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New Arch-Nemesis

Since I’ve left college, I haven’t once seen my former arch-nemesis Owen at all. I’m not complaining about this, but I do feel a little hole in my life that was once filled with an enemy so vile and distasteful that I actually blogged! There was a douchebag in L.A. (well, a lot of them, but one in particular who approached arch-nemesis territory), a chump at my mysterious accounting job earlier this year, but they never really got the bile a-spewing like Owen did. There’s The Manager, who I do most of my bitch about lately (both on the blog and off), but he doesn’t make me angry. Frustrated? Yes. Confused? Certainly. But he’s one of these guys who’s so confident and yet so thoroughly incompetent that you end up just feeling sorry for him.

And then there’s the new hire at the coffee shop, who I’ll call Owen II (please pronounce this “Owen the Second”). Know why? Because, somehow, some way, they’re cut from the same cloth. I thought Owen was one in a million, and believe me, in many ways he still is. But Owen II shares many qualities with Owen, both physically and spiritually. They’re both big, hairy, dumpy gorillas, they both have that intoxicating musk of onions and corn chips deep-fried in Kentucky Fried Chicken batter, they both have extremely thick glasses that mask squinty, beady eyes, and they both talk in grating, high-pitched voices with mild lisps. (A semi-random aside: I heard this voice very recently, watching the movie Capote. I knew Owen’s voice struck me as familiar, but I couldn’t place it until I was reminded of what Truman Capote sounds like. It seems like typical Owen weirdness to try to intentionally mimic somebody like Truman Capote, but I think in this case it is his real voice. It’s just eerily similar. Owen II’s voice is slightly less grating but what he lacks in shrillness he makes up for in loudness.)

More irritating than the physicalities — which become a moot point if you can look away, stand a safe distance from the odor, and avoid talking to them — are the mental and emotional dispositions. Like his predecessor, Owen II has a superiority complex without having any reason to feel superior. Mainly, he thinks he’s better than the job, his coworkers, and the customers. He’s had “restaurant experience,” which was supposed to mean something but, to be frank, cafés and restaurants are very, very different animals. Owen II has slowly figured this out, which I discovered via one of his other personality “quirks”: he whines about everything. He’s not quite as openly hostile and brazen as Owen — somehow, Owen II has just a teensy bit more social decorum, probably gleaned when he studied humanity for the first time at his restaurant job(s) — but then again, I’ve only known him for two days. Maybe he’ll get more comfortable and turn into a real asshole.

Back to Owen II’s superiority complex: when I first met him on Tuesday, one of the first things he whined about was how it’s been so long since he’s worked. This rang just a tad familiar with me, and I admit that even with the mild whininess I wanted to give him a shot. So far, I’ve liked everyone I’ve worked with here. This leads me to conclude that the manager has decent taste in employees. For about three seconds, I thought we’d establish a rapport over our mutual job-hunting struggles and we’d get along fine.

Then he said, “Yeah, working in a coffee shop is pretty much the bottom rung of the retail ladder, but I was desperate.” Some of you might remember my last entry from six years ago, where I said fuck other people’s opinions about my station in life, because I know I’m only in it for (a) what little money there is, and (b) the actual enjoyment of my job. This last is a pretty rare thing, I think. So I hope it doesn’t seem more hypocritical than usual that this comment from Owen II offended me, because it has less to do with his perception of me — though I’ve gleaned his perception of myself and everyone else who works there is pretty negative, hence the superiority complex — and more with his trashing something I enjoy.

And let’s face facts here: I could think of dozens, maybe even hundreds of retail jobs that suck worse than a coffee shop. It’s pretty easy work, and exceptionally less disgusting and degrading than pretty much any other food-service job I can think of, Mr. Waiter. On top of this: if he’s so much better than the job, why is he working here? Why has he failed to gain employment at a restaurant, what with his extensive experience waiting tables? I mean, shit, I could go to downtown Schaumburg and pick up three jobs waiting tables in 20 minutes. Are you daring me to do it? Because I will, and I’ll scan my check stubs to prove it, motherfuckers!

