TFNN'ers and other EyeMWing fan club members, please make your own thread and flame me there. Be respectful for once, I'm trying to get some legitimate input.
We've been together for several months (6 or so), friends for much longer than that. Things just work out. About a month and a half ago, we moved in together (this was actually planned as a "just friends" roommate arrangement, but those plans got changed). I was recently laid off, and am in the process of interviewing for another job. She's a manager at a grocery store, and makes $10 an hour.
Things absolutely click, and we have a great time together. But at the end of the semester, something pretty nasty happened - her parents (very, very, VERY well off upper-class folk) were not impressed with her dropping out of Penn State and deciding to go to a local CC. Because of their massive bankroll, she's unable to recieve any need-based financial aid, and getting her anything else has proven to be a significant challenge. Her parents had previously been paying the entire bill - and now they refuse to talk to her, much less give her money. That was a rough time. But this isn't about that.
Eventually, she came to terms with that situation, and decided that she'd pay for it herself. I'll continue to take out loans on my education and help pay for hers if that's what it takes - but I severely doubt it. But she doesn't want to hear any of that.
Effective this week, she altered her work schedule to better suit this goal. She now works 126 hour weeks. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX! That's 18hrs/day, 7 days a week. That works out to be 169 pay-hours with overtime factored in. So she's pulling in $1690/wk before taxes. Which is a RAGING ASSTON of money for a college student. Somehow, she seems to be slightly confused about how much it costs to go to this CC - she has it planned out and arranged to do this long enough so that she could pay a Penn State tuition bill. TWICE. By my calculations, for the course load she's going to take at the CC, she could have it all paid for in two weeks at 40hrs/wk.
She does the pre-opening stuff, opens the store, works BOTH shifts, closes the store, and does the post-closing money count and crap every day of the week. On her own free will.
At first, I gave this a whole 2 days before I figured she'd be exhausted, and at that point, I'd hand her a calculator and show her the math. But it's now Wednesday night. I know she's exhausted, but she's not prepared to admit it yet. She actually came home crying yesterday (cried herself to sleep actually, not that there's more than a 10 minute interval between "I'm home" and "I'm going to bed") because she thinks she's hurting me by trying to pay for her education (apparently, some asshole coworker of hers said something to the effect of "Don't you have a boyfriend? I'm sure he's not enjoying you living here").
She seemed slightly reassured by my saying I'm not bothered by it, but I was lying through my teeth. The whole absense of logical thinking here makes my head want to explode. Both on her part and on the company's part. She's a senior employee, having been there for 5 years now. Thereby, she makes nearly twice as much as everyone else. And they don't have any problem letting her work more than 4x fulltime. Paying seperate, standard-rate employees to do her job would save them damn near $600 a week, and they'd probably get more for their money than a single exhausted, stressed-out college student. Really. If I were her boss, I'd fire her.
And then there's the fact that I'm not getting any. But that doesn't really matter.
When she gets home in an hour or two, I'm going to try to talk to her. If I can't pull it off then, I'll friggin' follow her to work and talk to her while she's getting things ready to open tommorrow morning (she's alone, so that's okay to do).
My question is... What the hell am I supposed to do? Let her keep going until SHE realizes it can't work, or should I intervene?
Update: Last night, she was lucky to make it in the door without prettymuch passing out. Helped her get showered and washed up, got her to bed, washed her work uniforms, and took a really short nap. Her alarm failed to wake her up. It certainly succeeded in waking me up, though (she had it on sonic boom mode - it needed something more like "Krakatoa mode"). After about 15 minutes of attempts, I managed to get her conscious, mostly dressed her (certain undergarments are rather difficult when the person that's supposed to be wearing them is trying to sleep, so they were skipped), and helped her get things together. A a truckload of caffeine later, she was conscious enough to communicate, albeit not on a very high level. I wouldn't let her drive to work (I jacked the car keys off her ring), and I took her.
