And reality hits hard again!

"JGrabowMSt" (jgrabowmst) 01/08/2014 at 16:40 • Filed to: life

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My girlfriend is on payroll with her new job. I replaced my headlights in the super cold quickly without busting any knuckles. I've been having a relatively productive day at work.

Then one of my long time friends sends me a text about a an engineer from our old high school, who's a very good friend of mine, asking if I had heard the news.

Then I go digging, and read a news article that says he was quietly let go Monday night with little notice. He had the job for 10 years, during that time I worked with him as a student, and then would periodically visit and donate equipment and time to help the place out, so I got to know him much more than most other students.

That's one low blow. The school board wouldn't have had a chance if they announced it, he works with a ton of students who were all completely blindsided by the news.

He has a family to support. I don't want to get in the way and add to the pile of shit, so I'll give him a few days before I call him, but what the hell. Ruined my day. Completely.

I managed to get him out to a car show with his family a couple years ago, I showed up in the 600. We had dinner and then left together, and they live farther out than I do, so we were blasting down the highway, I'd give him some room, and for his son, I would do fly up past them and do it again. His son now always asks about where I am with the car. I'm hoping we can still do that (kids grow up fast) a couple more times, but what are you going to do....here's the car after I washed it a couple months ago, it makes me feel a bit better.

Bad Idea Hat > JGrabowMSt 01/08/2014 at 17:00

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What was the reasoning? I've heard of some petty politics involving school district employment, but I'm interested to hear the rest of that story.

JGrabowMSt > Bad Idea Hat 01/08/2014 at 17:12

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I'm not 100% sure exactly, the news article didn't get into it at all. I know that the new teacher he works with made a couple budget mistakes (applying for more than they use, pretty much) and they lost the equivalent of that much money in the following years budget. That caused a lot of tension between the two of them, but overall, they did get along very well (both big car nuts). My friend didn't have tenure, so considering the school district, that could have been reason enough for the board members (considering some previous cases of teachers not getting re-hired in the same school).

The district is known for it's politics though. Haven't had a permanent principal in nearly 10 years (nearly as long as he's worked there).

Bad Idea Hat > JGrabowMSt 01/08/2014 at 17:29

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The first thing you need to do then is send him a letter of reference. Then tell everyone you know to. If the district is well known for petty politics, combined with a ton of reference letters, he will have very, very little trouble getting another job. Someone will go out of their way to hire him.

Really, you and your friends could just bust ass and network for him. He may end up in a much better situation.