insert swear word here

It's Saturday night, and I'm moved in. Now it's time to vent. If I can't vent on my fuckin' blog, then where the fuck can I vent?

A few thoughts:

Goddamn motherfucking shit.

A few more thoughts:

EC can chew my leathery scroties, hair and all.

Now that I have your attention, here's why I'm fucking pissed off:

Today was the best argument for just walking out of EC. Up to now, things haven't been great, but they haven't been miserable: the split shift is killing me, but the students and co-workers are reasons to keep on coming.

But today was move-in day, and I'd been promised help from the EC staff. Specifically, a Mr. J (Korean guy) told me he was coming around 1 or 2PM to help me with the move.

He showed up close to 3PM.

If EC is going to hold us to the standard of being rigidly on time for class, then I expect the same of them when they've promised to help a staffer. I'd finished packing in the morning, with little left to do but wait and whack off for the next couple hours.

Around 2:30PM, fed up with waiting, I took a stroll outside and spoke with my (now-former) landlady. I thanked her and her husband for their kindness, then decided to wander over to my new building to see if I could peek inside. I didn't have a key to the new residence, and this building has a security keypad on the main door, so there was no way I was getting inside.

But right as I wandered close to the new building's front door, the landlady popped up. A plump, cheerful-looking woman, she stared at me and seemed at a loss for words. I invited her to speak to me ("mal-sseum hashipshiyo!"), and she burst out in Korean, "Oh, you speak Korean! Wonderful!"

I found out that she had actually been on her way to my place to tell me she was sick of waiting for me to come: she had pressing business and needed to go somewhere. Good thing she found me. I told her that I, too, had been waiting a few hours for Mr. J and his promised posse to show up. The landlady gave me my key, explained the code thingie, and told me I could start moving. That was all I needed to know.

When I was about a third of the way done, Mr. J showed up. He'd been out hiking with other EC staffers at Buk-han Mountain. I knew about the hike. When I asked Mr. J on Friday evening whether it would be possible to move early on Saturday morning, he said no: he was required to attend the company hike (we teachers had been invited as well, but if you think I'm going to spend time at a company event after spending most of my waking hours at the company, you're nuts). This is why I was expecting him between 1 and 2PM.

Mr. J apologized profusely both for being late and for having kept me in temporary housing for three months. I was in no mood for apologies, though, and a lot of anger I'd kept under control bubbled to the surface today, especially after I saw my new place.

It's almost twice as big as what I'd been crammed into.

I don't resent my now-former landlord and landlady for the minuscule digs: it was EC that placed me in their building, and they were unfailingly nice to me. But for three months, I've been living in a goddamn shoebox with no idea how large my "permanent" residence was going to be. The knowledge that I'd been denied much nicer digs for three fucking months didn't improve my mood. Yes, it's petty; I should be better than this. But it sticks in my craw that this is how EC treats its teachers. Or more precisely: this is how EC has chosen to treat me.

The move is finished and my computer is set up. I'm a mass of aches: a sedentary lifestyle followed by sudden exertion will cause the muscles to protest, and they're puking lactic acid now. I've unpacked all the important stuff; the only thing left is for me to get my DSL service back. I hope to get it installed sometime this week.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to start scanning the want ads. Fuck me over once, shame on you. Fuck me over twice, shame on me.

EPILOGUE: I mentioned Mr. J's "posse." The posse consisted of one receptionist who came too late to lift a single goddamn thing. Her job, apparently, was to give me a residence checklist to sign after I verified that everything in the new place was OK. I ended up checking "good" for everything without even looking at the apartment: I was shuttling my final boxes over and hadn't had time to examine anything in detail. Turns out my air conditioner doesn't work (the remote control, anyway), and the place is filled with fucking mosquitoes despite the cooling weather. I've shut the windows and turned on the AC with the manual switch hidden inside the machine.

Oh, yeah-- almost forgot: I met a white girl named T who is, I gather, part of the management over at EC's Yeoksam branch. T arrived before Mr. J did and offered to help, but I curtly told her I didn't need any help. She was earlier than Mr. J, but still late. As I did with Mr. J, I didn't offer her any real eye contact. I'm sure she thinks I'm a dick given how I treated her. Not like I'm in a mood to care. Fuck 'em all.

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