It took her a full 10 minutes when we got there to find the right key to get in the front door (I've been in that store before/after hours so many times that even *I* can find that key on her massive, 6-pound, multi-ringed, picture-filled, fuzzy keychain) - but I wasn't about to help her pick it out. It took another 4 minutes for her to get the back unlocked, so she could clock in. By the time we got to the front again, a few first shift employees were starting to show up. All it took was one look, and they knew what the hell they had to do to cover her ass. It was kind of sad.
After a little bit of standing around, she waited until the first cashier brought their register up, and went and bought herself half the energy drinks section. She sat down at her makeshift office/desk thing, and looked me dead in the eyes. "This isn't going to work, is it?"
So we sat there, and talked this over for about two hours - various employees and some regular customers stopping by every once in awhile to give their input. Eventually, we came to an agreement. She "has to" keep this up until Saturday night, because that's when the current schedule runs up to. She'll take Sunday off, and work regular hours next week. Sunday, we're going to pay her new school a visit and find out 100% exactly what this is going to cost, exactly what can still be done with financial aid, and then we'll move this along from there. She also said that I'm allowed to force her to take a sick day tommorrow, if I think it's neccessary to keep her from hurting herself or someone else.
Amusingly, she didn't seem at all concerned about what she was doing to herself, she was more concerned with what she was doing to me, (she percieved all kinds of nuts-ass little things I was doing that she thought indicated that I was feeling completely and utterly rejected. I think she got those things out of a dream, because I never said or did half the stuff she mentioned) and to her fellow employees (making them pick up her slack).
Now we just have to see if she remembers that discussion at all when I go to pick her up from work tonight.
Update 2:
Had her take a sick day on Friday. She was more or less unconscious until noon. Went out and had some fun that evening. Back to work on Saturday for 11ty hours, and then she came with me to a party with some of our other common friends. This didn't turn out very well - these friends, for whatever reason, have an ever-growing contempt for her. But that's another issue entirely.
Went by her school today, talked to a bunch of people. At this point, financial aid looks fairly grim, and her maximum bill (12cr) is going to be $1170/semester (as opposed to my $5000+). She hadn't realized it was that cheap. So now she's decided that she's going to work ANOTHER ridiculous week to take me on a vacation to "make up for this". I practically smacked her upside the head with a friggin' chair. It shouldn't be long before she figures it out.
We've been together for several months (6 or so), friends for much longer than that. Things just work out. About a month and a half ago, we moved in together (this was actually planned as a "just friends" roommate arrangement, but those plans got changed). I was recently laid off, and am in the process of interviewing for another job. She's a manager at a grocery store, and makes $10 an hour.
Things absolutely click, and we have a great time together. But at the end of the semester, something pretty nasty happened - her parents (very, very, VERY well off upper-class folk) were not impressed with her dropping out of Penn State and deciding to go to a local CC. Because of their massive bankroll, she's unable to recieve any need-based financial aid, and getting her anything else has proven to be a significant challenge. Her parents had previously been paying the entire bill - and now they refuse to talk to her, much less give her money. That was a rough time. But this isn't about that.
Eventually, she came to terms with that situation, and decided that she'd pay for it herself. I'll continue to take out loans on my education and help pay for hers if that's what it takes - but I severely doubt it. But she doesn't want to hear any of that.
Effective this week, she altered her work schedule to better suit this goal. She now works 126 hour weeks. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX! That's 18hrs/day, 7 days a week. That works out to be 169 pay-hours with overtime factored in. So she's pulling in $1690/wk before taxes. Which is a RAGING ASSTON of money for a college student. Somehow, she seems to be slightly confused about how much it costs to go to this CC - she has it planned out and arranged to do this long enough so that she could pay a Penn State tuition bill. TWICE. By my calculations, for the course load she's going to take at the CC, she could have it all paid for in two weeks at 40hrs/wk.
She does the pre-opening stuff, opens the store, works BOTH shifts, closes the store, and does the post-closing money count and crap every day of the week. On her own free will.
At first, I gave this a whole 2 days before I figured she'd be exhausted, and at that point, I'd hand her a calculator and show her the math. But it's now Wednesday night. I know she's exhausted, but she's not prepared to admit it yet. She actually came home crying yesterday (cried herself to sleep actually, not that there's more than a 10 minute interval between "I'm home" and "I'm going to bed") because she thinks she's hurting me by trying to pay for her education (apparently, some asshole coworker of hers said something to the effect of "Don't you have a boyfriend? I'm sure he's not enjoying you living here").
