April 2005 Archives
April 30, 2005
Red Light, Green Light
Here’s the thing: I hate driving. I hate it with a fiery, burning passion unlike any fiery, burning passion ever seen before by man. I hate it so much that part of the temptation to not move to the center of the film industry is the fact that their public transportation is so piss-poor, and the layout so spread out, so I’d be driving everywhere. Of course, this was negated by the fact that I lived in the suburbs and had to drive everywhere anyway because of the sprawl and the lack of public transportation…
Since I hate driving so much, I have one rule with a corollary: get to where I’m going as fast as humanly possible, without getting caught by Johnny Law. One time I was caught by Johnny Law, and I was a little fucking annoyed by it, because, okay, I guess speeding is bad for the safety of the people driving in the vehicle, and if I had gone around a 35mph bend at 50mph, maybe there would have been a car around said bend that I would have slammed into. These things are bad, but it was in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere in Iowa. Fuckin’ Iowa.
So yeah, I’ll flagrantly defy speed laws, traffic signs and signals, and so and so forth, as long as I’m absolutely 100% certain I won’t get caught. And as you gradually get used to driving the same route every day, you get to know where cops mill around, where they hide for speed traps, where the secret cameras of doom are, and so on and so forth.
Because I didn’t know much about the Los Angeles area, the driving habits of the people (three words: TOO FUCKING SLOW) or the way the cops handled traffic, I decided it’d be best to be on good behavior until these things became a bit clearer to me. But man, that’s easier said than done, because this place isn’t full of lovely rolling plains or beautiful architecture. There’s nothing to make me want to slow down, except the In-N-Out Burger, and so I went from “being good” to driving 10mph and running red lights.
I didn’t even usually drive much over the limit (unless I was on the expressway) back in Chicago, and it was very, very rare that I’d run a red light, and usually it was my stupid depth perception saying, “Oh sure, it’s yellow, you’ll make it.” And I finally hit the light 10 seconds after it’s turned red but don’t have the ability to slam on the brakes. Watch out, truck traffic!
Here, I just ran it. I had time to slow down, full fair warning — I just didn’t really want to sit and wait for the light, so I didn’t, and I was still annoyed from having to follow this fucking pickup going five under for several blocks. Maybe this was a bad decision. Maybe, if the light had one of those cameras, I’ll get a ticket mailed to me. I wishfully think that, because I was also going 10mph while running this red light, maybe my license plate will be blurry and/or out-of-frame, so they’ll never catch me. But, if nothing else, they’ll be mailing that ticket to my parents’ house in Illinois, so we can all admire how easy I’ll be able to ignore that.
I need some valerian root and a good woman.
Posted by Stan on April 30, 2005 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
April 29, 2005
Feast Forty-Five: Stan
Appetizer
Which keys do you have on your key chain?
Car ignition, car locks, bike lock, apartment key, house key. I’m not sure if it counts, but I have one of those auto-dealies for my car that, at the push of a button (several times in a row because it works like shit), will lock and unlock the doors or pop the trunk. Technology!
Soup
What is the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?
I’m not the most spontaneous person in the world, so this is kind of slim pickin’s, but I guess this qualifies:
In August of 2002, I had two tickets to see Juliana Hatfield at the Double Door, and I was thrilled beyond belief. Me and The Ex would go see the show, have a good time, and naughtiness would ensue. When I told The Ex about it, she said, “There’s no way we’ll get in. They card like maniacs, and I can’t even flirt my way in.” You have to bear in mind here that The Ex was not the most outgoing person in the world (ironically, she turned to me to be the outgoing one — ha!), but she was very good-looking, which is all that really matters in a bar-bouncer scenario.
Neither of us were 21 (I was only a few months away…), but I insisted that we go down there anyway. I speak the bouncers’ language, which is to say, I had several fresh $20 bills from the ATM. So we wandered down there on the train, and we got off and waltzed up toward the Double Door. A large, African-American fellow who I always will believe was nicknamed “Tiny” glared at us and muttered, “ID?” I flashed my ID, with its red “UNDER 21” tag. He looked up at me like I just fell off the short bus and said without irony, “You ain’t come in here.”
