No Excuses

So, first let me just say this.

PAY YOUR RENT. For the love of all that is holy. Or at the very least communicate with your landlord.

That being said. . .

The property I now manage has been mismanaged for some time. I love me a challenge, I like taking something that’s broken and fixing it. It gives me experience and something to work toward and accomplish and be proud of.

But I had 20 people not pay their rent on time, and only 3 communicated with me about their lack of a payment. I tried calling everyone yesterday and got one more person to talk to me.

So I had to do a 3 day notice for the others. For those not in the know, a 3 day notice states pay or get out in 3 days or we’re taking you to court.

1. I have never in my life had to deliver so many notices.

2. This is the largest community I have ever managed. 18 buildings with 8 apartments in each building, 9 apartments in 2 of them. I think I only skipped 4 buildings.

3. There are approximately 12 exterior stairs to 10 of them, with the other 8 having no exterior stairs. There are 6-7 stairs inside each building to the upper floor. Each building I entered had someone on the 2nd floor who hadn’t paid – of course.

4. Please read points 1-3 as “this bitch is too old and too out of shape for this shit.”

PAY YOUR FUCKING RENT for fucks sake.

Its August, guys. Today the air felt cool and I had checked the weather before work because I knew the task on my agenda was delivering these notices. I knew the high was set for 85°, but we wouldn’t reach that until well into the afternoon. So my goal was to have all notices delivered by noon. It was overcast, and there was a breeze.

I walked to the furthest point from the office. The breeze felt nice, and I thought “maybe this won’t be so bad.”

Yeah. Wishful thinking.

Because first my key didn’t work for the security door. So I spent 10 minutes dicking around with that. I tried it in 3 buildings front and back before I cried to maintenance. Who was four buildings down from my starting point. After obtaining a new key I went back down to try again and finally I was able to post my first notice.

By the time I was half way through I was tired, and sweating – because good ol’ Ohio humidity, that’s why. Despite the overcast skies and cool breeze the humidity was outrageous. Luckily I had thought ahead and tied my hair back and secured it with a wide cloth headband. All that did was keep my curly hair from looking unkempt and the sweat from dripping freely from it, however.

Once to the buildings without exterior stairs, I thought I was about home free.

Until I posted the wrong notice to the wrong door in the wrong building. So I had to circle back.

With only two buildings left and wiping nasty sweat from the back of my neck, I walked down the stairs from the upper floor to the bottom floor, ready to knock this shit out and go back to my air conditioned office and drink a bottle of water.

I heard a door open, and peeking around the stairwell I saw a pretty elderly woman exiting her apartment. Dressed in white, thin cotton from head to toe, a straw hat on her head and hot pink lipstick on, she looked like she had a story to tell. Despite her interesting appearance, I was anxious to complete the mornings work and get out of the humidity. My upbringing and customer service background stopped me in my tracks. There was definitely an internal battle as I held the door for the woman and greeted her, crying to just walk away instead of being polite. I looked unprofessional as hell, obviously warm. I mentally noted every place that was sweating and knew my face was red – both from being warm and from embarrassment. And she looked so cool and comfortable. I forced conversation and politeness, and forced myself to take a moment to breath and enjoy the breeze as I walked with her to the parking lot. We chit chatted about her days plans, and compared notes on where she was visiting and then I made my excuses and walked away, wishing her a safe trip. I regret there’s no interesting story to tell about her, but she was a bright spot in my day.

I finished my last two buildings and escaped to my office to answer calls and emails and chug water and clean myself up.

I’m not pleased. Forgive me for complaining, I totally signed up for this job knowing it was a complete and utter clusterfuck. But for the love of God. This is bullshit. Period, point blank. I hope by me doing my due diligence people realize that I am not the half assed sort and in the future pay their shit on time. But I have a feeling this is one of many of these types of days and I’m anxious to get it sorted out and in order. I wanted to get into a little better shape but I’m not down for torturing myself.

Onto this evening at home, where I made a successful new recipe by looking at what I had on hand and making it work. I gauge the term successful by if both children eat it, and they did. I mixed cooked egg noodles with a can of tuna, a handful of frozen peas and carrots, a small tub of that chive cream cheese and an envelope of the mac n cheese dinners powdered cheese that you buy at the dollar store. I thinned the cream cheese with milk while heating it and mixed it all together, picked the peas out of Chases dish and served it. “Whats this?” Matt asked. “Wink Chicken and noodles.” Any time I make something with tuna I call it ‘wink chicken’ so Matt knows its tuna but Chase doesn’t. I did this to Matt for 8 years and now Chase is the victim of my lies, but damnit tuna is good for you and they chowed and I patted myself on the back.

Now my little one is playing in the bath and I am contemplating our back to school shopping adventure this weekend. I don’t have many brain cells left at this point of my day, but I managed to do my job at work and at home, so I’m satisfied. I have duties. No excuses. Even if my knees and ankles are complaining rather loudly.