In which wanting and needing are not the same thing.

I just walked over to the 2nd Street coffee shop, where I bought a latté and a piece of Bonnie’s strange-but-good veggie lasagna. (She makes the sauce spicier than is typical, and there’s always broccoli in it. Plus she makes odd cheese choices sometimes. But her lasagna rocks anyway.) There were three people in there with their laptops, enjoying the wi-fi. Bastards. I want a laptop! I want to surf the ‘net at the coffee shop on a sexy, sleek laptop!

But since Bread quit his job today, I don’t see a shiny new laptop in my near future.

So this is how it went:

He was hired to do certain types of work that he rarely if ever got to do. He was supposed to work with his partner since they share a tool trailer, but they were usually scheduled at different job sites on opposite ends of the county. He worked from six to five, which is a lot of damn hours. He ended up doing a lot of framing and roofing, which is basically a waste of his time because he’s average at best at those things and should be doing finish carpendry since that’s what he’s an expert in.

Not too long ago, Bread got bitched out publicly for something he wasn’t responsible for and that he didn’t do – in fact, he wasn’t even on the same jobsite as the fuck up in question. He and J. never got to work together. Then last week, the company withheld $500 from each of their paychecks with no explanation.

They. Were. PISSED.

Today they went in for an impromptu meeting, and the boss said the funds were retainage for the big office building job. Retainage? WTF! Bread’s barely even worked that job, even though that’s what he was basically hired for. Plus, he and J. are sub-contractors and have had no exposure to the client and submitted no bids – their employer, as the general, can expect retainage but Bread and J. are hourly subs!

Apparently the company is hideously disorganized and as the office building job gets closer to crunch time everyone’s getting stupider and meaner. They’ve hired all kinds of under-qualified temps to do the finish work B. and J. were promised, then sent those two out on stupid roofing and framing jobs at other locations. They’ve blamed one or both of them for shoddy work they didn’t do. They even accused them of padding their timesheets – and when you accuse B. of what basically amounts to theft to his face, it makes him mad. Oh, and the clincher: the boss implied that they’d never see refunds on the retainage, and that he’d probably be laying them off in a week or so anyway.

So naturally B. and J. quit on the spot, walked out of the boss’s office, and went to see B.’s mom’s boss – our lawyer – who says he’ll fire off a letter or two if the withheld money doesn’t show up on their final checks next week.

Yeah, so, I won’t be buying a laptop soon. But B.’s at home splitting wood, which is good considering we were almost out again. He tells me he’s probably going out to Colorado for a week or two of work for R., which will leave me all alone out in the country in the dead of winter, but that’s alright. He deserves a break; his work life has basically sucked ass for the past several months. So he can go wherever he wants, as long as he splits me enough firewood before he goes!

Not to mention that I can’t miss him if he doesn’t go away first. I have to admit that the idea of a week or two by myself sounds pretty sweet.