Don't Forget to be an A-hole!

"Don't forget to be an asshole today!"

They were the first words I heard the other morning. 

I was sitting on my new deck (that is a whole 'nother story, but the deck is almost done), having my cup of coffee with Bodie.



 

It was about 8:30 in the morning and the neighborhood was quiet.  For a community this size it is a surprisingly quiet place to live.  The silence was suddenly broken by a familiar voice from next door.  Lisa.  I love Lisa.  She was "hand picked" to be our neighbor and then to be our coworker as well.  Lisa's Italian.  She's from Chicago.  Soft-spoken she is not.  "Don't forget to be an asshole today!" she yelled back in to her husband as she walked out the front door.  "And if you forget how, just call me and I'll remind you!"

I mentioned that Lisa works with us.  She was hired to handle sales because she has real estate experience and she could sell ice water in Siberia.  Her husband, Joe also works with us from time to time.  His job?  Various duties, including the unenviable duty of Outside Inspections.

Just in case anyone has forgotten, we live in a mobile home community.  No one wants to live in a trailer park. One of the ways we ensure that we continue to live in a mobile home community instead, is by doing outside inspections several times a month.  This means that Joe gets in his little car and drives through all fifteen of the communities the company owns and makes note of things like, "Pile of tires in front yard," or "toilet on lawn" or "huge underwear hanging in front window instead of blinds".  He enters these notes into an app on his phone, which generates a report to me.  I go into the accounts, assess fines and write letters saying such things as, "Please remove large underwear from front window."

Joe is one of the nicest people I know.  I don't think he relishes the thought of being a narc for the company, but who wants to look across the street and see a toilet on the lawn? Or large underwear in the front window? I know I don't want to see it! But I'm sure it's hard for a really nice person to have to report even the most egregious of offenses.  Luckily, Joe has a wife who will remind him....

"Don't forget to be an asshole today!"




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