Korean Job Discussion Forums

[canuckistan]

Another thread got me thinking about the "home" version of this. Like the freakiest waygook contest.
Many of us have had some doozer room mates.

The worst I ever encountered was a heroin addict. No one knew he'd just gotten out of rehab when he moved in to share the house with 2 of us. We were in school and pretty busy. He was well-dressed and polite and seemed like a together person. Personable. Charming. He helped clean. He had a job. For a while anyways. Then a few months down the road he started getting erratic. Would come back to the apt looking really disheveled and wasted at all hours. We figured he'd been drinking/smoking but certainly not H. Weird friends started appearing. They'd wear their sunglasses in the house allthe time. Then he didn't have a job anymore. Looking back on it afterwards we realized he'd tried to "kick" while living there as we'd helped take care of him while he claimed he had "really bad stomach flu" a couple of times. Vomiting endlessly, chills, the whole bit. Then one day he didn't come back and all kinds of things were missing from the apt. The rent money. Gold jewelry. Antiques of little consequence. Then the police showed up looking for him: he'd busted his parole and "where was he?" sort of thing. Yikes! Within the space of that week we found out everything about him. We were gobsmacked.
We tracked down a lot of our stuff he'd pawned. Had to put the screws to the pawnbrokers about charging us (!!) to get our stuff back--receiving stolen goods? How about our next call is to the police then? We got a lot back without much ado that way.
Then he started calling us. He was desperate. He wanted "his stuff" because we'd changed the locks. We told him to *beep*. We tracked down his family and gave them what little he had in his room. They told us he'd been through rehab several times. He'd stolen from his family as well--several times. He just couldn't keep it together for very long after he'd get out of rehab.

That was the last we heard of him. You know he wasn't a bad guy, just completely lost to H, which made him do everything he did. I've wondered from time to time what happened to him. I'm pretty sure the prognosis for him was bleak and he's probably been a guest of the provincial justice system off and on since then. If he's still alive.

[MissSeoul]

I once had a room-mate who was a Chinese, a friend of mine introduced me this girl who she had a wonderful friendship.
This was my very early days in States and it lasted 4 months, many her friends are also my friends and we live in same town now, but we don't talk even after several years.

Our personalities were totally opposite and she never accepted who I was and constantly tried to change me, nagging day and night that why I was not cleaning bathtub everyday, why I didn't put my coffee cup into dish washer immediately after using...etc... Living with her in same apartment was a nightmare. She came from very poor/broken family, her father was an alcoholic and abused mother physically, I don't know because this, she always dates guys like her father who was a big time loser ( That was another story through ).

[SuperFly]

His name was Spike. He was the meanest Bulldog a dog like me could ever end up with.

We were introduced by Kaylee, a Bernese Mountain Dog; whom I was deeply in love with at the time. Anyway, 'Spike' ended up tearing apart the dog house because of his hyper attention deficit disorder. The dude was a complete nut. His owner abandoned him when he was a wee little pup, he was chased on more than one occasion through West LA - by a Korean dog soup restauranter no less. Felt sorry for the guy. He ended up moving out because he got hitched to a French Poodle by the name of Gigi and they eloped to South Beach with their owner, a clothing designer who worked for some dude named Pierre.

[RACETRAITOR]

I have a friend who just returned from Japan. He was living there with a bunch of Japanese and Filipino people. He had to leave when the police searched the place and confiscated a lot of his stuff. It turned out one of the women there, a mother of a three-year-old, was a crack user. Anyway, he got the balls out of there.

[formerflautist]

I had a roomie that was named Matt. We got along very well when he was sober. When he was drunk he turned into a raging psycho. After a couple of his episodes I knew to make myself scarce when he was drinking. One night I was working and he came in drunk (I worked at a bar and grill) and asked for a ride. I refused because we lived close by (two blocks) and I didn't want him in the car with me when he was drunk because I didn't trust him. I get back to the apartment and he's on the phone bitching about how mean I am. I go into my room and prop myself against the door (no lock) because I figured he was going to cause problems. I was right. He gets off the phone and starts yelling at me through the door. He also kicked it periodically. I had no phone in there so I was stuck waiting for him to sleep it off. He did and I started looking for a new place. I found out later that earlier that evening he'd been issued a drunk and disorderly by campus police for causing problems at the pizza place. During another drunken incident, he roughed up another friend of his, another female, but I don't know what became of that because I'd left town by then. He's the only person in my life that I've ever truly hated.

[theatrelily]

Not exactly a roommate, but he lived across the hall.

The guy he lived with was a friend of mine. I was living in a new town and pretty bored since I didn't know a lot of people. The guy across the hall (let's call him Sam) invited me over for beer often and we fast became friends.

He made me a copy of his key so that I could go over and watch satellite tv and play play station whenever I wanted to (I had neither) and in return I helped with some of his cleaning here and there or would make an extra serving of whatever I cooked for him. It worked out really well for the both of us.