“Let’s go,” The Ex groaned. She thought she could make it as a music manager and didn’t want the humiliation of being thrown out of the same venue multiple times.
I suavely slid a $20 into the bouncer’s paw. He stood there, all stoic and terrifying, brow furrowing down at us, not saying a word.
“Uhh…” I began, in an effort to retrieve my lost $20.
“You gonna git now,” he mumbled. He should’ve known that wouldn’t stop me — until The Ex grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the entrance, back toward the train station, berating me with a wide variety of derogatory statements about my ethnic heritage.
On the way home, I talked idly about going out to see her in Iowa City, where Juliana was playing the following evening. We could stay with Lucy, with whom I wasn’t really speaking at the time, and maybe visit The Ex’s parents in Bettendorf on the way home. This was roundly rejected as the stupidest idea I had ever conceived. We’re going to travel 250 miles to the doorstep of a girl I hadn’t spoken to in three months, take advantage of whatever kindness she’d force herself to muster so we could have a free place to crash, and then make a bleary-eyed, grungy stop to meet The Ex’s parents for my very first time?
So I said, “Fuck it, you’re right.” That was my mantra during the bulk of our relationship. A note to the female readers of this blog: if you let me have my way with you, I’ll do your bidding for eternity.
The next day, Lucy IM-ed me about 90 times in a row. She didn’t really get the whole “silent treatment” thing, so she’d just send barrages of instant messages, hoping I’d eventually answer. Finally, that day, I did.
“Are you trying to ignore me?” she asked.
“Do you know where the Green Room is?” I asked.
“It’s right down the street from my house,” she said.
“Do you want to go to a concert with me tonight?” I asked.
This is the impulsive part, where I — slightly, in the back of my mind, upset with The Ex — drive 250 miles to go to a concert and reunite with my best friend on a whim. Yeah, it might not sound like much, but for me…it’s pretty bold.
So yeah, I drove out there, was disappointed by the squalorific conditions in which she lived (to such a degree I ended up driving straight home through the blackness of Iowa and Illinois at 3AM because I couldn’t stay a whole night there) and was disappointed by the various horrible life choices she had been making (these horrible life choices were why I stopped talking to her to begin with). The only good thing to come of it was when I saw Kathryn Musilek for the first time, and she changed my life forever. So all’s well that ends well.
Salad
Who is the best cook in your family?
My mom would kill me, but I have to grudgingly admit that my sister is a pretty fantastic cook.
Main Course
If you were to write a “how-to” book, what would the title be?
How to Be a Hollywood Hack
Dessert
Name a recent fad you’ve tried.
Back when I thought I was morbidly obese, I was very close to trying the Atkins diet. I did the research, read the book, shit my pants in horror at what you have to go through to accomplish your weight-loss goals, and actually did something Dr. Atkins explicitly states in the book that nobody seems to actually do: I went and talked to my doctor about it. My doctor, when he stopped laughing, noted that I’m only about 20 pounds overweight, and maybe I should try eating less junk food and exercising once in awhile.
And what do you know? That archaic system works just as well.
from friday’s feast
Posted by Stan on April 29, 2005 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Friday Five/Albums of the Week
April 24, 2005
Things I Learn While Shopping at the Grocery Store: An Ongoing Struggle
Lo, these past 23 years, I’ve not had much use for the grocery store, mainly because my mom would go shopping for me. On rare occasions when I would go, I would attempt to grab every delicious, sugar-filled snack in the store. In fact, I still do, which is why I have a jumbo-pack of Pringles, York Peppermint Patty cookies, Oreos, and some bricks of sharp cheddar. Sigh, I will be a fatty fat fat fat yet again…
At any rate, this morning I went to the grocery store to stock up on things I never thought I’d need, like napkins. Unlike last week, when I forgot half a dozen items I wanted, this time I made a list, and as I searched for the items I made some interesting discoveries.