At least when I was hilariously failing to get jobs, I was applying for shit that was way out of my league, requiring a level of experience, education, and intellect that I couldn’t come close to matching. I wasn’t applying for degrading fucking jobs as a waiter, dancing for quarters and making half of minimum wage. I could pretend to be all superior, like, “I’ve quit better jobs than this,” but you know what? I’ve had jobs that pay better for significantly less work, but — and this will be shocking, I’m sure — I kinda hate being paid to not do anything. Sure, it’s fun for awhile, but after a few months it actually becomes more exhausting not doing work than it is to be on your feet working your ass off all day. I’ve done both, and in a perfect world I’d be making the money of the former to do the latter.

Was that a tangent? Back to Owen II. The dude just doesn’t stop whining and complaining. “This is more cleaning than I’ve ever had to do in my life!” he kept saying, over and over. And over and over and over. And any time anybody told him to do something, he’d get this look on his face like, “Oh God, more work?!” and then he’d roll his eyes and either do it half-assed, pretend to do it, or not do it at all.

Which is why it kind of surprised me when, on Tuesday, the manager said, “I think he’s gonna work out.” You…do? Interesting. But he had completely changed his tune by Wednesday. Every time Owen II was out of earshot, he’d say, “This kid has a real attitude problem, doesn’t he?” I’d agree readily, and he’d say, “It’s not going to take him far.” I couldn’t disagree with that.

The most irritating thing to me was that Owen II seemed to feel there was some kind of sister-solidarity thing going on between us. We’re both working jobs for an admittedly annoying manager for slave-wages — unite! So he’d always come up behind me, blowing his hot nacho-cheese breath into my face as he’d whisper a sarcastic comment. If I didn’t completely disagree with the sentiment, it was probably only because I couldn’t fully hear it. And I didn’t care to have it repeated, because what’s the point? In fact, half the time I’d literally ignore him, just pretending I couldn’t hear him. Somehow, he believed this to be true.

On Wednesday, it kept seeming to me like he had something big he wanted to tell me, but he didn’t quite have the balls to come out and say it. Maybe because I’d rat on him, or maybe because of the way the manager bursts in and out, he didn’t want to get caught talking shit. Finally, just before we closed, when the manager went off to do his admin duties, Owen II came up to me, all confidential-like, and he said, “If you want to know why I’ve been such a big asshole tonight, I’ll tell you…”

The sad and hilarious thing is that I hadn’t noticed anything resembling a change in Owen II’s attitude. He was as big a prick on Tuesday as he was on Wednesday. I muttered and made a noncommittal head gesture, not paying full attention, because you know what? I was busy closing the store!

Owen II took that as his cue to proceed with the story. “You know Marc?” Marc’s another employee. He’s pretty funny, and he’s a video game nerd. We’re tight.

I nodded, and Owen II said, “Well, yesterday after you left, I closed with him, and I said — completely joking the whole time — that I wished I could go home so I could have a cigarette.” He chuckled uncomfortably; I didn’t join in, so his laughter tapered off even more uncomfortably. “Anyway, I don’t even know why, but he went and told the manager, who came up to me, like, five minutes later and said, ‘You better watch what you say.’”

Now, look, I’m new, but I know Marc well enough to know he wouldn’t just idly run off telling something as inane as that to the manager, and the manager — high-strung as he is — wouldn’t respond like that. There had to be something more to the story. I didn’t want to ask the manager because, frankly, I don’t like talking to him. Also, it’d seem like I was ratting, too. I knew I was closing with Marc the next night, so I figured I’d find out the dirt then. There seemed to be a lot of holes in the story, especially with the cigarette thing. One of the mild injustices is that the smokers — of which there are only two — can pretty much take smoke breaks whenever the fuck they want, whereas nonsmokers don’t have the same privilege. Occasionally, if there’s downtime, we’ll take a 10-minute faux-cigarette break. Most of the time, we don’t get any. Whoo-hoo for shoddy labor laws — in Illinois, you’re entitled to a paid 20-minute break if and only if you work a shift of 7.5 hours or more. The manager’s solution? Seven hour shifts!

At any rate, Marc is one of the two smokers. He’d be the first to say, “Dude, if you want a cigarette, just go out and smoke one[, you big baby].” Why didn’t he? Like I said, there had to be more to the story, and the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I was.

