Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Scene from This Transitional Phase, part nine.

Cross that one off the list. The apartment office person called me. "Hi there! I just got your check, and I'm looking at your application. Do you have a job yet?"

"Not yet," I said.

"Then how are you going to pay the rent?"

So this really fucking irritates me. People keep asking me some variant of this. Do they think I plan never to work again because, I don't know, I think I can get away with it even though nobody else can? Do they think I don't understand that in order to pay rent X I must bring in at least X dollars? Do they--meaning the apartment people now--think I don't understand what a contract is? Yeah, I know they probably get that sort of thing all the time. It still annoyed me. "I'm going to get a job," I said, trying to be polite. "And I have savings."

"Oh. Because of course we have to check your finances, and you gave me the information from your current job, and if you don't have one up here...well, I just wanted to check with you before I talked to Corporate."

I gritted my teeth. It was probably uncalled for. "I can pay the entire six months now, if you need me to."

"Oh. So you can pay the entire sum up front? Okay, they'll be happy to hear that, I think. Well, I'll give them a call and get back to you. Thanks!"

So that's nice. The lesson here: never go anywhere without a job. I have a job interview this Friday. Did I mention I have a job interview? It's a position that would run surveys and statistics and I'm convinced they're going to get me into the interview room and ask me to calculate all sorts of complicated statistics by hand with trick questions and boundary violations, but I'm anxious to get this job just so people will quit asking me--not that they are, but it feels this way--

--No, forget it, I'm just making myself upset. Back to work. I'm actually busier now than I was before I handed in notice. Figures.

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