We recently went to Atlanta to visit my side of the family and give them a chance to finally meet the girls (15 months later). It was a lot of fun. Got to see my friends too. The girls got compliments on the airplane like: "They were so good.” or “They shut the hell up, real good." On the way back, we got to use the special Homeland Security baby lane which was like 5 people deep, instead of the 500 poor saps who had to wait an hour to get anal probed. Ha! We got express anal probing!
After all of the stimulation of travel, hotel rooms, going off their organic diet for a week and 9000 degree heat plus humidity that was like having a large, sweaty hobo grab your face, it was nice to get back to my Bay Area island in the sea of red state stupidity. It’s taken a while, but I think the girls have finally calmed down and realized there are no more army of people admiring you, just your boring ol’ parents and those dishonorable cats.
z seems to have picked up a souvenir from her cousin j, who’s pretty much the same age as them. She keeps trying to do j’s very high-pitched squeal. Thank god she can’t quite get it because j’s squeal was so bad, my fillings rattled. If z gets it right, we may have to take her back to the hospital: “Excuse me? Do you have a quieter model?” I kid of course (nudge nudge).
"Will someone please Stick a railroad spike trough my head?” This is what I'm thinking as I return to work after being out for a week. There use to be a time I really liked my job..Okay, that's bullshit. There was a time I didn't hate it as much. Back in the day (Yo, yo) it felt more like a team thing. There were staff parties, free movie tickets, perks, even t-shirts with our company name on it. Now, they give you t-shirts instead of raises and movie tickets instead of respect. It seems that all of the people I liked working with either quit or never made it past that 6 months probation period. I miss going to lunch with people or being able to speak off the record about what a fucking back-stabber this guy who sits across from me is. More and more of these backstabbing assholes are being shoved into my office. It's like they're surrounding me, like the cream filling in a jackass cake. The only people that are left are the ones who you know if you tell them anything, the upper management will come to you later and say: "Did we get a customer complaint about X?" My old crew, we would SELF CONTAIN the problem before it would get that far up. We wouldn't cover it up; we would just solve the problem as fast as possible. And what's wrong with that? If I were a boss, all I would say would be if the work is getting done and the customers are happy then leave me the fuck alone.
I was an assistant manager at an art suppy store once and even tough you try to be as "cool" as you can, the "Leave me the fuck alone" technique never really works. No matter how hip you try to be, it was all about the age. I wasn't even 40 and yet the 20-30 year olds treated me as if I was the old coot. It didn't matter that I was a independent comic book artist who use to make his own movies or tried (emphases on tried) to make really terrible music and form an industrial band which never put out an album or played anywhere. (I did get the t-shirts printed tough). The work would always slip as people would slack off and then what? Now you had to come out of the office, wearing your Members Only jacket, sporting a comb-over and your arms akimbo saying:" So, is it break time?" Or: "Do you need something to do?" Yuck! Poo-poo to that.
One of my first jobs was at a fast food chicken joint in the South, during the summer. It was 90 degrees outside and we were stuck in the kitchen where the 9000 degree heat would cook us like Peeps Easter candy in the microwave. Whenever I got a chance, I would sneak into the walk-in fridge and sit on the milk crates. "Ahhhhh!" Occasionally the Members only jacket/comb-over/akimbo arms manager would check in on me: "What are you doing in here?" "Oh, just organizing the eggs." I would respond.
This fast food joint served these really large biscuits and it was our job to brush them, just once with butter before wrapping them up. I always thought that was a rip because I personally would like to taste the butter more. So one time I really lathered it on as if they were sponges. In comes the morning Sunday rush, out go the biscuits, and in comes this pissed off old Black dude. His brown pants, butter stained like he had wet himself
Everyday, they wouldn't let you go until you cleaned the stove and drained the grease from the deep fat fryer. Cleaning the grill involved a long audacious process of scrubbing a still hot, metal slab with a Brillo pad and then after draining the lard pit into these huge buckets, you had to carry this sloshing liquid to this garbage bin containment thing, way the hell in the back. After one brutal shift, at around 2AM, I really wanted to go home and watch the Night Flight video show (is that still on?). Instead of walking the rainy long wet journey to the grease bin, I just dumped the grease next to the side of the building. I'm sure the rats outside were happy about that one: "Hey! Ben! It's like drinking a steak!" The next day, the manager comes in, his pants and Members Only jacket covered in grease and tire marks complaining: "I was riding my motorcycle on the side and hit a slippery patch and whipped out."
I guess I can understand how grossly incompetent and lazy young people can be. And how you really can’t not manage them but still, I wasn’t those freezer-checking managers, I was like working for Patsy and Adina in Ab Fab. You know. Come in whenever, bottle of champagne and caviar in the desk, calling everyone dahling. But did that get me cool Assistant Manager points? Hell no. Will it get me cool points with my girls? All I can say is; if your kids think you’re cool, you’re not doing your job.
That’s it,
EM
No comments:
Post a Comment