Friday, July 9, 2021

Eye of the Beholder

This morning felt like earthquake weather — hot, muggy, humid.

Not feeling motivated, I came thisclose to calling off on working out in the Pain Cave.

But I didn’t.

I pushed through, was glad I did, and now have the next two days when, hopefully, I won’t have to go into the outside world.

The trolley dolly arrived on Wednesday, so this morning, before it got unbearably hot, I was easy peasy able to roll the old microwave down the stairs and into the dumpster.

Returning to my unit from the dumpster, I bent down to take a photo of another rather large new rock addition at the far end of the pathway.


As I stood up, I spotted Assistant Maintenance Guy (AMG) walking down the pathway, towards me.

"It’s getting out of control”, said he (probably repeating what he's heard Community Manager say).

"But it’s all so pretty”, replied I.

"J___ (Complex Manager) told us to pick ‘em up, because there’s been complaints”.

So, now I know why some of the rocks disappeared.

As for AMG saying there’d been complaints, my response was “You’re kidding …. What’s to complain about?”

"You know how it is. You see what you want to see, and one person, I’m not going to say what nationality he is, took offense to the rock painted RUN”.

Inasmuch as AMG was hesitate to say a nationality, I’m assuming his hesitancy is because the complainer is Black.

“You see what you want to see”.

It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

I took one of the RUN rocks and placed in with my rock collection, because I associated it with the 5Ks I participate in. This other individual is associating it with racism, as in Run, Get Out, Leave.

Oh, well. Takes all kinds to make a Universe.

I asked AMG, “When you pick them up, what do you do with them? Do you throw them in the trash”.

He couldn’t look me in the eye as he mumbled an undiscernible reply, so I’m assuming that’s a big 10-4. So, I requested that, in future, if rocks were picked up, he not toss them, but give to me.

Doubt that will happen but, if it does, I’ll just relocate them. Once the weather cools down, and the University reopens to us walkers, I’ll leave the rocks he gives me, IF he gives them to me, at various locations on campus. Also, when in-person 5Ks restart, I can drop them off along the trails.

Complex Manager is turning into a douche bag. I don’t have a problem with him specifically — he's nowhere near as awful as that mean Nurse Ratched we were stuck with for a while, but one does have to ride his arse in order to get things done. Like, recently, I noticed water on the kitchen counter, realized it appeared to be leaking from the base of the faucet, sent Manager an email to have maintenance come take a look at it.

Received no reply or response.

A second and third email elicited no reply or response.

A day or so after the condo disaster in Miami, I sent Manager a fourth email asking if he was “going to wait until something bad happened, like in Miami”. That the leak wasn’t likely to take the building down, but it might end up in overflowing over the counter to damage kitchen tile, flow over into the carpet area, maybe even leak down into the unit below.

Now none of that was in danger of happening, I was just being extra, making a mountain out of a molehill, because I wanted to scare him into thinking he could be held responsible for a disaster. I even hinted at his being held responsible saying, that “If anything bad happens as a result of the leak, I’ve got proof I tried to get help”.

Head Maintenance Guy showed right up after that, put in a new washer something or other and said that morning was the first he’d been advised of a request for service.

So, like I said … one has to ride Manager’s arse to get him to take care of things, turn in a work order.

That got my mind to wondering … just exactly what is it that Manager does? Why do we even need him?

Checking yelp, to see if there have been any updates on this property, I find his name has been specifically mentioned in an unflattering light … “I still have not heard a phone call from the human resources about the manager J___!! I can't believe they allow this manager to be this cruel that it sickens me to think of how he treats the elderly! Get a shirt that labels manager or a name tag since you’re going to allow this animal to work here he thinks he owns the place.”

When the reviewer talks about “Human Resources”, she’s referring to Corporate. She’s been contacting Corporate about Manager.

Corporate doesn’t care. Not unless and until he does something like Nurse Ratched did — stole money orders submitted as rent payments.

It may be Manager is non-responsive because he wants us to sign up for “Rent Café” — this thing that he, and Corporate, have been pushing for us to buy into.

The premise of Rent Café is that, "for our convenience", a third party, for a minimum charge, takes control.

This third party will pay our monthly rent, drawing the funds directly from our bank accounts and, also "for our convenience", we can submit work orders through this third party.

I’m not giving a third party access to my banking information and, if it’s this difficult to get a maintenance request through Manager, what guarantee is there that going through a third party would be easier.

Rent Café sounds like a highway to taking advantage of the elderly — access to their financials and personal information by some unknown third party, so no … not this elder.

And with some of the seniors actually signing up for that, again I ask, “What does Manager do … What do we need him for?”

So all set for two days inside, in the midst of typing this post, along about 1:00, up pops a Plot Twist … the power went out.

No Wi-Fi, no A/C.

Fortunately, it came back on, along about 5:30, because it’s too hot for this nonsense.

Hopefully, remainder of the weekend is smooth sailing.

6 comments:

  1. I cannot believe that people are complaining about the rocks. I'm very sarcastic so I would probably paint 100 rocks and late at night just set them all over the place just out of spite. lol

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    1. Some people enjoy being miserable SOB's. Try to make everyone as miserable as they are. I'm thinking Jan's planting even bigger rocks may be her response to criticism, i.e., spite. She doesn't seem the type to allow others to roll all over her :-)

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  2. WhatEVER someone does, someone else will complain about it.

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  3. I'm glad you were 'Extra', with some people you just have to be. Ignoring Maintenance Problems is what led to that disaster in Florida and tho' problems might not end up that catastrophic, deferred maintenance always has consequences that aren't good for any property or occupant of them, period. As for the Rocks, it is entirely subjective what gets some people's chonies in a twist to complain about or find offense in. I do find it interesting that Maintenance Guy even used the term "Nationality", WTF... as if that's relevant to anything at all of a Complainer Type... I'd think their Personality and Character is what would be more relevant to what they find objection of the Rocks to. Likely some uptight asshole with nothing to bitch about but that... or, it could actually be nobody {resident} and Managements handy excuse to remove them as a 'Control Freak' issue in the complex? Some people do like running their little Kingdoms with an Iron Fist, that's why I abhor HOA's, it's like little Nazi Regimes set up by a select few who then let the Power and Authority go to their Heads and then they become a general Nuisance to all Residents. And I agree with Mike, whatever someone does, someone else will complain about it.

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    1. The more I think about it, I find it odd that Community Manager is so quick to condemn and want to be rid of the rocks, but takes his time responding to requests for service. I hope one day for a situation where I can throw that in his face. I do think Assistant Maintenance Guy, who is friendly, talks to me when he's alone, because he's not supposed to be friendly with us, was just trying to be politically correct. Let me know the resident had turned it into a racist issue without having to say the word race/racist rant. He's turning into a good source of intel, what's going on at management level, without realizing he's giving me info I'd not gather any other way. LOL. I can't get anything out of Head Maintenance Guy or Activity Director.

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