Posted by Stan on April 24, 2005 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
April 23, 2005
Back to Rational Thought
It’s been a week, and I’ve realized that maybe I’ll neither die nor have my soul sucked out through my asshole. At least, not for a few months. I’m settling down, mellowing out, and trying to get used to this place. There are some cultural oddities, like the millions of people roaming the street desperately wanting to be a part of something called “the biz”* and a general consensus that lazily wrapping Christmas trees around palm tree trunks isn’t the stupidest thing in history, that I haven’t really gotten used to yet. Mostly, though, it’s just like a gigantic Schaumburg, and as some of you know, I spent the better part of 23 years roaming the suburban jungle in search of Smashing Pumpkins records, discarded Playboys, and pot, so it’s much easier for me to do the electric slide into The Wood than I anticipated. Like I said, I’m not all there yet, and maybe I never will be, but it’s a little more familiar than I thought it would be.
Did anything interesting happen this week? No, but I’ll continue rambling anyway. Let’s see…I was zinged by Earl Hamner, former Twilight Zone writer and creator of The Waltons. He asked me about my writing process, and I told him I start by drinking an enormous cup of coffee, at which point he cut me off and asked, “Have you tried gin?” Being mocked by him was definitely the highlight of my week.
I got in trouble for making fun of directors. It was mild trouble, not you’re-banned-from-the-studio trouble. It’s apparently pilot season, and they’re filming tons of stuff on the lot. Yesterday, the roadway to the commissary was blocked off for shooting. It’s lined with bungalows that can be transformed, with minimal redressing, into quaint suburban homes. On our way to lunch, we saw a director and cinematographer muttering on top of a 30-foot scaffolding. When we came out, they were still muttering, and I said, “They’re filming a pilot here, right? I’ll bet that’s the crane shot.”
It’s a pretty well-known fact that many pilot episodes feature a dazzling crane shot, wherein the camera — affixed to a crane, hence the name — pulls back and away from the action to give an exciting, sweeping panorama. It’s the most cliché shot in the history of television, and they do them in almost every pilot produced in the last 20 years because, simply, cranes don’t usually factor into the budget for episodic television. Sure, they do it once in awhile, but it’s not an every-episode kind of thing. However, since they generally have more money and time to play with while shooting a pilot, why not break out the crane?
And how about this for comic timing? As soon as I said that, and my classmates chuckled, and then a crane turned the corner down the blocked-off suburban street, which led to guffaws, which prompted me to continue my mockery of the crane shot, which got the attention of the director, who shed a lone tear I’m sure. My professor apparently witnessed this and whispered the suggestion that now that I’m in the thick of things, I should maybe keep the mockery to myself, because you never know who’s listening. It’s not an easy thing to get used to, coming from a background that revolves primarily around mocking people to their faces, but these sensitive Hollywood types need their egos stroked, so a-stroking I will go. I’ve had a great deal of practice.
Finally, I got lost for the first time since I got here. Whoever designed and named the roads in this area was smoking some fine crack. At any rate, it took me 45 minutes to find a Target (and when you think of that bullseye imagery, it just becomes funnier, doesn’t it?) because in spite of what the map may say, the road I was looking for (Empire Avenue) does not intersect with the road I was on (Hollywood Way) in any way I could idenitfy.
Here’s the best part, though: after I finally found Empire Avenue, and then I found the Target, and then I did my shopping, and then I went home, I decided I’d take Empire back the way I came. Since clearly it didn’t intersect with Hollywood the first time around, I naturally assumed it would when I was going back. I am dumb as a goddamn rock, so yes, I got lost a second time. To add insult to injury, as I attempted to navigate myself back to my apartment, I passed — you guessed it — another Target, which is apparently closer to where I live. “Store locator,” my ass.
I’m on page 83 of my first draft, and it’s going reasonably well so far. The last 20 pages are kind of assy, but it should be reasonable enough to fix.
