The Two Week Notice

Recently, my dad gave his two-week notice to leave his place of employment. Originally, he was only to work there for two or three months, and he and his boss have discussed his quitting before, so it's not like they were looking forward to having him as a long-term employee, nor were they shocked. If anything, they were pleasantly surprised he stayed as long as he did.

His boss said that he can still make bids on jobs that need to be done around there, and they'll still call him if something special needs doing (such as a toilet not flushing- our pastor and Kile II can tell you, my dad fixes toilets like a champ!), so it's not a total loss for either side. However, my mom is distressed by it. She hates unsteady sources of income; my dad wants to start his own business, and that's basically the definition of "unsteady income!" But that's his lifelong dream, and I'm sure it will work out one way or another.

Starting your own business is a grueling, horrific, potentially disastrous, scary, unbelievably hard trudge-fest where all you do is slave and toil and work and worry. Needless to say, that appeals to my dad very much. "Where do I sign!" he says with much glee. I may never understand that man.

We need to work on our customer service and advertising (what advertising?), as well as accepting that there are certain parts of jobs that will require us to call electricians or plumbers. As it is now, we're operating under the "Handyman's Clause." That means that you can do pretty much anything if the total job is under $1,000. It's dangerous, though. (See linked article.)

My mom figured out that if we skimp so hard that we're eating beans, we can get by with $550 a month on top of her income. That's doable. My dad can typically make upwards of $700 in a two-day weekend, so as long as the work lasts, we should be fine, and especially if he works a 3 or 4 day week (or even 5-day!). I think the idea is to slave and work and almost kill yourself when there's a lot of work, because next week, there may not be any work. It's called "rolling with the miserable sun," I guess. Did I mention that I damned an entire country to Hell the other day? I had to take it back, because whew, that was a bit too much for me.

He's hoping to very soon acquire a license of sorts that allows him to do work of up to $25,000. (There's another class that allows for $50,000, I think, and I'm sure there are others.) Since he is a felon/ex-felon, he has to complete a felon test. They fingerprint you, beat you with a cat-o-nine tails, stab you a few times with needles to test your reflexes (hammers only work on joints), and then hang you upside-down blindfolded and have spiders crawl on you, and you have to guess which one is the biggest. I don't know where they dream these tests up, but they sure are weird.

Once he has that, he will be restricted from doing electrical/plumbering (that's not a word)/other specialty work. I'm not sure what he will be able to do at that point. Then, he goes and takes "electrical" tests, and that is added to his license to make a super license that allows for electrical. He then will do the same with plumberating (that's not a word) and air conditioneering (that's not a word), and anything else he wants to. Then we can make the "real" money.


More good in all of this is that my mom will be able to get home about two hours sooner, and may even go back to a 3-day workweek. That'd make me happier than a hatter! Additionally, my dad will be able to stop missing church, and probably be able to attend the Bible studies and perhaps the Q&A's. I don't think he'll be able to make this Q&A, which should be an "ice cream social."

I asked Lisa dataDyne, and she says that she hasn't heard anything more of it. She did manage to propagandize for Pastor's dad, though. One plants the seed, the other waters. I now recall that Pastor Justice had mentioned the ice cream social while coming home from California- wish I had remembered and mentioned that to her. I don't think it'll be a potluck-type event, but simply someone purchasing several gallons of ice cream- probably Pastor Justice. We'll need sprinkly things too, though! I personally am very partial to rainbow sprinkles. They make me about as happy as Samus Aran does.



Best of all, Dad's finally starting to admit that he needs to learn to use the computer. The poor guy, he's called an idiot if he doesn't want to learn it, and he's laughed at if he says he does. A real "damned if you do, humiliated if you don't." (That isn't really true. Hi Don! Glad to see you're blogging again! Am I keeping up the peer pressure sufficiently?) Anyway, time to go. I wanted to keep this much shorter, but I failed, alright? I admit it. I failed. Shoot me now, Short Blog Post gods, for I have failed in my offering to you.