Around eight months ago, my oldest child got a job. Originally it was to pay for auto insurance, as I think that he needs to pay his portion if he wants the responsibility of driving (that and it doubles my freaking rates to put him on the policy). Needless to say, I have yet to get any insurance money, and he has driven maybe once since he got his license in February.
He works for the same company that I do. Initially he asked if he could work for me, and I let him know that I could get him a job, but it would be working for someone else. I love my family, but the last thing I want is to have them working for me. I’ve been there. My wife worked for me off and on for several years, and I always expected more from her than my other employees, was harder on her, and then there were the employees. Half of them think that you are getting the gravy train because you are related to the boss, and the other half go to you with questions that they don’t want to ask the boss. I figured that I would save him from this. There’s always the fact that he is a smart-ass punk and I have enough of those working for me already.
He went to work at the new store that they opened up on me last year. He only works weekends, and breaks from school, so that works out well. For awhile he worked mornings which worked out well. I would just drop him off on my way to work. After awhile he was put on the 2pm to 9pm shift. Big pain in the ass. It meant that my wife got to start taking him to work because I had already been there for eight hours at that point. Still, not too bad. Just as soon as I left the Carrollton store and opened one here in Temple, they put him back on day shift, which means he has to be there prior to 7am. No fucking way that I am going to drive him to work on a regular basis, then turn around and drive back to my town. One of the reasons I wanted to open a store here so badly is so that I DON’T have to drive anymore. I fill the tank once every two weeks or so now. Nor is my wife going to drag the girls out of bed at 6am to drive him to work. So far, he has been able to catch a ride with one of the waitresses who actually lives here in town. That is, until now. She is off tomorrow. Apparently he has know that since about 1pm this afternoon. He waits until 7pm to come down and tell me that he doesn’t have a ride to work.
Of course my response was along the lines of “what the fuck do you want me to do about it?” Maybe not in those words, but pretty close. I asked him who he had called for a ride. Nobody. I told him I guessed he needed to call his bosses and see if they could find him a ride. He called, and they can’t come get him. I then explained that he needed to call them back and find out who was working and see if he could not get in touch with one of them. A couple of them could come by here and get him, and it really wouldn’t be out of the way. It ends up that I am going to take him one town over and his boss is going to pick him up. If it came down to it, I would probably spend the extra 45 minutes to drive him to work, but I can’t tell him that I will take him if he doesn’t find a ride, because then he won’t look for one. Just like the rest of my employees.
Fucking pain in the ass kids.