Timothy

I fired my brother today.

And make no mistake, though I may say it in many ways over the course of the next few paragraphs and many more over the next few days, I fired the kid.

He had it coming.

Tim and I are nothing alike. We never have been. Since he's been old enough to talk he's never been anything but nasty to me, and though I'm often ashamed to admit it I never really tried to change that. If the kid wants to hate me, let him hate me. I never liked it, it always bothered me, but it's always been how it is.

I haven't always been very nice to him either. I've judged him when I should have helped him, I've pressured him when I should have let him be, I've been jealous when I should have been supportive.

That's what brotherhood seems to be in the Palomba family.

I'm not innocent in all of this.

Tim's always had the touch when it comes to people. He could spit in their face and shit on their laps and they'd still think he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have a small but dedicated group of friend and acquaintances but it's nothing in comparison to the swath of popularity that the kid leaves in his path. He doesn't keep friends for as long as I do, he's never as tight with his friends as I am, his friends can't count on him the way mine sometimes do. But I've still always been jealous of his way with people.

But Tim also has this limitless supply of conscience. He can be rude, nasty, disingenuous, lascivious...shit just break out the thesaurus and underline any word that has to do remotely with being a jerk. And he never feels bad about it. I've never done even a little bad thing in my life and not felt horrible about it afterwards. I inadvertently took someones Coke from the office fridge the other day having forgotten that I already drank mine. When I realized I had to apologize a million times and replace the Coke or I couldn't have gone on with the rest of the day. And it wasn't even somebody I remotely like! Tim could fuck his best friend over and not think twice about it. I don't envy people like that, I pity people like that.

The kid's not lazy. He's a worker when he wants to be. But the problem is he wants to be less and less often. Running a business like this, a family business yes, but a fairly large fairly fucked business takes a lot of effort. It means working late, working weekends, working when you'd rather be doing a million other things. It means getting shit done. Tim doesn't get that. He wants to work when he wants to work and fuck all to everything else. So when shit needs to be done Tim is very often not there. You can't count on him at all, and he's not the type to step it up in a pinch either. He's even worse when you really need him than when you only sort of need him. This has been obvious his entire life. So I've developed a strategy to deal with it. I make sure I never really need him.

He wants everything, but wants to give up nothing. It's a perfectly human attitude but a perfectly unacceptable one as well. I come in between 9-10 most days. Anytime something is wrong I come in earlier. Very often as early as 5 or 5:30, earlier when we're busy or the weather's bad. I close every night (because Tim couldn't do it right.) Most nights I don't get out of here till after 9 or 10 at night. I work every weekend, all weekend. Coming in between 5-5:30 on Saturdays, and being in and out up until 9 or 10 at night, opening up usually around 7 on Sundays and being in and out until 7 or 8 at night. All those times of course being flexible with the companies schedule. The busier it is the more I'm here, or the more fucked up it is the more I'm here. Tim generally is supposed to be here at 7 in the morning and stay till about 5, Monday through Friday. He was supposed to stay two or three nights a week and split weekends with me, but that never really worked out. He rarely shows up at 7 when he's supposed to, even if we've told him it's important. At least once a week he doesn't show up till 10 or so. And it's happened maybe four times in the last two months that he's gotten stanko the night before and not shown up till after 1. When this happens, to his credit, he usually stays a little late to make up for it. For all this he is paid on the exact same schedule as I am. He made his first year what I made my first year, he's making his second year what I made my second year. His first bonus was roughly $5,000 more than mine. I have taken no vacations in the last two years, and take on average of three to four days off for the entire year. Tim doesn't take many days off either, but he rarely comes in on the weekend and just got back from a ten day vacation in Europe.

I don't hold any of that against him.

Now people with normal jobs, or who aren't self employed are looking at this and going, "Fuck all! That's a lot of work." But people who run their own businesses, particularly of this size, get it.

I was technically Tim's boss, but I rarely ever told him what to do or even asked him to do anything, for the most part because he would ignore me anyway. Lots of times when my old man told me to tell Tim to do something I would just do it myself to avoid the argument. It added quite a bit to my already full plate, but you have to do what you have to do.

It was just getting old though. Hearing about how much he hated this place, how much he couldn't wait till he got out of here, how much he wished we'd just fire him., how he wished we would just give him his cut so he wouldn't have to have anything to do with this place anymore. It got old having to hear his catchphrases like, "It's not my problem." and "It's not my job." and "I don't want to do that." And every time he'd say one of those things I'd swallow it and add yet another bit of work to my pile and another few minutes to my day.

It gets old though, having someone tell you how much they hate what you've chosen as your career. How horrible a place is that you love being a part of (even though it can be pretty horrible at times.) It gets old listening to a kid who doesn't really have a whole lot of options bash your choice when you know you had far far more options than him. And at some point when you don't have to listen to it...you inevitably choose to stop listening to it.

And that's what happened today.

And when he said, "It's not my job. It's not my problem. I'm not doing that. So if you don't like it, fire me."

I did.

And when he laughed and said, "Well you can call dad and explain this one."

I said, "I already have."

And in a rather awkward moment the kid stopped to ponder what the hell had just happened before exiting the office in a huff.

I had already told my father that if Tim didn't come around I was going to have to let him go. I knew coming into work this morning that this was how things were going to go. I knew because if Tim is anything he is predictable. And I had tried to avoid this moment for as long as possible because as much as I don't want Tim here, I never really wanted to fire him. Today I had no choice. Things needed to be done. He wouldn't do them.

Tim played his last card a little too far.

He's always known my father likes him more than he likes me. My father respects how hard I work even if he doesn't always appreciate it, and recognizes that I put a lot of effort into everything even if it isn't always done the way he wants. But he just likes Tim more, and the kid has always taken advantage of the fact. What he may have forgotten though is that there is a very sad but very real possibility that our father likes money more than he likes either one of us. And one thing is very, very clear. I have made my father a shitload of money over the last twelve months. And Tim has made him none. It wasn't even really a fair fight.

Now I'm not naive enough to think that this is anywhere near over. There's a very good chance that, with or without my blessing, Tim's going to be back and be exactly the same as always. But things will be different this time, because he will know he just got his last pass, and that next time he won't just lose the privilege of being able to come here and work like a slave like the rest of us. If he comes back, and blows it again, he loses everything. The car. The cell phone. The health insurance. The money. Everything.

We've been playing a game this whole time, but the games over now. Or better, we're still playing...but this time it's for keeps.

Ha...how's that sound?

I've always been able to say that no matter how much we dislike each other, that Tim's my brother and I love him. It just seems like every time I have to say that lately I mean it a little less.

And that's just sad.

"He ain't heavy Father, he's my dipshit brother." - Palomba