Woes Coming to a Close

My apartment was bombed, today. And by "bombed" I mean "the maintenance guy set off two flea foggers." I still have no idea how I came to have fleas in my apartment, unless I carried them home with me after lounging in a friend's backyard (which is the most likely option, at this point).

The big source of excitement for the day (apart from the bombing raids in Highland Park) was having Mrs. Robinson and Pacman back me up against Radio as to why we should not hire a gentleman named Luigi (not his real name, of course) for a contract job we may or may not get.

Luigi first appeared on our collective radar when he emailed his resume to the firm. Mrs. Robinson wrote him an email in reply, informing him that we don't have any positions, right now.

So he called, just to make sure.

Three times. In three weeks.

And then, out of the blue, he appeared in our office with his portfolio and proceeded to hang around for two hours while the guys listened to him lecture about the joys of ArchiCAD and how great he was at it, and then pulled out drawings.

Two hours. Of billable time. Wasted by a guy who didn't make an appointment.

Because we don't have any openings. Which we told him.

I was unemployed. I understand it's frustrating. I understand you get desperate. But no amount of desperation should drive you to interrupt the workday for people and cost them money. Because that's what he did.

He has continued to call every couple of weeks to beg for a job.

To refer to his "requests" as begging is not an exaggeration. His voicemails are along the lines of "Please! I really need to work for you!"

So now, we're looking at possibly having a large short-term workload, and Radio and Oldsmobile were kicking around the idea of hiring someone on a contract basis.

Luigi came up, because Radio feels sorry for him. Radio is the only person in the office that pities him that much. The rest of us, despite the fact that two of us were unemployed for extended periods of time and so should be sympathetic, are immune to pity in Luigi's case. His incessant calling - we've told him we have no positions available, that we have his resume on file, etc... - has driven us all to dislike him intensely.

Do I feel kind of guilty for disliking this man, who I have met only once? Yes.

But I also know that, if we were to hire him temporarily, he would expect us to keep him on permanently, and would probably refuse to leave. It would be like Bartleby, The Scrivener, but in real life, instead of a Herman Melville story (if you haven't read Bartleby, I highly recommend you do so).

So Luigi-Bartleby won't be coming to work for us any time in the future, near or not. I wish him luck in finding a job, but if he keeps his current approach up, he'll never find one.

He needs to start hitting happy hours. That's how all the best architects get their jobs...