She seemed slightly reassured by my saying I'm not bothered by it, but I was lying through my teeth. The whole absense of logical thinking here makes my head want to explode. Both on her part and on the company's part. She's a senior employee, having been there for 5 years now. Thereby, she makes nearly twice as much as everyone else. And they don't have any problem letting her work more than 4x fulltime. Paying seperate, standard-rate employees to do her job would save them damn near $600 a week, and they'd probably get more for their money than a single exhausted, stressed-out college student. Really. If I were her boss, I'd fire her.
And then there's the fact that I'm not getting any. But that doesn't really matter.
When she gets home in an hour or two, I'm going to try to talk to her. If I can't pull it off then, I'll friggin' follow her to work and talk to her while she's getting things ready to open tommorrow morning (she's alone, so that's okay to do).
My question is... What the hell am I supposed to do? Let her keep going until SHE realizes it can't work, or should I intervene?
Update: Last night, she was lucky to make it in the door without prettymuch passing out. Helped her get showered and washed up, got her to bed, washed her work uniforms, and took a really short nap. Her alarm failed to wake her up. It certainly succeeded in waking me up, though (she had it on sonic boom mode - it needed something more like "Krakatoa mode"). After about 15 minutes of attempts, I managed to get her conscious, mostly dressed her (certain undergarments are rather difficult when the person that's supposed to be wearing them is trying to sleep, so they were skipped), and helped her get things together. A a truckload of caffeine later, she was conscious enough to communicate, albeit not on a very high level. I wouldn't let her drive to work (I jacked the car keys off her ring), and I took her.
It took her a full 10 minutes when we got there to find the right key to get in the front door (I've been in that store before/after hours so many times that even *I* can find that key on her massive, 6-pound, multi-ringed, picture-filled, fuzzy keychain) - but I wasn't about to help her pick it out. It took another 4 minutes for her to get the back unlocked, so she could clock in. By the time we got to the front again, a few first shift employees were starting to show up. All it took was one look, and they knew what the hell they had to do to cover her ass. It was kind of sad.
After a little bit of standing around, she waited until the first cashier brought their register up, and went and bought herself half the energy drinks section. She sat down at her makeshift office/desk thing, and looked me dead in the eyes. "This isn't going to work, is it?"
So we sat there, and talked this over for about two hours - various employees and some regular customers stopping by every once in awhile to give their input. Eventually, we came to an agreement. She "has to" keep this up until Saturday night, because that's when the current schedule runs up to. She'll take Sunday off, and work regular hours next week. Sunday, we're going to pay her new school a visit and find out 100% exactly what this is going to cost, exactly what can still be done with financial aid, and then we'll move this along from there. She also said that I'm allowed to force her to take a sick day tommorrow, if I think it's neccessary to keep her from hurting herself or someone else.
Amusingly, she didn't seem at all concerned about what she was doing to herself, she was more concerned with what she was doing to me, (she percieved all kinds of nuts-ass little things I was doing that she thought indicated that I was feeling completely and utterly rejected. I think she got those things out of a dream, because I never said or did half the stuff she mentioned) and to her fellow employees (making them pick up her slack).
Now we just have to see if she remembers that discussion at all when I go to pick her up from work tonight.
Update 2:
Had her take a sick day on Friday. She was more or less unconscious until noon. Went out and had some fun that evening. Back to work on Saturday for 11ty hours, and then she came with me to a party with some of our other common friends. This didn't turn out very well - these friends, for whatever reason, have an ever-growing contempt for her. But that's another issue entirely.
Went by her school today, talked to a bunch of people. At this point, financial aid looks fairly grim, and her maximum bill (12cr) is going to be $1170/semester (as opposed to my $5000+). She hadn't realized it was that cheap. So now she's decided that she's going to work ANOTHER ridiculous week to take me on a vacation to "make up for this". I practically smacked her upside the head with a friggin' chair. It shouldn't be long before she figures it out.
