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Enjoy the show. One summer long ago I worked for a house painting company made of many small franchises

praying on college students for underpaid and overworked employees.

Said indentured servants slash workforce work force generally returned to school in late August and the franchise would close

until the next summer.

I was a lackey who hired everyone, formed crews, met with

customers, transported materials, etc. aka my boss's job but he

preferred you know doing nothing.

Late in the summer, my boss decided to continue into the fall months,

so he could make more money while depriving me even further of the will to live.

So I had to hire people who were in the painting business, but for whatever reason couldn't

find a job with a reputable company and so had no option to work with us.

Yay. Enter Jim.

Jim was a veteran about 45 years old, which was far above my usual 18 to 22 hiring demographic, but had

impressed me over the phone.

As I was essentially painting entire houses myself, or with the skeleton crew until I could scrounge up more workers.

I didn't interview him in person. Just told him to show up ready to go and meet me and the crew at a job site at 9 a.m. on Monday.

Life happens as it does and I had a family emergency that prohibited me from being there on

Monday. Some of my summer workers who didn't go off to school would be there, so I

texted them explaining to help Jim to get used to the way that we worked, and to make sure that they keep it basic. If he was having trouble, send him home and

he'd start over with me the next day. 945 a.m. my phone is blowing up with texts and calls. I'm at awake, but I slip outside to

...