Stargate: 2014 Alphabet Soup: C is for Caretaker
Written for sg_fignewton's 2014 Stargate Alphabet Soup On-World theme; view the entire anthology on Fig's LJ or at DreamWidth.
Approximately 935 words in 35 minutes
C is for Caretaker
Wanted:
Part-time property caretaker.
Two days a month.
Light housework, paid travel.
$15 per hour.
Call 555-8222.
Her mother had given her the wanted ad; said it would do her some to finally get a job. Parents... what did they know anyway? Still, with college coming up and her wanting to move out anyway, Sharon really did need to start earning her more money and stepping away from the nest. Small steps; she'd still need help paying for that car she'd been drooling over.
She calls the number and is requested to come for an interview in a few days at the temp agency building. Sharon fumbles her way through a resume, showers, dons khaki pants and a button-up and arrives ten minutes early. The female interviewer is nice and asks generic questions about how Sharon does in school, what she likes to do, and if she can follow the twice-a-month cleaning schedule and other mundane questions. Sharon feels like the interview was a breeze and she expects that someone else on the interview's list will get the job. That's totally fine with her, she'll find something somewhere.
It comes as a surprise when three days later she receives a call saying she's hired. The next day her mother drops her off at the house in question - cute little thing only a few blocks from home - and is given a tour and a key. The job is close and super easy. She'd been helping her mother clean the house since she was nine; forced labor if you ask her. But still, vacuuming and basic dusting aren't that hard. And the pay is fantastic... $30 for two hours!
Sharon never bothers to care who the pretty blonde woman in the pictures is.
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Wanted:
Part-time property caretaker.
Two days a month.
Light housework, paid travel.
$25 per hour.
Call 555-8222.
He'd been scanning the want ads for weeks, hoping for something, anything. Man in his thirties shouldn't be looking for work when he's completely competent in computers. But when the boss doesn't care that you care that employees are lifting pop from the machines and talking smack about the company and it escalates into a fight... Of course, fighting with the CEO's son made a huge difference, Jake is sure.
Hey, he can push a vacuum and a wet rag around; he has plenty of time to waste as it is currently. He dials the number, is asked to meet, and that's that. The interview is short - all Jake has ever done is work the computer. But he does have a good history: always on time, hardly ever any sick leave, hardly ever any vacation time, usually doesn't make a scene at work. They did ask why he was fired and he was vague but made sure the interviewer knew he wasn't a troublemaker; his other job and he just didn't see eye to eye.
No way he'd get the job. Jake doesn't care, really; he'll find something eventually.
Jake is shocked when he receives the 'you're hired' call the next day and a tour of the apartment. He is warned against taking anything from the place. The thought had crossed his mind but he's not interested in old pieces of junk, no matter their worth. No, no, the price tag on him pushing a vacuum around this place is pretty nice.
He does wonder about the glasses-wearing guy who lives here though; where he might be that he needs someone to air out the place every other week.
---
Wanted:
Part-time property caretaker.
Two days a month; three times a year.
Light housework, paid travel.
$40 per hour.
Call 555-8222.
It piques her interest and she does need the extra cash to afford that perm and dye each month. She has a little time she can eek out in her busy schedule. Monique decides to call the number and after discussing different times for the interview, a date is finally settled upon. She is sure that she is primped from tip to toe: a nice long shower, business casual suit, and twenty minutes early in the event she can't find a parking spot. Monique is hired on the spot and taken to the house and then cabin she's to care for. The roundabout trip takes up most of her day but is totally worth it.
The house, just outside the city, is large and the telescope looks cool but she vows to herself she'll never touch it. If she indulges herself now she'd get caught and where would that get her? The cabin is too far into the country for her tastes and the pond doesn't even have fish - not that she fishes, but what's a pond without fish?? - but she only has to drag herself out here three times a year. Just after spring starts, mid-summer, and late September; she's a big girl, she can handle it! Pay rate is totally worth it!
It's pretty obvious to Monique that a man lives in the house but the living space feels more like a house than a home to her... she wonders why he is so lonely.
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Originally I had wanted H for "housekeeper" for this idea but H was taken... so I asked for N. Then the claimer of C dropped and I picked it up in order to use this idea. It always niggled in the back of my brain that the off-base living spaces of SG-1 looked so darn well taken care of during the random visits portrayed in the show...
~*~ Rad