Meanwhile, as I continued trying to close with no help whatsoever, Owen II decided it’d be a good time to start making and/or returning phone calls. This led to my favorite moment of Wednesday night, reminiscent of Owen I’s hilarious backfired “I am Spartacus” moment. He was trying to act all bad-ass, like “Oh man I have so many calls to return, people just aren’t used to me working again!” He made a call as I mopped the goddamn store.

“Hey, Katie,” he said into the phone. After a moment: “It’s Owen II… Owen II… Owen — I live up the street… Yeah… Yeah… Oh. Bye.” I wanted to start laughing right then, but I try to hold in my meanness while I’m on duty. I unleash it in the form of screaming and making obscene gestures at the few drivers on the road who are worse than I am.

Owen II made a second call: “Jim… It’s Owen II… Owen II — come on, you know who I am.” He looked up sharply at me. When he saw I was staring right at him with a hostile and amused look on his face, the sheer terror in his eyes melted into a veneer of faux-amusement. “I don’t know what it is with people tonight,” he said to me. When he glanced away, putting the phone back to his ear, the panic-stricken look returned. I can only assume this was an attempt to impress me, or to otherwise create the illusion he has an active social life, and it had exploded in his face like an Acme™-brand T.N.T. detonator.

We closed up and went home for the night. The next day, I asked Marc about his feelings on Owen II and, more specifically, about the “I wish I could go home and have a cigarette incident.” First: Marc hates Owen II as much as I do. As do all the employees who have met him. Good to know. Second: Owen II, as I suspected, omitted huge chunks of the story to make himself seem unjustly persecuted. The similarities to Owen I just keep increasing.

Here’s what really happen: trainees have to fill out a workbook, filled with information that then leads to stupid questions and worksheets. They’re dumb, they’re a waste of time, but you know what? I’ve had to do one for every single café job I’ve ever had. It comes with the territory. There’s a lot of shit to memorize. Even I, who pretty much has this whole coffee thing down pat, had to learn a lot of shit about their specific blends of coffee (i.e., roasting level, origin(s), flavor “bouquet,” etc.), as well as learning the specific formula combinations. Every place I’ve worked has been just a tad different, and this is no exception. They want me to steam milk differently, they (in particular) make cappuccinos in a different and stupid way, they have different specialty drinks.

So yeah, the trainee manual is stupid but important, especially for a newbie. A lot of it is “learn by doing,” but some of the stuff — specifically learning about the different coffee blends — is something that just isn’t learned by doing. People come in and order a large dark roast; they don’t want to discuss the Coffee of the Day’s origins or whether or not a cranberry-orange scone will go with its distinctive bouquet.

Trainee manual rant: over. Owen II simply refused to do it. He seemed to feel, despite Marc’s status as shift supervisor and Owen II’s status as trainee, that he didn’t have to listen to a word Marc said. He only had to listen to the manager, and the manager wasn’t there, so when told him had half an hour to work on his book, Owen II just wouldn’t do it. This came after hours of Owen II’s awful work ethic, superiority complex, and solidarity mutterings. Marc had had enough. He also said Owen II repeated his “I wish I could go home and have a cigarette” remark at least five times, some of them right in front of customers. After the workbook incident, Owen II said it again, and that was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back. Marc ran and told the manager about all the bullshit that had built up to his “ratting” on Owen II, and that is what prompted the manager’s remark. It had more to do with his sassback (I have been waiting almost four years to use that word in a blog entry) about the workbook than it did about the cigarette comments.

To sum up, I sooooo have a new arch-nemesis. It’s only disappointing that in mid-November he’s going to be transferred to a new store (the only reason he was hired to begin with). As with Owen I, his reign as most hilarious villain in the Staniverse will be short-lived, and I’ll have to find a new enemy. How disappointing.

Update 10/11/06: It is my sad duty to inform you, gentle reader, that Owen II’s reign was even shorter than I expected. That Wednesday-night closing shift — our second together — would be our last. He quit unceremoniously and without notice a few days later. What a major disappointment.

Double Update 10/16/06: He also has a MySpace, and he has blog entries tantalizingly entitled “Day Two” and “The Final Day.” I wanted to see if he’d written hostile things about me or anybody else, but…alas, these are “friends-only” blog entries. My life is once again an empty shell with no arch-nemesis-based comedy fodder.

Posted by Stan on October 5, 2006 11:11 AM  | Permalink | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace | Digg It