| May. 3rd, 2006 @ 06:12 am Broken, utterly |
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Current Mood:  crushed
Current Music: none
I don't ever recall feeling so heartbroken and hurt and sorrowful in my life.
This last evening, I had to fire Torgny, my friend from Sweden who's been living with my family.
He and I have been working on a project for my (our) boss. I asked specifically for Torgny, while he was still living in Sweden, because his skills are near legendary. So my boss extended him an offer that included a small advance to help him move his family back to the States. Because of this offer, Torgny's immigration paperwork, which had been held up for years, was finally approved.
So, Torgny's family went to stay with his wife's mother in NC. Torgny came to stay with me in FL, since that's where I had set up the mini-office. We, my family, had offered to cover all of Torgny's living expenses.
Torgny and I hit it off fairly well when he arrived. And we worked well together.
But something was a little off. The first few weeks went great. But, then, I was finding it very difficult to keep Torgny motivated. And I began to find that, unless he was drunk, it was very difficult to hold a civil conversation with him, since he preferred to speak over me and often resorted to yelling to get his points across.
I responded by working from my bedroom instead of the office. I made no statement as to why I moved. I simply said that it was more convenient, a muted truth.
Patrick and I had already been discussing this move for a year or so, although Patrick had always stressed that he wished to move to NC. Since my brother, Tom, also lives in NC, and Torgny's wife's family is from NC, I agreed to move my family so that we could all be within a reasonable distance of the office.
About a month back, Patrick began to look around SC. This raised some red flags because Torgny's wife overtly refused to live in SC. It was never a significant problem for me, although my *strong* preference was still to live in NC, if given the option.
About two weeks back, Patrick decided to buy some land in SC and found a contractor to build him a house.
I was shocked and a little upset because Patrick mentioned his decision only after he had already put money down. But, given time to consider it, I realized that this was done not out of any malice, but for purely practical reasons. The suburb Patrick selected is 20% less expensive than an equivalent lot in NC near Charlotte (one area we were considering). The lot is also likely to increase in value more quickly, and the school district there is one of the best in the Carolinas, and far surpasses those here in FL.
Torgny responded by going on a silent strike. He refused to work, but he didn't disclose to Patrick that anything was amiss. They discussed the situation in SC on the phone more than once and he presented himself as disappointed, but supportive.
During this strike, I became very stressed out because I could see that the work was not getting done. I kept the strike a secret from Patrick because I didn't want to ruin Torgny's career with the company. But I continued to quietly urge him to work. My folks began keeping tabs on him as well and reminding him periodically of his deadline.
After mincing words with my mother, the strike broke. He hadn't worked in five days at this point. Our deadline was a two-week period, and we were nearing the milestone. We had left only two work days, plus Saturday and Sunday.
A day later I was still looking for progress. I conveyed to Torgny, at this point, that he was in trouble; not meeting his deadline was simply not an option. And his job was at stake.
So, Torgny busted ass and got his pieces done. Or so I was lead to believe.
Torgny and my father drove up to see Patrick and receive our checks for the milestone met. I didn't go because I was (and still am) ill. When they returned, I had a nice check for my completed work. Torgny had what he called a "partial payment" for his work. I asked about this and discovered that Torgny had not completed the work that he committed to do, as I was lead to believe. And he was expecting a second check when he was finished early that coming week.
I held my tongue.
After another day watching Torgny play video games and dork with network hardware, I was becoming upset. Yet, I still held my tongue.
We ordered Chinese food for dinner. After dinner we opened our fortune cookies. And if every one of them wasn't about work or doing the right thing. We laughed and chided Torgny about the cookies. He became irate and began to yell. "Doing right by me means not working", he said. He continued that he refused to work because people keep reminding him that he needs to be working. I said, "You know what? Get out. Leave."
Torgny returned later. And the evening only managed to spiral even more out of control.
*sigh* |
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