Then this other guy (Jack) moves in. In the first two weeks that he lived there he explained to us how he had managed to be a US Marine (he's from NFLD) for 5 years and had made it "high up" in the ranks. He claimed that now that he was retired, there were US Marines secretly stationed throughout rural Alberta and Saskatchewan and that they were ready to risk their lives for him at any moment as thanks for his great leadership.

He was a master level blahblahblah in "countless" martial arts and had been "warned by the Supreme Court" not to get into any more fights because he was "one of the most lethal weapons in the country."

He had been a volunteer firefighter for 3 years in Albania. He had been a paramedic back in NFLD. He had been an engineering and forestry student for 2 years.

And then there was his actual job of journeyman.

Did I mention that he was only 27 years old?

But although all that was b.s., it still wasn't too bad.

Then one night someone starts kicking the hell out of my door. I open it to find Jack shaking, hysterical, red-faced and sobbing.

He pushes his way into my apartment, stuttering and repeating over and over again "I am so glad you are home. I need someone to talk to. I don't know what I am going to do. I need someone to talk to. I am so gald you are home. I don't know what I am going to do. I don't know what I am going to do."

I get him to sit down, make us some tea. And wait for him to calm down a bit.

He explains to me that his brother is an RCMP officer in Ontario and that he was just shot on the job 2 hours earlier during some big drug bust. He has already lost 2 of his 4 brothers while in the marines ( they were in with him) and that he can't lose any more. His brother is in surgery and they don't know if he is going to make it. His other surviving brother is working up in the Yukon and can't afford to fly into Ontario. His parents also cannot afford the flight from NFLD to Ont.

He is the only one who can go, but he is not allowed in the province. Minutes after the brother was shot, the officer in charge called Jack at home to tell him personally (because of the respect he has for his service record) not to fly into the province. The local police "fear" him and are afraid that he will try to orchestrate a one-man blood bath for revenge. They tell him that his ID has been flagged and that if he attempts to board a plane that he will be arrested and held indefinitely on sight.

He starts talking about how he is going to make everyone pay if his brother dies. That this will not go unpunished. That he has called his "stand-by marines" and that they are currently driving across Canada (from Alberta to Ontario) to exact his revenge since the cops won't allow him to do his duty.

The phone rings. He tells me that it's his friend, Peter and that he will be back in a few.

Five minutes later, he comes back in freaking out even more. "That was the hospital. My brother survived the surgery but he is in a coma now."

"He's out of surgery?"

"Well, yes. He was in for 19 hours. They weren't sure he was going to make it."

Wait. Hadn't he only been shot 2 hours ago?

"My parent's also called. They have rented a private helicopter and are on their way to see him."

Wait. "How are they paying for it?"

"They are using money they got when they won the lotto 2 months ago."

Huh?

So he leaves to make a few more phone calls and I immediately called his roommate, Sam (who was visiting his own brother). I told him what had happened and by this point I am having a hard time staying calm.

Sam comes home within the hour and comes directly to my apartment. Not 20 minutes later, Jack comes back in.

Upon seeing Sam, he starts filling us in on the new developments. Parents have arrived in Ontario, brother is out of the coma, the marines have just crossed the border into Ontario (from Alberta to Ontario in a matter of hours in a car, remember) and that we should watch the news for the ensuing national coverage of the biggest death spree the country has ever seen.

Sam listened quietly. When Jack finished talking, he simply put out his smoke and said "Well, that was the biggest load of f#$%# b-s- I have ever heard. I want you out of my apartment by next week."

Jack more or less calmed down, and walked out.

Days later rumours started circulating around the town about this guy and some of the other stories he was spewing, and they were all equally disturbing.

I spent the next 2 weeks avoiding him and flew back to Korea after that.

I felt ridiculously naive after the fact for having ever been drawn in to it all in the first place....but it was all so detailed, so emotional that I didn't even catch onto the fact that this all happened just days after the four young RCMP officers were killed in similar circumstances in Alberta.

Wherever he is now, I hope people are safe.

[swetepete]

I was playing a board game with some friends in my basement room, and my room-mate (who I'd known since I was about four years old) came in to say hello and show us his new gun. It was a little beretta derringer-style thing, and could easily be concealed in one hand. "And check it out, it's really quiet, too" he said, and shot my telephone book four times. I kind of expected that sort of thing from him, but my friends were a little put off. I moved out shortly after.
This was in Canada, by the way.

[jajdude]

I never had any roomamtes as bad as the ones mentioned above. Once I had a female roommate who was friendly and outgoing. One day we and two other guys were out to dinner and she left her diary behind. So we did the wrong thing and checked it out. Not pleasant to find out what she really thought of me and others, though she had a few nice things to say as well. How people act and speak don't always reveal what they think I suppose.