On ethics

In today's world, it seems that there are people with ethics, and there are people with ethics. You know who I'm talking about. The people you encounter on a regular basis whose personal morals loosely resemble those of a used car salesman. Or a loan shark. Or your great-uncle "Little Joey." Since this particular ethical breach could earn this person a lifetime enrollment on my personal if-the-Mafia-came-to-my- door-taking-requests hit list, it is only fitting to dub this person as "The Weasel."

The Weasel is a real estate agent. Recently, her nefarious dealings have included screwing her best friend out of her house. No, really. The friend was going to be foreclosed upon, and they struck a handshake deal (it's hard to shake hands with a snake as you will see) that the friend would deed the property, valued at roughly $25K, to The Weasel, make payments to her for it, and after the financial situation had gone away, The Weasel would sell the house back to the friend at a small percentage profit for her trouble. Easy, right?

Wrong. When the time came to sell the house back to the friend, The Weasel got a crooked pal to reassess the house to be worth just shy of $80K. (Understanding this house is approximately 1000 sq. feet in a bad part of a bad little town...and our big house in the nice part of town just barely cleared $80K...) Since the friend was having trouble making the $25K, she ended up living in one of our rental houses (she is the assistant to the lawyer I used to work for, and a friend of the family) when someone else bought her house and The Weasel had her evicted.

Fast forward to last Friday.

Ma gets a phone call from a random town resident asking whether she should take the money to her or to The Weasel to get the quit claim deed. Ma asks, "What money?!? What deed?!?" and finds out that apparently The Weasel sold this woman and her husband one of our vacant lots. In April. They had given The Weasel a $300 commission for the lot, along with $100 monthly payments since APRIL, and Ma and I had yet to see a penny. Ma asked her if there was a contract on the lot, and the girl said there was, to which Ma told her that it must be fraudulent since she had not signed a contract on that lot, especially with The Weasel, since the lot was actually listed with another realtor. The girl said that she had her receipts that were received in exchange for the payments that specifically state the money was going toward the purchase of our lot. Hmm.

Ma calls The Weasel to see what was up, and this was roughly the conversation that ensued:

Ma: "Did you sell our lot?"
TW: "Yes."
Ma: "Is there a contract?"
TW: "Yes."
Ma: "Is there a reason that I've not seen the contract I've supposedly signed?"
TW: "It's in my desk drawer. I was planning to bring it over." (When???)
Ma: "You do realize that the lot is listed with someone else, therefore you can't sell it, right?"
TW: "But it's already sold!"
Ma: "But there's no contract!"
TW: "I have the money too. It's on top of the contract in my desk drawer." (Why???)
Ma: "But there's no contract!"
TW: "Well, I was planning to give you the money when I gave them the contract."
Ma: "But there IS NO CONTRACT!"
TW: "Sure there is. It's in my desk drawer!"
Ma: "You can't sell a lot that's listed with someone else."
TW: "I probably shouldn't have taken the commission."
Ma: "YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TAKEN ANY MONEY! THERE IS NO CONTRACT!"

OMG. Could The Weasel really be so stupid to not see any ethical implications to taking money without a contract?!?

Not ten minutes later, our friend from the law office (yes, the one The Weasel screwed) calls and says, "Well, I hear The Weasel is at it again." Apparently the people buying the lot went to the attorney complaining about Ma and I because we were reneging on our contract to sell the lot. Friend knew that this didn't sound like our normal M.O. and called to find out what happened. Ma roughly told her what she told The Weasel (as in every other statement was "There is no contract!") and finally the people understood that we'd sell them the lot if they would give us the full amount (they have the money on hand) and start the whole process over. They went ape because they thought they'd lost their money to The Weasel.

Not my problem. Either way it goes, we get rid of the lot and get our money in exchange. But I'd sure like to be a fly on the wall when the paralegal and the couple sue the pants off The Weasel in the kangaroo court that the AD Judge (another business acquaintance that knows my family VERY well) runs in the blessed little town.



