So, this one time, at changing my job, major, life and country I live in camp…

2012-08-23 DrMattDSW

*NOTE: This is The Friends Version of the TL;DR Post That’s Coming Next…please don’t share it, I’m sharing it here because after more than ten years, I know you guys…don’t violate that trust, okay?

Okay, so when we last left off, our adventurer was going to a wedding…that wedding was covarla‘s wedding, and it was awesome.

So I came back from the wedding, was working at the pharmacy, and Friday before Mother’s day Fred – the pharmacist – in a fit of rage that someone (a patient) would dare require counseling, threw the phone at me when I handed it to him (because he’s crazy)…at which point, I was like “oh no he didn’t” (this is the tl;dr version, btw). So, anyway, I work Mother’s Day (only because no one else on shift knew one of the back computers), and then left a note basically going “I don’t owe any of you fuckers any professional courtesy, so suck it I quit” just in slightly more professional language.

My father’s company then hired me on almost immediately to do their social media and online reputation management…three weeks into that position, my father calls me on my cell phone and asks me to come outside, having a panic attack, because his bookkeeper of 24 years was retiring, and in her position, you could steal a few million and no one would know it until the six month audit. The company, while doing fine now, had only survived recently because my father stopped taking a paycheck for more than an entire year, so he didn’t have to lay off his employees, and the thought of trusting the company finances to someone he didn’t know was unbearable. He asked me if he should just close up now and say fuck it all.

We spoke, I calmed him down, and said of course I’d help him – called my friends in Chicago, canceled my move and withdrew from school – I took on her responsibilities and quite a few more, and became the Director of HR & Accounting (I had two month of crash course bookkeeping…and everything I ever learned being a mission manager in the IDF, which trains for you pretty much anything).

So that evening, when I came home, I asked to see what was going on with our home finances (because, shits and giggles and why the fuck not)…and, lo and behold, because my father did everything in his power to not have to lay off all of his employees during the economic depression (crash?), he had been using his entire retirement savings to pay the mortgage on the house until now, and when he finally was able to take a pay check, he took one that was 1/4 of what he was getting…and now was running out of money fast (taking in 3,000.00 a month, spending 9,000 on the mortgage)…and if we didn’t do something quick, we were going to be out on the street in three months (because we owe a shit ton on our mortgage).

So, (again, the army prepares you for everything) I immediately called the family together, laid out the situation, and we started boxing up the house, I had my father give himself a raise at work (I saved the company, in three months working there, more than $62,500.00, so we could now afford to pay him more) which bought us a little time, and now we’re preparing to downsize our house and move into a condo that fits our new financial reality, while allowing my parents to replenish their retirement funds because my father did the right thing by his employees…and with what our house is worth, even in this economy, we should make enough to pay off the mortgage and flat out buy the condo.

In between all this, I started an MBA with a concentration in accounting that – after graduating and taking one more class – will let me sit for the CPA exam, which my family accountant (who’s family has been friends with my family since my grandmother was a nurse with her mother in World War II) is more than happy to help me prepare for (and of course I plan on picking stevenh‘s brain as well)…so that’s what the fuck is going on with me…helping to see my parents to their retirement, finally in grad school, on Long Island, working out, and going to Weight Watchers.

How the hell are all of you?