Allow me to announce for the record that I hope to ultimately decrease any future stories about Anthony a guy who I consider a fiend and not a very good friend. Time to move away and let go, especially since perhaps he isn’t thinking much about me anyway. He likely found another target since he is a user, however, that’s no longer my business.
As you see that is a minimal likeness of the man I knew for many years. He’s got those red beady eyes, a frown, a grimace, with a Guy Fawkes goatee. My artistic skills aren’t that great however I feel this is adequate if I wanted to show you how I truly view the Fiend.
Anyway here’s what I wanted to share with you.
Five years ago in 2017 before the “reign of error” I was trying to get into touch with Anthony. I felt the need to discuss with him and seek advice on a panel interview I would be a part of. One thing I did at first was to text him to see if he was available to chat. We exchanged texts perhaps I was trying to be jokey and he wasn’t really having it, in 20/20 hindsight he was crabby for some reason. When he’s crabby he just let’s things fly and sometimes yours truly can be a convenient target.
So anyway out of the blue he requests that I take off April 1. My response to was ask if he’s requesting off April Fool’s Day. Basically on my end perhaps there was some confusion and wanted some assurance that I myself wasn’t being pranked. His rough response via txt
“Stop with the @#$%^!*@_@$#!$# jokes. I’m asking you to take off because I want you to go somewhere with me.”
I had to calm him down as best I could and told him I wanted to talk to him anyway and ask if I can call him. He was OK with it so I dialed him up. Told him about the panel interview I would be part of where one of the supervisors and another supervisor from another store. I had to explain to him several times what my role was and this panel interview wasn’t for me though I was part of the process to ultimately hire another assistant mgr for the dept.
I don’t remember his advice but a lot of it was to just show some of the hire ups my boss at the time – and this was before Ruthless Roger – the HR person and a store mgr about my understanding of the role at the very least. To see my point of view on why I wanted to do this it was to at least see the process up close as far as what it takes to get promoted at Fresh Foods.
Remember you read that Ant was a bit crabby. Sometimes I might repeat “If you don’t mind me asking” and he comes back with “DUDE You can ask me anything YOU WANT!” and he did that to me twice during our convo. Again I can be a convenient target perhaps if I didn’t tolerate it he wouldn’t keep doing it. Either way he felt it was OK to just take out whatever frustration he had onto me and it wasn’t cool, especially if it comes from a friend.
Anyway I got my own frustration off as this was the same convo where he noted Finer’s. I had been updating him on possibly becoming a buyer as the next step for me during that period of time and it also seemed when I bring it up he wouldn’t support that. In that conversation he decided to be like “Hey, OK, Alright. If you come to Finer Foods you’d make more money“. At which point I just said tensely “YOU MUST HAVE A REAL HARD ON FOR ME COMING TO FINER’S”
That got his attention he tried to keep me calm and stated “No, no, no. I’m just saying, just saying”. I didn’t respond I just hoped my response and then subsequent silence would get the point across that there was no interest in that direct. Also this was the umpteenth time during that period when we talk about work that he would bring that up. Newsflash this proved to not be the end of it.
Eventually we ended our call and not long after that he sent me a sexually charged meme. It was a medication themed meme showing a curvy scantily clad woman talking about such side effects as high blood pressure, heart issues, etc. The implication is that there are health effects to having your fun with said scantily clad woman. And remember he was crabby right?
I wrote “is this covered by my benefits?” to roll with the meme. And he had to respond, “I don’t think you need to worry about your benefits and all because I don’t think you’re getting any to begin with”. My response “I really like your thinking”. He read it but had no response but just had to reply with something just a dick response.
So that was it although remember during that period he was sending me things other memes and some videos that were related to his interest in martial arts. There was really nothing else with that and one time asked him outright “Are you a bot?” and his response was to send me more of them.
So our convo took place not long before April Fools 2017. Little did I know our “situationship” would take a turn by at the very earliest in June. He would again borrow money from me and showed little inclination to pay back. He would be a bit of a troll near the end of our real communications. And at this point I didn’t think I would experience the event I refer to as the Climax of the Reign of Error.
That rather unexpected event was a primary reason with no real “falling out” that caused me to really distance myself from the man who in 2018 would become Anthony the hustler. I began to think more logically and reasonably about him and his actions after that point.