*I’m one of these people, and I hope everybody else feels as pathetic about it as I do…
Posted by Stan on April 23, 2005 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Career-Based Rambling
April 17, 2005
Hooray for Hollywood!
So here I am: Hollywood, USA, movie capital of the non-India world, but it wasn’t easy. On the contrary, the Almighty or some other deity-like skyward entity sent me a great many portents indicating — or so I believe — that I WILL DIE IN A WATERY GRAVE, NOT UNLIKE AXL ROSE’S WIFE IN THE “ESTRANGED” VIDEO.
Portent #1: The Neon Cross
I-55, near Springfield, Illinois, a rather large, impressive-looking cathedral sits beside the highway. Near its peak hangs a large, gaudy neon cross blazing green 24 hours a day. John Kennedy Toole, author of the greatest book of the twentieth century (A Confederacy of Dunces), also wrote a mediocre book called The Neon Bible. Tortured and drunk, Toole killed himself after he nearly found success but blew it because he’s a dick. Sound familiar?
Portent #2: Darkness
One of the more mysterious happenings in the Hebrew Bible is when God unleashes Ten Plagues upon the Egyptian Pharaoh, to show that His awesome power was way awesomer than that of the various Egyptian gods. One of the Plagues He unleashes blinds everybody but the Hebrew slaves, and while most of the Plagues are suspected to refer to natural phenomena (e.g., blood polluting the Nile was really just red soil that occasionally worked its way into the river), this one tends to elude (or provoke argument among) scholars. What were they talking about? An eclipse? No, that doesn’t really fit the profile, although it blots out the sun. Was it just exaggerative bullshit?
No. Clearly, the Bible was referring to night-driving in St. Louis. These fucking idiots couldn’t light an expressway with the sun. Okay, they probably could, but the point is, when you drive through at night, it’s almost impossible to see anything. There’s just no light. But hey, it’s not like they need it; it’s not like four major interstates and the largest river in North America all meet up in this city.
So yes, I drove through St. Louis with the firm belief that I was, in fact, about to jam the car into a large body of water or the side of a stripmined hill, which was a pretty obvious warning.
Portent #3: The Great Flood
After rolling through the beautiful hills and road construction of Missouri, I finally hit flat land along the Oklahoma border; almost immediately after passing the border, it started to rain. Then, it started to rain harder. It came down in violent, blinding sheets. It rained so hard big rigs were driving 40 in a 75. It rained so hard cars were parked all along breakdown lanes as people waited it out. It rained so hard Christian Slater and Morgan Freeman were at a dairy farm making a movie.
It continued to rain for the next three hours, until I breezed through Tulsa — narrowly avoiding a Greaser-Soc rumble — which is about 130 miles west of the Oklahoma border. That’s an asspile of rain, let me tell you.
Portent #4: Roadwork
I mentioned the construction through Missouri, but this was nothing compared to the pain and torment of New Mexico’s construction. The first problem is, New Mexico is a big, mostly empty desert. It’s very beautiful, but there aren’t very many alternate routes. So when you have one-lane Interstate highways bottled up because trucks can’t make it up the hill at a reasonable speed, it gets a little tiresome. It gets especially tiresome when it’s one lane for 67 miles, followed by 10 miles of road in terrible condition, followed by another longe stretch of one-lane roads.
Portent #5: Strong winds
Have you ever driven in winds so strong it kinda feels like it’ll either lift your car in the air and flip it over or simply ram you off the road? Try doing it for 400 miles.
Portent #6: Fire
Just over the California border, I spotted a huge fire. I couldn’t tell if it was a brushfire or if a building was on fire or what, but it was pretty severe, and I think since it’s a natural event, it qualifies as a portent of doom.
Portent #7: Lyme Disease!
Staying for the evening in a little shithole town in California, I discovered a tick on my leg. I shrieked, jumped up, and smacked the bizatch out of it. Lately I’ve been really tired and forgetful. Is that bad?
