The theme for my blogs was going to be all about the crazy things I’ve seen in apartment complexes through working with each of them. However, this week I will put that on hold. I have too many other things on my mind to try to remember a random story to try to entertain everyone.
I don’t know if it is just me, but have you ever noticed that the only time you get to see a majority of your friends are at times of grievance or times of extreme happiness? I feel like the only time I see a lot of my friends are when we are attending either a wedding or a funeral. I have only been to one friend’s wedding so far, so every year it’s just been attending friends’ funerals. Every time, I tell myself that I will make more of an effort to keep in touch with friends, not just those that are convenient to hang out with. We all get so wrapped up in school and work to not take a day and go visit friends that you don’t see on a regular basis.
This brings me to my next point. Do people honestly think that expressing sympathies on your Facebook status really helps? The heartfelt statuses don’t get to me as much. It’s the statuses like the following that really irk me: “RIP Ben. Kele, the kids, and The Meadow's family my heart goes out to you all. Taking my littlest love to IHOP. :-). “
Really? You couldn’t break it up into two statuses? One to express your sympathy and another status to talk about the happy day you will be having. I don’t see how that can make anyone feel better about losing a loved one. Also, if someone puts a status up like a RIP one, do others really feel it is appropriate to comment on it with comments like “What happened?” Describing one’s death via Facebook does not seem like the right thing to do to me. Also, to leave a comment on an RIP status that says “You want to go get lunch later?” Or “I haven’t seen you in forever! Let’s go out!” does not seem like the appropriate comment to write either, at least not in my opinion. It bugs me that all this is on my news feed and I want to just scream at people to be more tactful and more respectful.
I’m not saying at all that these people are not truly sympathetic. What I am saying is that the way technology is, is this really what our society has become? I truly do not agree with this. I understand that life must go on and we should always remember the ones that have passed on, but to me it seems disrespectful on quite a few levels. May those that have passed rest in peace, and may those that are still living be more tactful in the way they express their sympathies.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Looks Can Be Deceiving
Okay, is everyone ready for another bizarre story? I realize most of these stories, like most things in my life, will be thought of as odd. Well, working at an apartment complex is truly an odd job. There are so many things that we find out because we are dealing with people’s lives, their homes, and every aspect of it. Sure, there are residents that I could only tell you the basics, like whether they are students or professionals, whether they have kids or their significant others living with them, or if they just live by themselves. I can pick out the partiers from the non-partiers. However, when I find out something completely off the wall about them, they truly stand out in my mind.
This situation happened a few years ago, when I had recently become the Leasing Manager. There was a woman, she was very sweet, had a three year old son, and enjoyed hanging out at the pool with him. She had even taken a ten year old boy under her wing. This young boy was always left alone by his mother since she worked all the time, so this lady volunteered to babysit him for free after school since she was just hanging out with her son anyway. She actually lived in the building next to me, and everything was going well… until the day she decided to renew her lease.
She signed her new lease agreement one day, and then a few hours later came into the office to see if she could get a letter written from me saying how much her rent is each month in order to show it to the daycare her son would be starting soon. The problem with this was, she gave me a different name. I noticed the difference and she admitted that the girl that had applied for the apartment over the internet had to move into a halfway house before her lease started, so they had an agreement that she would just move in for her, with the lease still in her name so she didn’t have to pay extra to re-lease the apartment to her. I informed her that this was against our rules and that she would need to apply to be on a lease by herself. She completed the application, and what I found out horrified me.
While I won’t go into specifics on what the background check pulled up, I will say that I believed she was supposed to notify the public of her address because she had been convicted of sex offenses. I quickly notified my property manager of the situation and her response was that she needed to move out within twenty four hours. I pleaded that we notify the police since she had committed forgery and just in case she was back to her old ways, in terms of the crimes she had committed. My boss decided it was best for everyone if she were to just leave quietly.
To this day, I still wonder what became of this resident. I wonder if she had, in fact, committed more crimes while living there. I sometimes feel guilty because if she did harm anyone, maybe it could have been prevented if we had just checked her ID on the day she moved in. I guess it was just a lesson that I need to be more suspicious of people and that not everyone is as good as they claim to be. So everyone, don’t judge a book by its cover. Oh yeah, I’ll leave it like I left the last blog. Be nice to your landlords, you never know what is on their minds and what they are dealing with “behind the scenes.”
This situation happened a few years ago, when I had recently become the Leasing Manager. There was a woman, she was very sweet, had a three year old son, and enjoyed hanging out at the pool with him. She had even taken a ten year old boy under her wing. This young boy was always left alone by his mother since she worked all the time, so this lady volunteered to babysit him for free after school since she was just hanging out with her son anyway. She actually lived in the building next to me, and everything was going well… until the day she decided to renew her lease.
She signed her new lease agreement one day, and then a few hours later came into the office to see if she could get a letter written from me saying how much her rent is each month in order to show it to the daycare her son would be starting soon. The problem with this was, she gave me a different name. I noticed the difference and she admitted that the girl that had applied for the apartment over the internet had to move into a halfway house before her lease started, so they had an agreement that she would just move in for her, with the lease still in her name so she didn’t have to pay extra to re-lease the apartment to her. I informed her that this was against our rules and that she would need to apply to be on a lease by herself. She completed the application, and what I found out horrified me.
While I won’t go into specifics on what the background check pulled up, I will say that I believed she was supposed to notify the public of her address because she had been convicted of sex offenses. I quickly notified my property manager of the situation and her response was that she needed to move out within twenty four hours. I pleaded that we notify the police since she had committed forgery and just in case she was back to her old ways, in terms of the crimes she had committed. My boss decided it was best for everyone if she were to just leave quietly.
To this day, I still wonder what became of this resident. I wonder if she had, in fact, committed more crimes while living there. I sometimes feel guilty because if she did harm anyone, maybe it could have been prevented if we had just checked her ID on the day she moved in. I guess it was just a lesson that I need to be more suspicious of people and that not everyone is as good as they claim to be. So everyone, don’t judge a book by its cover. Oh yeah, I’ll leave it like I left the last blog. Be nice to your landlords, you never know what is on their minds and what they are dealing with “behind the scenes.”
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