Sometime last month my Auto died.  Broken timing belt was the culprit, but the mechanic said that was the tip of the iceberg: radiator leaking, Distributor, Head gasket, Valve Cover gasket, Power steering High Pressure hose, Ball joint boot destroyed, etc, etc.  I was shocked to say the least, so I had the guy fix the car enough to run.  After all, I needed a car.  You see, like most Californian’s I live nowhere near where I work.  Not to mention we have the worst freeway system in the country.  I5, I405, 22, 55, 91, 605, 10, 15, 215, 134, etc.  All these thousands of miles of winding and crossing roads, you’d think we’d be able to get where we wanted to go?  But nothing could be farther from the truth.

Last Monday my car died again.  This time it was nice enough to die in the number two lane of the freeway, where I seemed to be loved by thousands.  Talk about humiliating.  I was able to push the car out of the way, which surprised me that the teeming masses actually allowed such a large gap in traffic to accommodate me.  This time: fuel pump.  Geeze, my original mechanic missed that one.  I got the same thing from this group of mechanics, a laundry list of troubles with the car. 

Needless to say, I missed work that day.  So I’m here today and what happens?  Payroll asks me what I’m going to do about covering the day that I missed.  I say, “I don’t know if I’ve got any vacation or sick time left?”  Now, this woman is a large woman and she is snotty for her size.  She also talks with some strange inner city speak, that I’ve only heard a few times in my life, mostly stopping for gas in LA.  Sometimes it’s hard to understand what it is that she’s trying to communicate.  She opens her mouth and says, “Well, I’z don’t know either, Youz gonna have to check your paycheck stub and finz out.”

Her logic is uncanny.  Let me see if I get this right.  Her job is payroll.  That is, making sure the employees of this company get their money that is due to them.  It would follow that in the course of her duties, she would also be responsible for keeping track of information pertaining to say vacation time. By her claim she infers that I am responsible for this knowledge and not she.  So if I continue this logic into anyone’s job:  President on invasion force entering Florida, “Really, an invasion?  Hum, that’s not my field, you might want to check with the Army.”  Fireman, “I’m not sure about that fire, you see I’m a fire-man, not an extinguisher-man.”  Fishmonger, “I can’t sell you this fish, I just catch them, you’ll have see someone else for that”… and on it goes.

So screw um!  I’ll just take a no pay for that day.  Why take the responsibility away from the bitch?