And so there you have it: unequivocal proof that cosmic forces don’t think I should be here. Now, let’s dip into my first week at school.
Our school rents a bungalow on a studio lot, for that authentic industry experience. Remember that episode of Dawson’s Creek where he goes away to film school in California and has his first day on the lot, and he’s totally amazed by what an amazing thing the amazing world of filmmaking is? It’s really not like that at all. They film Passions and UPN sitcoms on this lot. Everybody fits into a remarkably hilarious cliché, so you can always spot the actors and the agents and the producers and the directors and the teamsters and the writers. I tend to gravitate toward the teamsters, who are hilarious.
Here’s what we do all day in the sun-drenched, palm-lined studio lot: sit in a quiet, windowless room and write. I really feel like Columbia’s earning their money on this one, since sitting in a quiet, windowless room and writing is not something I could do in Chicago.
Each day, we have a guest lecturer who comes in to reaffirm things we were told in Screenwriting I. I guess it’s nice to know that the people at Columbia aren’t just blowing smoke up our asses — which is something I slowly became convinced of over my time there — but at the same time, it’s not exactly the inside scoop we were promised.
I suppose I’m acclimating well enough; driving around Schaumburg, Illinois, has really prepared me for navigating LA traffic (except, whereas maybe three out of 10 people in Schaumburg drive like dipshits, it’s more like 10 out of 10 here), and I’m not a suicidal heroin addict (yet), so I say things are going pretty well. One of the managers at the bookstore went to school out here, and he gave me some pointers, the main one being: just stand back and laugh at everybody, just like I do at home, because if you don’t, you either get sucked into or driven crazy by the LA mindset.
Finally, an anecdote. Today, I took a drive to a Circuit City in Burbank. I decided I’d like to invest in the Playstation 2 DVD remote, since my space-economizing has led me to bring only my Playstation 2, since it both plays video games and DVDs. I considered investing in an Xbox, but I’m not sure it’d fit in a studio apartment.
At any rate, I was waiting in the checkout line, DVD remote in hand, and the clerk was helping some guy who looked a whole lot like Fred Sanford with something unrelated to purchasing. Fred had something small and hidden from my view that apparently wasn’t working right, and the clerk was helping him out.
“I’m a songwriter,” Fred non-sequitured, “so I need this to work right.”
“Oh yeah?” the clerk said excitedly. “I’ve just been working on an independent film, and right now we’re looking for original music. It’d be great exposure.”
“Wow,” Fred said, starstruck, “yeah, I’ll get you a tape and some contact information.”
“Yeah, we’re just finishing up work on it now,” the clerk continued, hyping the project to the maxxx. “We’re gonna submit it to all the fesitvals, nationwide.” His intonation made it seem like this is a really impressive accomplishment, but I don’t really see why. Aren’t most independent films (that get finished…) sent to all the festivals in the nation, if not the world? How impressive is it to burn 50 DVDs and put them in an envelope? I know in LA that driving to the post office or a mailbox is a feat, but other than that, I don’t get it…
Nonetheless, Fred Sanford was impressed. “Yeah, I got some tapes and cards in my car,” he said. “I’ll run and get them.” I really hope when he gets back to the junk shop, Lamont explains to him why he should not be impressed or sucked in by this.
So yes, I witnessed my very first sad-sack potential business deal, and let me tell you, it was at least comedy bronze. I often find absurd things in daily life, but to me none is more absurd than a nonchalant oral contract being forged between a Circuit City clerk and a customer with what I’ll always believe is a broken pair of $20 headphones.
Because I’m exceptionally mean-spirited and fairly big and menacing (not muscular, but people do tend to make that mistake), I’ve gotten used to laughing at people over the last few years when they’re behaving like morons. Usually they stare at me blankly and say nothing. Here, though, I have to be careful. One of the things drilled into my head at film school is that, for example, the ingenuous film made by Circuit City Clerk B. DeMille could end up being the next Pulp Fiction, and I could be in his office begging him to buy a script, and all of a sudden he remembers that day in Circuit City when I had a laughing fit because of the hilarity of his attempt at networking with a customer, and I’m thrown out on my ass.