Let the games begin.

Of all the bonehead things...

WHOA. Nutcase Knight just took the cake for the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Before I write this story, please be aware that this woman is BRILLIANT. As in seriously one of the brightest people I (sort of) know.

After the Great Mold Debacle of 20 Aught 7, NK has decided to move. She has changed her mind 17 times on the location of her new residence, but alas, she has finally decided upon one (for now). She called Sir Knight earlier to ensure that he would be available on her chosen moving date to schlep her computer from its current house to the new place. He inquired as to why she couldn't give it to the movers with the rest of her stuff, to which she replied, "I'm not sure how to move it."

Sir Knight's response to that statement was somewhere in the vicinity of "Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.?!?"
NK: "Well, I really don't know if I should unplug it."
SK: "You shouldn't. You're just going to have to leave it plugged in here and go downtown and buy a REALLY long extension cord."

LMAO. ...until this exchange about 2 minutes before I started writing this post:

*Ring, ring*
Me: "Slugfest, this is Clarinazi, can I help you?"
NK: "Is Sir Knight in?"

(Does this look familiar?)

Me: "Let me check."
Me (on intercom with SK): "If you want to sneak out, I won't turn around for thirty seconds then I can claim ignorance."
SK: "Is it NK or the Lion King?"
Me: "NK."
SK: *sigh*

...apparently she was calling to let him know that his services are no longer necessary. She had called the computer store, and the guy there had assured her that it was OK to leave her computer unplugged for more than five minutes.

Actually, she was amazed that he didn't seem concerned about when she decided to plug her computer back in at all.

DAMN. I bet that phone call made that techie's day. ;-)

Introducing.....Swampdonkey

Today we inaugurate a new goddess into the pantheon: Swampdonkey. In the big picture, those such as her play a small but vital role. Swampdonkeys are the women people love to hate. They are rude. They are ugly. They breed in the southern Everglades.

Swampdonkey is the claims processor for my division. She has little intelligence and less common sense. We have had an ongoing feud for as long as I've been making claims for this section. This week has brought to light a speeded-up version of the goings-on in her peabrain.

In order to process a claim, the budgeted amount must meet or exceed the claimed amount in whatever 16-digit long category you're working with. In order to expedite this process, I usually make the claim, compare it to the budget, note the discrepancies, amend the budget, forge the appropriate signatures, then attach the shiny new budget perpendicular to the claim (so that both are obvious)...

Last Thursday, I did the aforementioned process upon ten different claims. Of them, half came back to me due to true errors on the parts of the claimmakers (at the districts--I can't fix this one)...and the other half came back due to INCORRECT BUDGETS.

OK, Swampdonkey. How do you NOT SEE the front page of each of those claims...yes, that one. The page that says "BUDGET" at the top, followed by a matrix of numbers that MATCH THE CLAIM.

---

After I got over my mottled rage at the returned claims, I took a peek at the reasoning behind the return of the other claims...and found this note on one of them (note that my program, though housed in a state department, is a federal program):

"I will need a law regarding this claim. The items claimed on this report are against the State Constitution. Although your project is Federal, the State Constitution comes over the Federal regulations, and therefore, this claim will not be paid."

WHAT?!?

Cow. Send this woman back to high school civics.

---

Swampdonkey reporting for duty.

How do these people find me?

In everyone's life there are a few people who seem a few fries short of a Happy Meal. While these people are the spice of life, most people's cronies are "normal" by general population standards. It seems that in this measure, I am abnormal as well.

I am abnormal because I'm not. Most everyone else around me is certifiable. There are a handful of less-crazy people (I wouldn't say that anyone that spends time with me is COMPLETELY average due to their buddy choices), but today, there are an esteemed few who take the cake (WHERE?!?*). The one that comes immediately to mind is Nutcase Knight.

