One Down

Time continues to draw down. After working very hard all summer and earning some sales awards, Madis finished delivering his books ahead of schedule and has left Atlanta. He went to Nashville where the company is located to close out and then will stop by for a party in Gatlinburg to celebrate the end of the sales season before catching a bus up to New York and then home.

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A problem bigger than me

The last two Sundays I’ve worked a total of 10 hours on a co-worker’s home computer trying to get rid of a virus she picked up. The virus doesn’t destroy files but it wreaks havoc with Internet Explorer, replacing your bookmarks and installing toolbars with links to gambling and pornography sites. The toolbars are very difficult to remove and hidden programs go behind you after you delete files and replace them with new versions so that when you start Internet Explorer the toolbars return.

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Harvest Time

Part 5

After I last wrote it looked like Martti would have to move out to be closer to a job he had lined up in Cumming. It made me sad to think of him going off without the other two guys, plus I figured I would have to lower the rent again. He had arranged the job through an Estonian that lives here and involved digging swimming pools with a Hispanic work crew. With no transportation and not even a driver’s license he was going to try to move in with this guy. But the guy wanted $650 a month for rent which is more than I’m charging the three of them. He went back to Kroger and said that a “Help Wanted – Produce” sign was out. He asked “What does that mean, ‘produce’?” It is a strange word that we’ve chosen to mean fresh fruits and vegetables.

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Trouble in Paradise

All is not well. Last Sunday I found out that one of the Estonians would be quitting his job with the book company. He will still deliver the books he has sold in September like the other guys, but he wasn’t making enough money to break even and pay for plane fare and living expenses (he already has his return ticket home since that’s a requirement of the visa). Instead he decided to take a regular job for the rest of the summer to pay his bills.

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