It’s hard to stifle that shit, but I did it today, and I can do it again. And again and again and again. At least I’m finding amusement in it all.
I’m still not sure if I’m going to stay here. I talked to the lady in charge of internships, and she created the illusion that getting an internship after this program is as easy as taking a piss. However, the only paying internship I’ve found so far is, ironically, in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, spitballing jokes for some pornographic video game or something. I’m not sure if that’d be the best career move, so I will certainly look at other options, but right now, it (a) seems like it’d be fun, (b) is in Illinois, and (c) pays money.
So we’ll see…
Posted by Stan on April 17, 2005 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Career-Based Rambling
April 1, 2005
Folk Heroism
On Wednesday afternoon, I walked off the job. There has been six weeks of unblogged build-up to this moment. I’ve tried to write entries about how much I dislike my job — the customers, (some of) the coworkers, the job itself — but it all just comes off as petty whining to anybody who hasn’t previously worked in retail. Unfortunately, because I work at a mega-bookstore that is owned by a huge corporation, this job has managed to combine all the worst aspects of retail with the horrors of an office-style hierarchy. For a frame of reference, watch Office Space followed by Clerks. If you ignore the fires and dead Jews, this is an accurate depiction of what the last six weeks have been like: mind-numbing, soul-crushing employment hell.
However, I didn’t walk off the job because I hate it. Not solely, anyway… I left because, for the third time in as many weeks, I was scheduled to close, 3PM to 11PM, and my break was scheduled…from 4 to 5. The first time this happened, I stupidly assumed it’d be a one-time thing because we were understaffed, so I took it without a word. The second time it happened, I started out pissed but it was resolved immediately by two of my café coworkers who had talked about it before I even got there. Last Wednesday, there was absolutely nothing that could be done — my coworkers would be gone, so nobody could cover me. Irate, I thought, “Well, fuck them, man — they can have a manager cover me.”
I called the service manager, told her the dilemma, and very politely asked if I could be given a more reasonable break. She told me she’d talk to Nancy, who has become the unofficial general manager since our normal GM is on vacation this week. A few minutes later, Nancy approached the café while I was with a customer. She talked with Matt, one of my coworkers (he was there until 5, which is why I could only take my break at 4), and I heard him quietly bitching her out for this scheduling problem. He was as angry as I was about it. She disappeared without saying a word to me. About six seconds later, I was approached by the service manager, who told me she talked to Nancy and that nothing could be done because nobody could cover me. However, if I really felt I needed to eat, maybe I could have a short, unpaid break to get food, but there’s no way I could be covered for a full hour.
Here’s the thing that was apparently unclear: going on a break, for me anyway, is not about eating. I almost never eat on my break, and when I do, I only have something small and light. My breaks are about my mental health. I need to get away from the motherfucking customers for a little while so I can clear my head and come back, as I often do, refreshed and relaxed. Working six hours, by myself, with no break — not even the 10-minute paid break guaranteed by federal law, which I have to ask permission to take and am generally refused — is very damaging to my psyche. Yes, eight hours of sleep and a day off do me well, but not nearly as well as an hour respite.
Enraged, I contemplated the idea of leaving. This was suggested by my father after I told him about the first incident of this scheduling practice. He’s been a manager long enough to know that, while it may not necessarily be illegal, it’s really shitty to do. While it may not be the best way of handling the situation, it’s generally the most effective, assuming you don’t get fired. If they really need you, and you show them what life is like without you, managers tend to be far more accommodating.
Still, I wasn’t sure if it was the best thing to do. I only had four days left on the schedule, and I didn’t really want to leave the company like this, especially if I was desperate for money and needed to coast on a semi-glowing reference from the management. At the same time, I was so frustrated by so many things, this kind of became the last straw. I didn’t even want to be at work, so them basically saying to me, “Here, get really riled up so you feel justified in leaving,” really made me feel justified in leaving.