Nutcase Knight is Sir Knight's ex-spouse. As the name implies, she is almost beyond certifiable. I can't even remember all the shit she's stirred up since my Slugdom began, but the circumstances are always a bit illogical (ok, a whole-freakin-lot illogical) and mostly contrived. Let us begin the story with the Knight family roll call, as I'm sure it will come in handy later:

Sir Knight (SK). The boss we all know and presumably love.

Nutcase Knight (NK). The boss's ex-harridan who still makes his life hell 25 years after the divorce decree was written, and the offspring were removed from her custody.

Baby Boy Knight (BBK). The son. The elder child, lives in Asia. Incredibly wealthy. Deals with NK by telling SK to get her a one-way ticket to see him...and he'd send her on vacation. Permanently.

Baby Girl Knight (BGK). The daughter. The younger child, lives in that awful state to the south. Incredibly smart. Married a man who is beyond incredibly wealthy. Just had a sprog (Cutie Knight (CK)) a few months ago that is whoa-fully spoiled (all her onesies are Ralph Lauren cashmere).

Those are the players. ...and there's the bell.

So to start off this edition of the fandamntastic story, about ten years or so ago Nutcase Knight thought that she was being stalked (why would anyone bother?!?) by someone who was sending her postal mail (In the words of Dave: what were they going to do--mail her a bullet?) and hence decided to move from our esteemed city to the state to the south to be closer to BGK since BBK told her not to bother. After residing in the state from hell for a while, she began getting phone calls. As in 300 a day (by her count)...that the person on the other end of the line would call, breathe for a bit, and hang up. Freaked, she decided to move back to our esteemed city. So she "lives" in an apartment on the north side...never leaves since she can't drive, she's afraid to fly, and is generally dependent on anyone who will feel sorry for her. Her phone only makes outgoing calls, so if the world ends and she needs to know, you must email her. (She's never even seen the grandkid...because she can't afford a cab to Houston.)

She sits all day looking out the window and looking at her arms (she thinks there's something wrong with them). No shit. Seriously. All day. Looking at her arms. When she's feeling neglected, she calls Sir Knight at the office. This is where I come in.

NK: Is Sir Knight in? (She always uses both names. Always. That's how I know it's her.)
Me: I'm not sure. I think he stepped out for a bit. Can I take a message?
NK: Do you know when he'll be back?
Me: (thinking "Well for you, the Tuesday after never. Or maybe April 31. Whichever is later.") No. I'm not really sure...can I take a message?
NK: No. I'll just call his cell phone.
Me: He must not have gone far since he left his cell on his desk. (hint, hint)
NK: "Click."

SK's cell: Ring! Ring! .... Ring! Ring!

...a moment of silence...

Office phone: Ring! Ring!
Me: Slugdom, this is Clarinazi, can i help you?
NK: Is Sir Knight in?
Me: No. He's stepped out of his office for a moment...


So Tuesday, she calls and wants Sir Knight to let her move into his house until the newly-discovered mold in her house is killed. He agrees to let her stay during the day on Wednesday since she had called SK's sister (whose husband has thrown her out of their house after a "short" two-week stay--another post entirely) and SK will be away anyway. She leaves seven voice mails on SK's cell on Tuesday to remind him to turn on the television so that she won't be bored and lonely while he is at work and she doesn't know how to work the remote, so he also needs to turn the volume down so that she can nap.

This morning, she's still there. She calls around 11:00 to let SK know that they're not done with the mold removal (and now it's in the a/c and the carpet), so she would be staying a "little" longer. He told her that he had a date coming for dinner, so she needed to be gone by 6:00. She told him that she didn't know if she could manage that, so he went to get her a hotel room...I haven't seen him since.

God have mercy on his soul. He deserves it. No wonder why he won't marry the girlfriend.



*OK, you know the reference. I KNOW you do. You wouldn't let me down by not knowing Carlin would you?
Carlin, from the "phrases that piss me off" skit: "He takes the cake. WHERE? Down to the deli to see the other cakes?"