Servicing the Tenants

I look around my new apartment and remind myself to be grateful. I am, I think with a sigh. It’s just . . . When I graduated from college, I expected that to be the beginning of my career. I didn’t expect that the best job I could find would be building manager for the Marylebone Apartments (pronounced “MAR-le-bun,” I remind myself). The pay isn’t much, but the apartment is free (small, but free), so it’s enough to live on. If the tenants aren’t too demanding, I should have time for some freelance work. Hopefully this won’t slow me down too much in getting my real career started.

Fortunately for me, my dad’s a real DIY type. He never saw a tool he didn’t want to buy, and he hates paying for anything he can do himself. He taught me how to do everything up to major repairs. What’s more, he was thrilled when I got this job. He considers it “real work”; he’s never been happy about my career goals. I consider that “hot air,” but at least it means he bought me an impressive set of tools to celebrate my hire. (He also told me to feel free to borrow anything of his that I might need, but if anything gets that far, I’m probably fucked.)

Right now, though, I should go around the building and introduce myself to as many of the tenants as I can find at home. The management company—Hah! “Management company” makes it sound way too grand. One old lady and a couple office staff!—the old lady told me she likes a quiet building, so she won’t rent to young single men. She prefers single women, but she likes kids, so she’ll rent to married couples as long as their children are well-behaved; rent is on the cheap side here, but that’s only because the neighborhood is so unfashionable. It’s not a bad neighborhood, there’s very little crime in fact, it’s just working-class and inconvenient. The apartments are really nice, they’ve been well-maintained, and the construction quality is high, so she wants to keep them in good shape. The building has a mix of college girls, female graduate students, young professional women, and couples, some with kids.

Anyway, the old lady gave me a sheet of paper with a list of names, which also includes their ages (she said that would help me know what to expect), but I’m setting up my own list on my phone. I want more information on each of them—and pictures, to help me learn their names. That way, I can avoid making too many mistakes.

I hope.