The Story Of Coworker - Part 2

Things went back to the way they were before he left. Still doing a half assed job, but he was feeling better and seemed less angry at me and the world. That lasted for almost 3 months, now at this point I had been there almost a year. My schedule during that time was wed-sun and it sucked. I was told when I started that wouldn’t be a permanent and I started to pitch a bitch. I was being reasonable, I wanted Sunday and Monday off. That would give Coworker Friday and Saturday off. Manager basically he didn’t have a choice he was going to start working Sundays and that marked the return of pissy, whinny, angry Coworker. At that point he was still having Wednesday Night Poker at his house with 3 or 4 friends but that started to dwindle, more then once I heard him on the phone telling one friend or another that he would get them their 30 bucks. Now I doubt this was poker money, I think he just started borrowing money and not paying it back and they all just moved on with out him because it wasn’t long after that he stopped talking about the poker games. He was also becoming very short tempered so I figured away to claim one of the unused cubes in the main area as my one so I wouldn’t have to be in the same room when our shifts over lapped. One day in mid August he informed us he was going have a roommate. We don’t know if this roommate was a friend or some poor sap that answered an ad on Craigslist. They were going to fix up his basement and all these grand plans… once again… whatever I stopped listening. In October, and I don’t know how it came up, but I mentioned that The Boss sometimes lets workers take advances on their paychecks. Not 2 days later he was in The Boss’ office. Our receptionist at the time HATED coworker and LOVED to gossip, she was a wealth of information and there are days I miss her. She told me that Coworker asked for a $500 advance, well over the next 5 weeks he had advanced over $1500. He also told us he got rid of his land line and was going to get a cell phone but for the time being he was without a phone. By mid December he had cashed out his 401k (without taking taxes out) and was at least $700 in the hole to our company. Then the collection calls started, at work because he still had no phone of his own. He did manage however to call in sick more then once, but we had no way of getting a hold of him. Up to 5 times a day including weekends we were getting calls on our common line. Three people use this phone and there is no way we can just stop answering. When they would call and Coworker answered you could hear him say “Coworker isn’t in today.” It got to the point where Manager had to ask The Boss to talk to the lawyers about getting it to stop. It slowed down but now it’s just his mortgage people. In February of this year The Boss received papers to start garnishing Coworker’s pay. In the last 5 months, his hot water heater died, the kitchen pipes burst , his car has had 3 flat tires, a new alternator, been in 2 car accidents, had 3 traffic tickets, the taxes became due on the 401k and he still doesn’t have a phone. At some point you would think I would start feel pity for this slime bucket but the fact is he has done this to himself, and considering how he treats other people I am not shocked he has no friends left. I just don’t understand how after all this he feels it’s ok to act the way he does, and the kicker is he is 34 year old. There will be continued chapters on Coworker in the future I don’t see him changing any time soon.