding a place will be difficult. She can't go back and live with psycho-nut-case sister (who, in a side story, has apparently gotten hold of my friend's bank card and wiped her savings). She can't afford an apartment. The court won't release her to any halfway house setting, so a place for battered women that was willing to accept her (don't ask) was turned down. Working for minimum wage at Big Box Pharmacy is going to really limit where she can afford to go.

Coworkers are trying to find someone who will take her into their house. Whoever takes her in will have to write a letter to the court stating that they are willing to give her a place to live before she can be released. I know and like this woman, and the initial temptation was to speak with The Prof and ask if we can let her use the spare bedroom temporarily, but there's just too much wrong with this story for me to be willing to go that route.

How can someone incur a fine and not know it? Under what circumstances can someone be jailed for an unpaid fine? Why won't the court release her until she's got what almost looks like a "sponsorship" to me? Is it true, as I've been told, that my friend was never assigned a lawyer to represent her and that she's never seen the case worker who was assigned to her, even though the case worker is supposed to see her weekly? The story, if true, makes it sound like you don't have to be sent to Guantanamo as a terrorist to lose your rights. This gives me pause to doubt. Like I said, it's a weird situation.

5 Comments
  • From:
    Yetzirah (Legacy)
    On:
    Sun Jan 22 2012
    That DOES sound a little suspicious doesn't it?

    Wow, that's one interesting work schedule you have going there… but I'm glad you are getting in the hours you need one way or another..
  • From:
    404Error (Legacy)
    On:
    Sun Jan 22 2012
    I agree, there are a few holes in the story of your co-worker. However, I don't know if there are red light cameras in PA, but we have them here. They send you a photo of your car going through the red light and a ticket for running it. That's pretty much all you get.

    Now, IF that's what has happened, and IF the nutbag sister threw it out, it's entirely possible that she didn't know, or even incur the fine herself, if she has loaned her car to anyone. Parking tickets are another thing that one may receive a fine for, yet which they don't know anything about. Some people take tickets from windshields as some sort of prank. Usually that sort of thing shows up when one goes to register their car and has to pay the fine along with the registration, but that's usually just an infraction, and not really a jailable offense. Also, parole is something only people who have been in prison (sentences of more than a year for felonies) get. Those who are sentenced for misdemeanors go to jails and/or get probation and they are rarely not allowed to live where they please. That's the part that really didn't add up for me. Yet, how does someone with a felony record work in a pharmacy? There are SO many more questions than answers here!

    Still, take it from someone who has had a soft heart for many, many unfortunate people over the years: Getting them in is easy-peasy, but getting them out again is HARD. I have regretted almost every person who has stayed in my home. One of them ran my phone bill up over $700 and I had to have my phone shut off, and that was before cell phones. All of them have cost me a lot, either money for groceries, additional utilities, or gas for running their butts all over the place in the hope of getting them the hell out.

    The one who lives here now was only supposed to be here for five or six months-- just so he could take the semester at college that he had already paid for, then he was supposed to move into "his inherited home" (which turned out to be a lie) a couple of towns to the south and finish his degree at the college there. When I found out that he had registered for the fall semester at the same college I was livid. Now, he's been here almost 13 months. School starts again tomorrow. I'm *thisclose* to murdering him. Don't be me.
  • From:
    Welshamethyst (Legacy)
    On:
    Mon Jan 23 2012
    Unfortunately a lot of that story smells fishy so you probably are better off not getting involved. Its hard sometimes because we often want to give people the benefit of the doubt and give them a hand. My mother was a soft touch and I saw her get burned time and again trying to "help"
  • From:
    Ksmiley (Legacy)
    On:
    Mon Jan 23 2012
    Congratulations on getting your 2nd job and I wish you the best! Things will work themselves out in time and your schedule for work and personal will definitely iron out smoothly once you get everything figured out. Give it a little time. I am happy for you! CONGRATS!
  • From:
    TexanElf (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 25 2012
    That sounds like a schedule I had years and years ago. I had been working in retail but hated it. So I decided to work as a temp doing office work. Of course, temp jobs come and go so I also kept the retail job part-time, evenings and weekends. So some weeks when I had temp work I'd work 40 hours as a temp plus 20 hours for the store. Other weeks I just got 20 hours at the store. Anyway, I thought at first that during those 60-hour week phases I'd never get everything done at home that I needed to do, but it turns out I've never been more organized in my whole life. My apartment (well, the half I paid for) was also d*mn clean.

    Glad you saw the possible pitfalls of having that person move in. I'm so suspicious, I really don't want a pet-sitter when we travel (though it looks like we might be forced to hire one) or (if I could only afford such a thing) a maid.