Thank goodness, I was able to work from home on Friday. I had to make vendor calls in the morning, but hey, working at home is always better than working at the office. No offense to my office mates; I just prefer my home setup, with the windows, natural light, and doggies.
Around lunch time, Fonda invited me over for food. Indonesian pork satay and cabbage fritters. Always tasty at Fonda’s house. She showed me her latest shopping conquests– a huge butt-ugly denim LV bag plus tons of goodies from A|X, 9 West, etc. God, that woman seriously NEVER tires of shopping. She’s so funny though: she was saying it was good that I was working because I don’t like cooking, decorating, or shopping. I totally agree. I prefer working to those things. I know, I’m a bore that way.
So Friday early evening, I had my “initial inspection” at Archstone. The manager came, and my god, I was so pissed. First, he was 30 minutes late. Then, he had the nerve to say they would charge me for professional steam cleaning of the carpets PLUS apartment cleaning. Nevermind that I had already spent several hours wiping shit down. Now, granted the place is not in “move-in” condition, but puhlease. That’s why they have the cleaning staff. I have lived in… let’s see… 5 apartments. I’ve always cleaned to this level, and I’ve NEVER lost money from the security deposit. But he gave me some bullshit about Archstone being a corporate place that had higher standards. My fucking ass! If Archstone had higher standards, maybe the company should invest in employees who actually read the rental files and demonstrate basic customer service skills (like returning phone calls). Whatever, John just wants out. So I said to just go ahead and do all the cleaning and send me the exact invoice. However, this evening, I went over the lease again and it says that the place has to be “broom-clean” and any spackling and painting of marks needs to be approved in writing by the Landlord. So I’m going to just turn in the keys and they can take my $99 deposit. When he comes back asking for more, I’m going to send in that paragraph and take it up with Archstone corporate because this is a total scam. It’s not even about the extra $100; it’s the principle of not letting these assholes get away with scamming people. That’s is what they are trying to do: first with the mail key replacement charge, now with the security deposit. Anyway, getting worked up by these chumps.
In other news, IBM sent more work my way. I finally have my “recording studio” set up. I got the built-in mic for the MacBookPro plus an awesome free recording software called Audacity– I can edit out all my fuck ups and also export to WAV files. Aw yeah, professional voice over services… my future primary source of dough. Yeah right!
Well the house is coming along. I set up my 古筝 today. Took me hours to tune it, and I’m not even sure it’s right but whatever, I can play my signature song and it sounds right to me, so good enough.
Ok well, my neck is still messed up. I’m going to hit the hot tub to see if that will stop me from walking like a robot. Hope you’re having a good weekend!