Unsure of what to do, I talked to Matt. He’s been here for three years and has slowly grown to hate it as much as I do after only being there six weeks. Matt said, “Honestly, the way they’ve been treating you, and the fact that you have less than a week left — I don’t even know why you don’t just walk out of here and not look back.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said excitedly. We vented some mild frustration, and I asked him whether or not I should give them the ultimatum I had considered. I was thinking the best thing to do, as a form of warning, was to call up Nancy directly and say, “If you can’t find somebody to fill an hour from 7 to 8, you might not like finding somebody to work from 5 to 11.” I didn’t really think I wanted to do that, though, since Nancy didn’t even have the (figurative) balls to tell me herself. If she wasn’t going to tell me anything directly, why should I tell her? Let her find out from the service manager, who I bitched out rather effectively (in the sense that it made her visibly emotional, not in the sense that it actually accomplished anything toward changing my break time).
Matt agreed, without me even saying anything, that it would be best to just slip out the door. They need to know that they need more people. His ploy was to take a vacation, since his year just rolled over and he can schedule more time, so they’d realize that the café can’t survive with the skeleton crew we have. If I left, it’d send the same message, so they’d also know Matt wasn’t alone in his opinion.
I thought some more, and as 4PM rolled around, Matt asked, “So, are you gonna do it?”
“Yup,” I said confidently. I shook his hand and told him that since I’d probably never see him again, he should know he was cool to work with. He seemed both surprised and touched by this rare outburst of pleasantness.
I punched out as always, took all my things, and walked out the door. And didn’t come back. As I drove home, it was hot and humid. Huge thunderheads were building in the sky. It was pretty awesome. I thought, in the nerdiest way imaginable, that the sky was all symbolic of the workplace atmosphere. Then I thought about how lame thinking that was, and I turned the volume up on Appetite For Destruction just a few notches so I wouldn’t be tempted to think about anything other than Paradise City, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty.
It’s extremely unusual for me not to feel tremendous pangs of guilt doing something like this. I think about all the people I’d be fucking over, and I get upset. Tonight, though, I knew I’d only be fucking over Nancy — the only active manager — and I felt good about that. I knew if they figured it out, they’d try to get Matt to stay or call him back, so I cleared it with him first. He said he’d refuse, and I knew he’d stick with that, so I was fine with that. And I fucking hate all the customers across the board — regulars and one-timers alike — so I wouldn’t feel bad that their precious café might be closed. Basically, everybody remotely associated with that store can suck a cock, and I felt pretty pleased that I didn’t go back.
They called me twice a few hours later, within a few minutes of each other. The second time they left a message, worried that maybe something happened to me because of the storm, but I think they knew better. The manager who called is the only decent one there, so I didn’t call back because I was worried I might buckle and come back if he was really nice to me.
The next day, I got a call from a manager I barely know. He was very Zenmaster about the whole thing, speaking very softly, trying to get my side of the story. He was more than understanding — in fact, he said that even though it was a pretty shitty way to handle things, he would have probably done the same thing. This surprised me, and I couldn’t really tell if it was manager faux-empathy bullshit or if he was being sincere. He asked me if I’d be willing to come in, as I was scheduled to, and when I said I would if they’d have me (I do still need money, after all…), he told me I’d probably have to talk to Nancy and that I shouldn’t come to her — I should wait for her to approach me. That was fine by me; I didn’t particularly want to have a confrontation with her.
I got in at 3, as I was scheduled to, and was pleasantly surprised to find my friend Shannon on the schedule for the evening. She was to come at 7:30, so I could be relieved for my break, and then she’d be closing with me. Again, from a mental health standpoint, it’s much better to have somebody else there than to be by myself. I don’t have any interest in getting to know the dipshit customers, and I’m ostracized from the rest of the store until about 10:45, so there are very few people to talk to.
