Please excuse my bumminess

Yeah, so, I don’t have a car. And I’m living off-campus. This, of course, presents problems as soon as my schedule deviates from Jenn’s, and there are few things more annoying than a mooch.

First there’s the everyday mooching a ride off Jenn to get to work. This isn’t so bad in terms of convenience since we live together, but we aren’t exactly splitting wear-and-tear on cars between mine and hers. The best I can do is give her gas money and follow her schedule as much as I can. Bumminess #1.

And then, Wednesday was social night for the girls at work, but I had a lot of work to do, so I wanted to go home and work, no workout, no fun. Just work until shit gets done (which happened to be midnight). Which means I needed to ask Luke for a ride, since, at the time, I didn’t know that the “highway” that is the main route home was walkable. This, of course, brings up a slew of issues I have with asking Luke for anything other than packages of peanut butter crackers or where to find page three’s ad for this week. But I asked anyway, and received a ride home. Do I give gas money for a five-minute ride and the inconvience of an extra passenger? I’m inclined to, but that may be some of my father’s “money solves almost anything” attitude showing here, and a strong desire to avoid being indebted to certain types of people. Bumminess #2.

Last night was Bad Movie Night at Bob’s. He asked me around 16:00 if I wanted to go, and I said, essentially, “Mos def”. [Editor’s note: Because the original sentiment did not just end after “Mos def”, there is no period inside the quotation marks, even though the containing sentence ends. Just a pickiness issue with me.] Shindig started at 18:30. I know Jenn and I don’t usually get home until 19:00 because she likes to workout everyday, so I told Bob I’d be a little late. Come 06:00, however, and Jenn wasn’t back from her walk, and there’s still showering and transit. Nikolai, however, was there, so I showered and basically hi-jacked his car to drop some stuff off at home and get my ass to Bob’s by 19:00. Not such a big deal, since I can always use Nikolai’s car, but his radiator is cracked, he’s driving back to Alabama this weekend, and I have a heavy foot. And again, do I give gas money for a 10-minute ride? I’m inclined to fill up his tank before he heads out for kindness reasons anyway, but there’s some sort of obligation here, too. Bumminess #3.

Worse yet, after the shindig, Bob took me home. Now, I know he knew I’d need a ride when he invited me, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was completely fucking mooch-y of me to need a ride home; I shouldn’t have gone in the first place if I couldn’t arrange transportation for myself. Which means no social (or Thorn, for that matter, I suppose) events that Jenn isn’t doing for the duration of the summer, basically. Bumminess #4 and resolution.

I also found out last night that Jenn is going to Ohio State for a week sometime this summer. This leaves me off-campus with no transporation to and from work, much less in the case of an emergency. I learned yesterday that the main road leading to school is, in fact, walkable, if harrowing because of the high-speed traffic, which means I don’t need to get automobile transportation for work. Bumminess #5 averted.

For some reason, I simply abhor being a bother to people. There’s a line between being assertive or even a little bitchy and just plain being a bother, and it’s one I don’t like to cross.

For instance, our little research team is having some trouble with the mathematical model we’re using, so we wanted to poke a little at the Regressions Guy for help. Dr. M asked for a half-hour session with him and proceeds to take his entire afternoon. Then she’s got us in his office every day he’s in the office, bugging him with plots of residuals, trying to isolate this error. This man is on a nine-month salary–he’s not being paid to work during the summer. He also doesn’t like coming in to the office; he wants to be home doing whatever it is Regression Guys do at home. And while our problem is a challenge he recognizes could be fun to work on, he’s expressed hesitancy on spending a lot of time on it, because it’s not his fucking job. Dr. M is doing her, “But could you just take a [quick] look at this…” routine, or just sending us down to his office, uncaring, and basically quietly steamrolling the guy. Now, I fully understand that he needs to put his foot down if this is a serious matter for him, but Dr. M also needs to learn to read a clue (or ten), and back off where she’s not wanted. I feel like grovelling every time I go into his office, and he probably thinks I’m weird because I thank him so much for what help he’s provided–we wouldn’t even have known the error was a model error if not for him. And apparently I’m the odd one, because Jenn didn’t seem to care either when I mentioned it to her, quoting her SO as saying that he probably gets off on it since he’s a mathematician. Bumminess #6 and much frustration with the boss.