My brother once told me what a crummy work ethic his tween daughter had.
He and his wife were having issues getting the girl to clean her room and do homework (she was home schooled at the time).
Well guess what: The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!
My brother, Lance Garrick, and his wife Julie, moved into my parents’ finished and spacious basement after he found a job in Denver after losing the one he had in Las Vegas.
How does an adolescent daughter develop a strong work ethic if she has no role model for this?
Julie Garrick was a lousy role model for the “Clean your room” work ethic. The room she and my brother slept in was always in disarray.
In fact, in their Las Vegas home, their bedroom always looked like a cyclone had hit it.
Fact is, they were early hoarders. The Las Vegas garage was crammed to the ceiling (literally) with all sorts of stuff. Boxes stuffed to the hilt or overflowing, anything you could store in a garage.
A spare bedroom was so crowded with stuff that it looked like a room in the TLC show, “Hoarding: Buried Alive.” Stacks of junk were taller than me. There were “hallways” in that room, created by the walls of junk.
The main room in my parents’ basement was always a mess. How could these people have wondered why it was a challenge to get their daughter to clean her room? What morons.
Furthermore, Julie left messes in the kitchen – my mother’s kitchen – on a daily basis.
This included pans of meat left out to spoil; tons of crumbs under the table that she never cleaned; and their pet bird’s unfinished meals sitting in a cup right by the kitchen sink. FUCKING GROSS.
Like Father, Like Daughter
Lance and Julie became moochers. They were supposed to aggressively look for THEIR OWN home while they were paying $3- to $400/month rent to my parents.
Instead, they probably looked at one house per month, then eventually stopped looking because they kept losing bids on houses that were well-beyond their financial means.
They could have easily found a nice three-bedroom condo or townhome at a low-enough price that they could actually win a bid for.
But noooo sir, only a single-family home of at least $700,000 was good enough for them.
The tween daughter was certainly aware of her parents’ way of thinking, not to mention the obvious physical messes. It was no wonder she had a poor work ethic.
I’m not even sure Dakota even had a poor work ethic. This was a subjective opinion of a man who eventually went on to display some serious issues with responsibility.
My brother and wife Julie were complacent taking advantage of my parents’ generosity.
Their move-in was supposed to be a very temporary situation, in that once the dust settled, they were to aggressively seek their own home.
But not long after moving in, they announced they stopped house-hunting because “the market was bad.” This was BS.
A man who makes $10K a month, who qualified for a hefty loan, should have no problem finding a nice house.
The problem was that Lance and Julie snubbed the idea of living in a starter townhome or condo, even though their other two kids were under age 4.
They put bids on homes that were priced at the top of their limit, and thus never had a chance with any bids. They refused to go lower.
When Lance heard talk at work that he’d probably lose his job, he casually looked for other employment – but was exceedingly picky, looking at only similar chief financial officer jobs.
At 61, his age was hugely against him in the line of work he was seeking. I suggested to Julie that he apply for a position in which age would NOT work against him: car sales.
No experience needed; you can be hired right on the spot. Lance had the skill; he was comfortable meeting new people and talking.
But Julie gave excuses. Needless to say, my brother never found a backup plan, and went to work every day wondering if it’d be his last day there.
Dakota was aware of the situation. She was aware that Papa was passively handling the situation.
Nine months after my mother passed, Lance was fired – soon after he moved into a $540,000, six-bedroom house with two complete kitchens.
He told our 95-year-old father, even though THIS WAS NOT NECESSARY. The news really shook up my father. What an insensitive clod Lance was to spring this news on a frail elderly man.
Lance Garrick wonders why Dakota has a “poor work ethic.” Look in the mirror, Genius. At the time of this blog post, my brother is still jobless – nearly 19 months after being fired.
How in Devil’s name has he managed to continue living in that half-a-million-dollar house?
He pays for the service for three phones; leases on two high-end vehicles; and all sorts of other upscale stuff that really adds up such as professional haircuts for kids age 6 and 4; organic food; and I’m sure they continue taking mountain vacations like they did when they were mooching off my parents.
My oldest brother and I one day calculated Lance and Julie’s monthly living expenses to be $6,000 to $7,000, after I did a little online sleuthing and discovered that his mortgage was $2,200 a month.
How is he paying his living expenses (add in cable TV, utilities, water, Internet, insurance on two vehicles, gas, clothing for growing kids, their massive food consumption) WITH NO JOB?
Julie hasn’t worked outside the home since the birth of their now-15-year-old daughter. What did they do, rob a bank?
But one day, it hit me: They’re living off of Lance’s multiple pensions from pervious employments.
I bet he was already receiving those payouts BEFORE he conned my parents into thinking he was strapped for cash and needed to move into their once peaceful, tidy home.
Though Lance does have an unsold house in Las Vegas that he rents (he claims he couldn’t sell it – BS), my father had once told me that my brother nets only a few hundred a month. That Las Vegas house has a huge balance on it.
It’s very possible that Dakota is aware of all of my brother’s shenanigans. Why should she have a strong work ethic when her father is a mooch who lied to my parents about his financial situation?
Keeping the Tween at a Childish Level
Why should Lance Garrick be surprised his daughter had a poor work ethic when he and Julie were perfectly okay with her behaving a few years younger than her biological age?
Examples: At age 12, reading children’s books targeted at 9- and 10-year-olds. Every week her mother took her to the library. She’d come back with a bunch of those skinny kiddie books with the big letters and lots of cartoon illustrations.
If you want your tween daughter to have a good work ethic, why aren’t you encouraging her to read books at her grade level?
The irony is that this girl was effortlessly reading at the eighth grade level WHEN SHE WAS ONLY SEVEN YEARS OLD! How do I know? I’m the one who tested her!
At age 12 she was playing with Star Wars figurines on my parents’ living room floor, voicing various characters in an animated voice – the kind of voice you hear women using on their puppies or babies.
When I first heard her I thought she was talking to her toddler sister. I walked into the room (the animated voice was getting pretty annoying) and didn’t see the toddler anywhere, but saw Dakota on the floor, moving these little plastic figurines around, playing out some imaginary scene. This is stuff you see 8-year-olds do, not 12-year-olds!
Her parents were also perfectly okay with her spending inordinate amounts of time watching cartoons (she was home schooled) on my parents’ two TVs.
She also had coloring books and crayons, and her parents allowed her to clutter up my mother’s kitchen counter with those and other junk.
Yet Lance Garrick had the nerve three and a half years ago to gripe that Dakota had a poor work ethic.
They kept her at a childish level, yet at the same time, my brother told her she’d never get into college without a basketball scholarship, and would get on her case for not playing well in games. What the fuck.
I bet they STILL think Dakota has a lousy work ethic, and I bet they still unsettle her with this sap about not getting into college unless she gets a basketball scholarship. She averages only six points a game as a ninth-grader (as of 2017).