I was there with Matt and Rick, the café supervisor, who didn’t really give me much flak for what I did. He just told me ominously that Nancy would probably be by to talk to me, which I told him I already knew. Then they both disappeared, since they each really hate working in the café. Several minutes later, the phone rang. In the café, this only happens for two reasons: (1) one of the coworkers wants to trade a shift, or (2) a manager is calling to rain fire down on the café. I picked up the phone; it was Nancy.
“Is this Rick?” she asked.
“Uh…no,” I said.
“It’s not Matty, though…”
“Yeah, it’s Stan,” I said.
She paused, and then her tone hardened. “Oh, okay. Is Rick back there?”
“No,” I said.
“Do you know where he is? He’s not answering his page, and the reg sounds pretty frantic.”
“I have no idea,” I said. “I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”
“Okay, then,” she said. Another pause, followed by: “Hey, listen, when Matt or Rick gets back there, would you mind coming back here and talking to me for a few minutes?”
“Sure, no problem,” I said through gritted teeth.
A few minutes later, both Rick and Matt returned, and I went into the back room to talk with Nancy.
She gave me a couple of sob stories: one was about her broken foot, which apparently happened about three minutes after I left on Wednesday, and the other was about their difficulties in hiring “a new person.” The thing that bugs me about it is, they’re still only trying to hire one new person. Since I’ve worked there, they’ve been trying to find one new person so the café would be comfortably covered with two people at all times. Since then, one person has quit, and now I’m leaving, and they still haven’t hired that one extra person. At this point, they should be look for three.
Then she got into the nitty-gritty, that she should’ve been angry, too, and that I theoretically followed the correct protocol by calling the service manager, but if I was unsure (I wasn’t), I should have called her directly. She also said she needed to report me to district HR, and they could decide what they wanted to do with me. The fact that I came back, and the fact that I’ve already quit, is supposed to go a long way in the decision — they’ll give me a warning instead of a firing — but they probably won’t know the final decision until after I’ve gone. I wasn’t really too concerned about the outcome, at any rate.
She also tried to deflect the blame, insisting the service manager never talked to her. I don’t really think that’s true, though I obviously have no way of proving it. Her entire sermon was really more about deflecting the blame away from her than actually solving my many gripes, although they did at least fix my scheduling, in part by bringing in Shannon but also by adding a person to the schedule so I won’t be totally alone on Saturday. And yeah, it’s nice that my last few days will be slightly less painful, but it seems like, despite the message I attempted to send through Gandhi-esque passive resistance, they don’t really understand the full extent of the problems in the café.. I took the opportunity to explain them, but it was basically in one ear and out the other (as I suspected it would be, which is why I didn’t bother talking on Wednesday). I just got the same old “we’re trying to hire people” speech for the second time in one conversation.
Finally, she let me go. Essentially, I won’t even get a bad reference, even if I try to apply at a different chain at some point (which would involve them contacting the previous store), or if I want to come back to this store in the future. Not that I really would, but I suppose I appreciated the fact that being flagrantly irresponsible not only didn’t get me fired — it didn’t even blackball me at this store.
Afterward, something kind of amazing happened. I was walking back through the store to return to the café, and I kept seeing people, all these people I’ve been working with for six weeks, and all of a sudden they were congratulating me for apparently having the biggest balls in the history of the store. One guy even referred to me as “a legend.” Yes, I imagine they’ll all forget about it two weeks after I’m gone, but all of a sudden I’m like a folk hero. Not because I left — no, it doesn’t take balls of steel to leave a job this shitty — but because I came back. I taught them their lesson, and I had the balls to return to the store, return to my post, do the job, and look management in the eye.
I didn’t even think of this as a ballsy move. It just seemed logical: I made my point, and they said I could come back, so why not? Does the fact that I didn’t even consider the necessity of basketball-sized loins girded in steel mean that what I really did was heroic, or are they just making a mountain out of the molehill that is my daily lunch break?
Posted by Stan on April 1, 2005 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace
