good lord, it's february.
i have spent much of today alone, in my usual home uniform (ancient concert t-shirt, jeans, chucks), with my hands folded in my lap. quietly. quietly. thinking. quietly.
i have spent a lot of time alone in the last three and a half years. i have spent a lot of time sleeping on couches. i lived out of suitcases until a week ago. i sleep best in my clothes. i listen to music more than i listen to conversation. i cook better than i eat. i write more than i read. i think better than i speak. but dude, i feel the shit out of everyone and everything.
what's next is now. today was supposed to be the day that the universe revealed itself, but by now, i should know better than to rely on the universe. and so, universe unyielding, i made some decisions. by decisions, i really mean that i have been listening to music like a ouija board, and i think i know now what is next. and by next, according to iTunes, next is Pablo Cassals and Dead Kennedys and Biz Markie. maybe i shouldn't let iTunes make all the decisions around here. hmm.
i spend a lot of time thinking about how to quantify abstractions. how to show happiness. how to eat satisfaction. how to wear self. how to call bullshit.
a friend wanted to hug me tonight. it was difficult. i don't like hugging. rather, i don't like being hugged. once i'm in, i'm in. but i don't like being hugged. i am clothed, always.
here's what i know: i am the same as i was at 5. here's what i know: i'm shy. here's what i know: if i stop moving, i sink. here's what i know: i am a shark.
here's what i know: it's going to be okay.
when i was 12, i won the district 26 spelling bee. on the spot, i fudged the spelling of the word "scythe", and i won (sorry, CJW). i won a horrible week at a horrible summer camp, where i had to stuff my own horrible mattress out of horrible hay to the dismay of my horrible allergies, and spread horrible margarine on horrible white bread toast. it sucked, but winning is sometimes important (to me). i feel like i've won, on some level. the prize might be shit, but i'm willing to accept it.
dear prize: don't be shit.
sincerely,
me
p.s. (this blog gets 1400 hits a month. who the hell are you people? comments? please?)
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Friday, February 4, 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Holiday She-tale
I am the kind of person who takes enormous pride in sometimes confusing Topo Gigio with El Topo. How I came to work the Christmas Season In Retail, in The City's Fanciest Mall, at Your Dad's Favourite Store is a bit confusing to me, but there you are.
I last worked retail a decade ago, as the manager of a children's bookstore. The store owner was a strikingly attractive Jewish woman of a certain age; a cuckolding, violently narcissistic person with bony fingers and wild hair. She called herself a midwife because she once delivered a baby, and called herself a doctor because she believed herself a midwife. She once insisted on inspecting an employee's infected nipple ring because she was "a doctor", and frequently enquired about my "BMs". She also, tellingly, openly talked about how she thought herself to be "a charismatic leader, not unlike Jesus". Oh, and once, she cried while reciting the most beautiful poem she'd ever heard. THE POEM WAS THE LYRICS TO JUICE NEWTON'S 'ANGEL OF THE MORNING'.
The last time I worked in a mall was even longer ago than that. It was in the era of the Dress I Was Going To Get Married In, and I worked at both Benetton and Mr. Greenjeans at the Eaton Centre. I endured a lot of Japanese tourists miming out sizing requests that involved tapping the top of my head, puffing out their cheeks, then shaking their heads and wagging their fingers while pointing at me. Translation: my wife is a little shorter than, and not so fat as you. Mr. Greenjeans wasn't any better, as we had to advertise their loyalty program on our t-shirts. The program was called "The Eat It Up Club", and the "P" in "up" had an arrow on it that pointed down. Into our pants. Good times for a naive 19 year old from New Brunswick.
I have spent the last decade avoiding malls, and am surprised at how little they have changed. But maybe it's me. Maybe I don't like the assumptions people make about me because I am trying to sell them flannel-lined jeans and a cotton mock neck turtleneck. Maybe I'm still like I was at 19, feeling deeply out of my element amongst the consumers, people with money, being judged on my appearance. A woman snapped her fingers at me the other day. I nearly ground my teeth to dust. I developed an eye twitch during an exchange with a wealthy woman who was unhappy with the cargo pants we had on offer because they were "too casual". I just kept repeating "But they're cargo pants" over and over, in an even tone, as she repeated back to me that she wanted "pants like these with lots and lots of pockets that my husband could wear with a jacket and tie". "But they're cargo pants."
No matter. I work with lovely and smart people. I am not at risk of injury. I am not thousands of miles away from home, in the arctic. I am at the mall. I am okay.
post script: i just got a call from my boss, who is a very good friend. apparently, i didn't show up for my shift. this is heinous. and classic. i will now spend my wage on a cab to the mall.
I last worked retail a decade ago, as the manager of a children's bookstore. The store owner was a strikingly attractive Jewish woman of a certain age; a cuckolding, violently narcissistic person with bony fingers and wild hair. She called herself a midwife because she once delivered a baby, and called herself a doctor because she believed herself a midwife. She once insisted on inspecting an employee's infected nipple ring because she was "a doctor", and frequently enquired about my "BMs". She also, tellingly, openly talked about how she thought herself to be "a charismatic leader, not unlike Jesus". Oh, and once, she cried while reciting the most beautiful poem she'd ever heard. THE POEM WAS THE LYRICS TO JUICE NEWTON'S 'ANGEL OF THE MORNING'.
The last time I worked in a mall was even longer ago than that. It was in the era of the Dress I Was Going To Get Married In, and I worked at both Benetton and Mr. Greenjeans at the Eaton Centre. I endured a lot of Japanese tourists miming out sizing requests that involved tapping the top of my head, puffing out their cheeks, then shaking their heads and wagging their fingers while pointing at me. Translation: my wife is a little shorter than, and not so fat as you. Mr. Greenjeans wasn't any better, as we had to advertise their loyalty program on our t-shirts. The program was called "The Eat It Up Club", and the "P" in "up" had an arrow on it that pointed down. Into our pants. Good times for a naive 19 year old from New Brunswick.
I have spent the last decade avoiding malls, and am surprised at how little they have changed. But maybe it's me. Maybe I don't like the assumptions people make about me because I am trying to sell them flannel-lined jeans and a cotton mock neck turtleneck. Maybe I'm still like I was at 19, feeling deeply out of my element amongst the consumers, people with money, being judged on my appearance. A woman snapped her fingers at me the other day. I nearly ground my teeth to dust. I developed an eye twitch during an exchange with a wealthy woman who was unhappy with the cargo pants we had on offer because they were "too casual". I just kept repeating "But they're cargo pants" over and over, in an even tone, as she repeated back to me that she wanted "pants like these with lots and lots of pockets that my husband could wear with a jacket and tie". "But they're cargo pants."
No matter. I work with lovely and smart people. I am not at risk of injury. I am not thousands of miles away from home, in the arctic. I am at the mall. I am okay.
post script: i just got a call from my boss, who is a very good friend. apparently, i didn't show up for my shift. this is heinous. and classic. i will now spend my wage on a cab to the mall.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Drive'er, MacGyver
I don’t drive. I got my learner’s permit just before my mother fell ill. Before her diagnosis, the teaching sessions with my father were tedious but short. We would go to a parking lot—he would drive there, though I was legally allowed--and he would only let me work on one “skill”, and I had to do it until he was satisfied. An hour of 3-point turns, and then we would silently walk counterclockwise around the car. Me, around the back, from driver’s side to passenger’s, and my father around the front. Then my father would drive home. Often, these parking lots were less than a ten-minute drive from our house. During my mother’s illness and treatment, the sessions became understandably infrequent, and generally devolved into thinly veiled exchanges about our mutual disapproval of how the other was dealing with my mother’s inevitable and imminent death. Somewhere in there, my learner’s permit expired.
One way or the other, I just never managed to get my license. This has only rarely been an inconvenience; I moved to the big city 6 months after my mother died and never looked back. You don’t need a car in the city. Not having a car in the city allows you to pretend that you’re some kind of environmental hero or political activist, when really you’re either just poor or lazy. Or both. I don’t drive. Make of that what you will.
ANYWAY.
Not driving became a bit of an issue when I worked in Nunavut, where 5 months a year it’s not just difficult to walk, but actually dangerous. And so it became necessary for the office to ensure that at least one person in the office drove, so I wouldn’t get lost in a whiteout and freeze to death while trundling 200 metres down the dirt road for a $28 can of Tim Horton’s coffee. Eventually, the driver job was expanded to a kind of long-haul taxi driver to and from the mine site. The drive to site was, at best, a seven hour round trip, made twice a day in two shifts, day and night. It was a highly desirable job. Prior to the construction of the road (which took years, and cost approximately a bazillion dollars), the longest drive in town was a 3km stretch between town and the airport, with a very exciting speed limit of 70km/hr. It became slightly less coveted once we banned smoking in company vehicles, but was still sought-after nonetheless.
The second shift generally finished around 9 pm, and despite starting my workday at 7 am, I was usually still in the office when the second shift ended. I worked a minimum of 14 hours a day, the average was 16, and I once worked 20 hours a day for nearly two weeks straight. I lived on red bull and beef jerky for the better part of a year. I was, to put it mildly, on edge 99% of the time. Wow, this is a lot of backstory.
It was a long day. They always were, but this one was particularly long, owing to a communications failure along the road, several vehicular strandings on the tundra, a lack of water in the office, and an abundance of unpumped sewage at the crew house (basically rendering the toilets unusable and shutting down all running water). So it was 10pm, I was still in the office, and I couldn’t lock the doors until every worker staying at the crew house had come to use the washroom and gone to bed. Several contractors were also in my office, trying to sort out the communications failure. One of them went to the reception desk to use the phone. Seated at the reception desk, he yelled to me, “Hey, this is a pretty good picture. Who drew this?” I couldn’t see the picture from where I sat, and mumbled that it was likely the 4 year-old niece of the receptionist—several of her drawings were taped to the wall. The contractor said that it couldn’t have been drawn by a 4 year old, and held the drawing up so his coworker could see it. The coworker, seated across from me, nodded enthusiastically that indeed, it could not have been drawn by a 4 year old. Still unable to see the drawing and irritated by the chatter while I was CLEARLY still hard at work, I quickly said that perhaps it had been drawn by the community liaison officer’s 8 year old, and shut down the topic of conversation in order to, you know, talk about THE WORK THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. The two contractors giggled for another 10 minutes, and eventually left the building to FINALLY deal with whatever generator had failed, causing the communications failure. It was close to midnight by the time they left, so I ended my 16-hour workday and went home.
The next morning, I arrived to find my day driver already in the office, seated at the reception desk. He was chuckling to himself, and as soon as I was settled at my desk, he came in, a piece of paper in his hand. “I forgot I left this here,” he said, extending the paper in my direction. “Ha ha,” he said, with a forced laugh. I took the paper and looked down. It was quite obviously the drawing the contractors had been discussing the night before. The page was divided horizontally in two by a pencil-drawn dashed line. On the left was a blue ballpoint pen drawing of a naked woman on her back. Her knees were bent, and her genitals were exposed to the artist. Her face was not visible. Knees, breasts, and crotch. The end. It was, in all senses of the word, incredibly crude, but a lot of time seemed to have been spent filling in her voluminous and very curly pubic hair. Think Phil Spector’s murder trial hair, before the blond blowout. The right side of the page was a drawing of a man, penetrating a woman from behind. He was grinning. He had jack-o-lantern teeth and was very, very clearly my day driver. The woman, well, she was not his girlfriend. I was a little uncomfortable at this point, as one might expect. I couldn’t make eye contact with the driver, so I continued to stare at the drawing. And that’s when I realized that the woman had curly hair. She had hair on her head like Phil Spector’s murder trial hair before the blond blowout. She was built like a cartoon character, and had very round not-Inuit eyes. The woman, I realized, was me. That’s when I went from being moderately uncomfortable to, let’s say, very uncomfortable? That sounds about right. I think I made a very small squeaking sound in that moment of realization (as I sometimes do, because I am a cartoon character, after all), which then tipped him off to the fact that I’d figured it all out. He yanked the drawing from my hands and ripped it up into many, many little pieces.
I can’t tell you how often I wish I’d been able to save that drawing from destruction. I mean, how often does a coworker leave explicit fanart—FEATURING YOU—lying casually around your workplace? The answer, kids, is not often. But actually, as I type these words, I realize that this has happened to me once before. I was on tour in a show when I was 18, my learner’s driving permit nearing expiration, in the first month following my mother’s diagnosis. About 3 weeks into the tour, a devoutly Christian castmate woke me up in the middle of the night to tearfully confess to having drawn a series of very un-Christian images of me. Which is pretty amazing, now that I think of it. Huh. This ended up being like the story version definition of ouroborous. Rush would be proud. Now, if the driver for this movie I’m running craft services for sketches up a little something involving me, him, a crappy ancient Camry and nudity on a 100l cooler, this story is going to be a whole lot better the next time I think to tell it. I’ll keep you posted.
One way or the other, I just never managed to get my license. This has only rarely been an inconvenience; I moved to the big city 6 months after my mother died and never looked back. You don’t need a car in the city. Not having a car in the city allows you to pretend that you’re some kind of environmental hero or political activist, when really you’re either just poor or lazy. Or both. I don’t drive. Make of that what you will.
ANYWAY.
Not driving became a bit of an issue when I worked in Nunavut, where 5 months a year it’s not just difficult to walk, but actually dangerous. And so it became necessary for the office to ensure that at least one person in the office drove, so I wouldn’t get lost in a whiteout and freeze to death while trundling 200 metres down the dirt road for a $28 can of Tim Horton’s coffee. Eventually, the driver job was expanded to a kind of long-haul taxi driver to and from the mine site. The drive to site was, at best, a seven hour round trip, made twice a day in two shifts, day and night. It was a highly desirable job. Prior to the construction of the road (which took years, and cost approximately a bazillion dollars), the longest drive in town was a 3km stretch between town and the airport, with a very exciting speed limit of 70km/hr. It became slightly less coveted once we banned smoking in company vehicles, but was still sought-after nonetheless.
The second shift generally finished around 9 pm, and despite starting my workday at 7 am, I was usually still in the office when the second shift ended. I worked a minimum of 14 hours a day, the average was 16, and I once worked 20 hours a day for nearly two weeks straight. I lived on red bull and beef jerky for the better part of a year. I was, to put it mildly, on edge 99% of the time. Wow, this is a lot of backstory.
It was a long day. They always were, but this one was particularly long, owing to a communications failure along the road, several vehicular strandings on the tundra, a lack of water in the office, and an abundance of unpumped sewage at the crew house (basically rendering the toilets unusable and shutting down all running water). So it was 10pm, I was still in the office, and I couldn’t lock the doors until every worker staying at the crew house had come to use the washroom and gone to bed. Several contractors were also in my office, trying to sort out the communications failure. One of them went to the reception desk to use the phone. Seated at the reception desk, he yelled to me, “Hey, this is a pretty good picture. Who drew this?” I couldn’t see the picture from where I sat, and mumbled that it was likely the 4 year-old niece of the receptionist—several of her drawings were taped to the wall. The contractor said that it couldn’t have been drawn by a 4 year old, and held the drawing up so his coworker could see it. The coworker, seated across from me, nodded enthusiastically that indeed, it could not have been drawn by a 4 year old. Still unable to see the drawing and irritated by the chatter while I was CLEARLY still hard at work, I quickly said that perhaps it had been drawn by the community liaison officer’s 8 year old, and shut down the topic of conversation in order to, you know, talk about THE WORK THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. The two contractors giggled for another 10 minutes, and eventually left the building to FINALLY deal with whatever generator had failed, causing the communications failure. It was close to midnight by the time they left, so I ended my 16-hour workday and went home.
The next morning, I arrived to find my day driver already in the office, seated at the reception desk. He was chuckling to himself, and as soon as I was settled at my desk, he came in, a piece of paper in his hand. “I forgot I left this here,” he said, extending the paper in my direction. “Ha ha,” he said, with a forced laugh. I took the paper and looked down. It was quite obviously the drawing the contractors had been discussing the night before. The page was divided horizontally in two by a pencil-drawn dashed line. On the left was a blue ballpoint pen drawing of a naked woman on her back. Her knees were bent, and her genitals were exposed to the artist. Her face was not visible. Knees, breasts, and crotch. The end. It was, in all senses of the word, incredibly crude, but a lot of time seemed to have been spent filling in her voluminous and very curly pubic hair. Think Phil Spector’s murder trial hair, before the blond blowout. The right side of the page was a drawing of a man, penetrating a woman from behind. He was grinning. He had jack-o-lantern teeth and was very, very clearly my day driver. The woman, well, she was not his girlfriend. I was a little uncomfortable at this point, as one might expect. I couldn’t make eye contact with the driver, so I continued to stare at the drawing. And that’s when I realized that the woman had curly hair. She had hair on her head like Phil Spector’s murder trial hair before the blond blowout. She was built like a cartoon character, and had very round not-Inuit eyes. The woman, I realized, was me. That’s when I went from being moderately uncomfortable to, let’s say, very uncomfortable? That sounds about right. I think I made a very small squeaking sound in that moment of realization (as I sometimes do, because I am a cartoon character, after all), which then tipped him off to the fact that I’d figured it all out. He yanked the drawing from my hands and ripped it up into many, many little pieces.
I can’t tell you how often I wish I’d been able to save that drawing from destruction. I mean, how often does a coworker leave explicit fanart—FEATURING YOU—lying casually around your workplace? The answer, kids, is not often. But actually, as I type these words, I realize that this has happened to me once before. I was on tour in a show when I was 18, my learner’s driving permit nearing expiration, in the first month following my mother’s diagnosis. About 3 weeks into the tour, a devoutly Christian castmate woke me up in the middle of the night to tearfully confess to having drawn a series of very un-Christian images of me. Which is pretty amazing, now that I think of it. Huh. This ended up being like the story version definition of ouroborous. Rush would be proud. Now, if the driver for this movie I’m running craft services for sketches up a little something involving me, him, a crappy ancient Camry and nudity on a 100l cooler, this story is going to be a whole lot better the next time I think to tell it. I’ll keep you posted.
Friday, October 1, 2010
My Stupid Blog
A year ago today, in a leather jacket, plaid dress, yellow tights and knee-high boots, I quit my job.
I had no idea what I was doing when I burned my life to the ground three years ago, but you can't stop a chain of dominoes. When the last domino falls, you have to set about picking them up. I guess that's what I was trying to do this last year. That was the plan, at least.
As this year dragged on, I began to dread the last week of September, the thought of having to take stock of it all, what with my introspective nature...ugh. I was pretty convinced that I wouldn't like what I figured out. At times, I really felt like this year was just another abstraction I was failing at quantifying.
And then the last week of September came.
My best friend from high school traveled 10 hours to spend 12 with me.
I had an epic chat with an old friend that began in tears, and ended with hysterical laughter.
I reconciled with a dear friend after a 2 year estrangement.
I had a perfect adventure day.
Investments in people will be rewarded.
Everything gets better.
Time is the only answer.
I like being happy.
*******************
I am pretty comfortable in my skin. I learn from my mistakes. I love and am loved. I am very, very lucky.
(and glad that i quit that stupid job)
NEXT.
I had no idea what I was doing when I burned my life to the ground three years ago, but you can't stop a chain of dominoes. When the last domino falls, you have to set about picking them up. I guess that's what I was trying to do this last year. That was the plan, at least.
As this year dragged on, I began to dread the last week of September, the thought of having to take stock of it all, what with my introspective nature...ugh. I was pretty convinced that I wouldn't like what I figured out. At times, I really felt like this year was just another abstraction I was failing at quantifying.
And then the last week of September came.
My best friend from high school traveled 10 hours to spend 12 with me.
I had an epic chat with an old friend that began in tears, and ended with hysterical laughter.
I reconciled with a dear friend after a 2 year estrangement.
I had a perfect adventure day.
Investments in people will be rewarded.
Everything gets better.
Time is the only answer.
I like being happy.
*******************
I am pretty comfortable in my skin. I learn from my mistakes. I love and am loved. I am very, very lucky.
(and glad that i quit that stupid job)
NEXT.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Get Some Shit For Snacktime
She returned from her vacation, jet-lagged and exhausted, to an office in chaos. The photocopier was down. The scanner was broken. The shredder made low, groaning noises, and smelled of smoke whenever forced to shred more than 5 pieces of paper at a time. The sewage hadn't been pumped out in two days, which didn't matter because they hadn't had water in the tanks in three days, which didn't matter because they'd run out of coffee the week before.
Having traveled for 12 hours--the last 4 of which were spent in a filthy truck with no shocks, driving across the dusty tundra--her only intention was to quickly grab a few things from the office, then get as much sleep as possible, but The Receptionist hovered over her. The Receptionist rocked on his feet, shifting his weight back and forth. The Receptionist cleared his throat. Sometimes, it was clear that he wanted something from her, but the words he chose were too vague for her to quickly grasp his meaning. Other times, his words simply made no sense. Although he spoke English more clearly and articulately than most of the other locals, language often failed him. Occasionally, he would resort to acting out what he was trying to say, and this time, he was attempting to describe the dimensions of a man. He stretched, arched an arm in front like a belly, swirled a flat palm on his head to indicate a combover, gestured that the man was short. Then he stuck his index fingers in both ears, and made a cringing face.
It was in that moment that the short, fat, balding man walked, loudly, into her office. The receptionist scrambled away. The short, fat, balding man was sweating, even though it was winter in the Arctic. He was sweating, red in the face, and he was swearing. A lot. She quickly remembered that Jerome was in the building, and rose to shut her door behind the cursing man. Jerome was incredibly religious, and particularly sensitive to coarse language. She couldn't afford another complaint about the office environment from Jerome. He was a terrible employee, frequently absent without explanation, but it was imperative that the local employees be kept happy.
The door closed, she returned to her desk, working her way around the man, who was still sweating and swearing. She interrupted him to introduce herself. He quickly spat out that his name was Bill before returning to his tirade, which continued to make no sense. He had a thick Newfoundland accent, his vowels bouncing as though elasticized. Bill suddenly fell silent. He took off his coat, but not his work gloves, and stood on the other side of her desk. He was still breathing heavily, and his coveralls rustled every time he took in air. After about a minute, he took a slow, deep breath, removed his gloves, and moved to shake her hand. He smelled like diesel. Without thinking, and before she could stop herself, she put her hand to her nose and sniffed. There was a pause, and he locked eyes with her. Somewhat calmly, Bill explained that he'd arrived just after she'd gone on vacation. In the three weeks he'd been there, he said, he had not had one decent meal. This was, unfortunately, not an uncommon complaint. The food situation had been deteriorating since Christmas, and moving two rotating cooks into the guesthouse hadn't appeased people in the way that had been expected. Instead, it just gave people more to complain about. They developed preferences, allegiances. One cook's brown sauce was superior to the other's, they insisted, despite the fact that all the brown sauce was made from the same dusty powder. One cook's meat sauce was superior to that of the other, despite the fact that it had been sent to town from the mine site, prepared by neither of of the cooks in question. The white sauce was delicious. The white sauce was wallpaper paste. So much cheap frozen meat, so much sauce, so much disagreement.
"I ain't fuckin' around," he said. "We need snacks for morning breaktime. I don't want no bullshit pudding cups for snacks. Pudding isn't for morning break. My men need cookies. And Red Rose tea. Not that fuckin' Tetley bullshit. Nothing is worth this bullshit in this fuckin' cold! But I'M diabetic! So I can't haves cookies. I need bananas. I will pull my men, and we will walk. Like I said, I ain't fuckin' around. We gotsta to have the shit we asked for, or we will walk." He turned on his heel and left. She needed to appease Bill. Barge season was close at hand, and he and his crew were repairing an ancient, rusty, dilapidated crane that was to be used to offload materials. Without the crane, the entire mining project was sunk. So she went out and bought the cookies and the tea and the bananas, and several hundred dollars more in snacktime-appropriate groceries.
The next morning at ten, she heard the back door slam. She heard him swearing his way down the hall to her office. She rose and stood by the door for his arrival, which she quickly shut behind him as he entered the room. Again, he was swearing and sweaty and red. "Macaroni is bullshit," he muttered, seemingly to nobody in particular. "I comes up here, and I work some fuckin' hard in this God-foresaken shithole of a town, and they can't even serve me real fuckin' juice? It don't have to be freshly squeezed or nothing', but not even from concentrate?" He drew a deep breath. His face grew redder still. "And then this?! Macaroni is bullshit. My wife knows better than to put bullshit macaroni on my fuckin' table. She would never serve me fuckin' macaroni." A long-distant customer service job had taught her to ask probing questions in the face of perplexing complaints. No, he did not have a gluten allergy. Yes, he liked spaghetti just fine. But no, he would not eat macaroni, and he would pull his crew and leave town if macaroni appeared on the table again, without a moment's hesitation. She suggested that perhaps the matter could be resolved by simply not eating the macaroni on the days that it was served, but this was not satisfactory to Bill. So at 2 pm, when she knew the cook would be taking her mid-day nap, she snuck up to the house and threw out all the macaroni in the pantry.
Two days later, he again presented himself in her office. It was breaktime, and he was loudly insistent that the groceries had been stolen, throwing accusations at the local housekeepers who worked days at the guesthouse. She defended the housekeepers, and in a patronizing tone, explained how quickly groceries get eaten in a house of 15 people. She reminded Bill of her long-standing experience in matters relating to the crew house, and ushered him out the door, promising to buy more food. She went out and bought two kinds of cookies and tea, a dozen very green bananas (at $6/lb), a wide assortment of non-macaroni foodstuffs, brought them to the house, then went back to work.
The next day, Bill returned. Again. He was clutching a black plastic garbage bag that appeared to be mostly empty. His hands quickly fell limply to his sides, dropping the bag. It hit the floor with a muffled thud, and the bag rustled in the draft that blew under the door. He took two steps towards her. He took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. She could only imagine what the problem was this time. "They were the only bananas I could get, Bill. It's the Arctic. I am doing my best. But you need to meet me halfway." He opened his eyes. He took another deep breath. He nudged the bag towards her with his steel-toed boot. He looked her in the eyes.
"Some fuckin' eskimo got into the fuckin' kitchen. She corrected him, reprimanded him for using the offensive term. "Shit, man. In the kitchen." Again, he nudged the bag with his boot, pushing it even closer to her. "Someone got into the house. Someone got into the kitchen." "We went for break. We went for cookies and tea." "And bananas", she interjected, sarcastically. He looked her in the eye. He was not amused. "My men," he continued, "sat down for tea. In the kitchen." In the kitchen, he said, on top of the garbage can, they found a pair of men's briefs. The briefs had been "unloaded in", he said. Deliberately removed, then extensively, enormously, and attentively shat in. "You asked for shit for the kitchen?" she joked. He did not laugh, and she had to buy two $11 cartons of orange juice a day for a month so he wouldn't tell her supervisor.
Just another day at work.
Having traveled for 12 hours--the last 4 of which were spent in a filthy truck with no shocks, driving across the dusty tundra--her only intention was to quickly grab a few things from the office, then get as much sleep as possible, but The Receptionist hovered over her. The Receptionist rocked on his feet, shifting his weight back and forth. The Receptionist cleared his throat. Sometimes, it was clear that he wanted something from her, but the words he chose were too vague for her to quickly grasp his meaning. Other times, his words simply made no sense. Although he spoke English more clearly and articulately than most of the other locals, language often failed him. Occasionally, he would resort to acting out what he was trying to say, and this time, he was attempting to describe the dimensions of a man. He stretched, arched an arm in front like a belly, swirled a flat palm on his head to indicate a combover, gestured that the man was short. Then he stuck his index fingers in both ears, and made a cringing face.
It was in that moment that the short, fat, balding man walked, loudly, into her office. The receptionist scrambled away. The short, fat, balding man was sweating, even though it was winter in the Arctic. He was sweating, red in the face, and he was swearing. A lot. She quickly remembered that Jerome was in the building, and rose to shut her door behind the cursing man. Jerome was incredibly religious, and particularly sensitive to coarse language. She couldn't afford another complaint about the office environment from Jerome. He was a terrible employee, frequently absent without explanation, but it was imperative that the local employees be kept happy.
The door closed, she returned to her desk, working her way around the man, who was still sweating and swearing. She interrupted him to introduce herself. He quickly spat out that his name was Bill before returning to his tirade, which continued to make no sense. He had a thick Newfoundland accent, his vowels bouncing as though elasticized. Bill suddenly fell silent. He took off his coat, but not his work gloves, and stood on the other side of her desk. He was still breathing heavily, and his coveralls rustled every time he took in air. After about a minute, he took a slow, deep breath, removed his gloves, and moved to shake her hand. He smelled like diesel. Without thinking, and before she could stop herself, she put her hand to her nose and sniffed. There was a pause, and he locked eyes with her. Somewhat calmly, Bill explained that he'd arrived just after she'd gone on vacation. In the three weeks he'd been there, he said, he had not had one decent meal. This was, unfortunately, not an uncommon complaint. The food situation had been deteriorating since Christmas, and moving two rotating cooks into the guesthouse hadn't appeased people in the way that had been expected. Instead, it just gave people more to complain about. They developed preferences, allegiances. One cook's brown sauce was superior to the other's, they insisted, despite the fact that all the brown sauce was made from the same dusty powder. One cook's meat sauce was superior to that of the other, despite the fact that it had been sent to town from the mine site, prepared by neither of of the cooks in question. The white sauce was delicious. The white sauce was wallpaper paste. So much cheap frozen meat, so much sauce, so much disagreement.
"I ain't fuckin' around," he said. "We need snacks for morning breaktime. I don't want no bullshit pudding cups for snacks. Pudding isn't for morning break. My men need cookies. And Red Rose tea. Not that fuckin' Tetley bullshit. Nothing is worth this bullshit in this fuckin' cold! But I'M diabetic! So I can't haves cookies. I need bananas. I will pull my men, and we will walk. Like I said, I ain't fuckin' around. We gotsta to have the shit we asked for, or we will walk." He turned on his heel and left. She needed to appease Bill. Barge season was close at hand, and he and his crew were repairing an ancient, rusty, dilapidated crane that was to be used to offload materials. Without the crane, the entire mining project was sunk. So she went out and bought the cookies and the tea and the bananas, and several hundred dollars more in snacktime-appropriate groceries.
The next morning at ten, she heard the back door slam. She heard him swearing his way down the hall to her office. She rose and stood by the door for his arrival, which she quickly shut behind him as he entered the room. Again, he was swearing and sweaty and red. "Macaroni is bullshit," he muttered, seemingly to nobody in particular. "I comes up here, and I work some fuckin' hard in this God-foresaken shithole of a town, and they can't even serve me real fuckin' juice? It don't have to be freshly squeezed or nothing', but not even from concentrate?" He drew a deep breath. His face grew redder still. "And then this?! Macaroni is bullshit. My wife knows better than to put bullshit macaroni on my fuckin' table. She would never serve me fuckin' macaroni." A long-distant customer service job had taught her to ask probing questions in the face of perplexing complaints. No, he did not have a gluten allergy. Yes, he liked spaghetti just fine. But no, he would not eat macaroni, and he would pull his crew and leave town if macaroni appeared on the table again, without a moment's hesitation. She suggested that perhaps the matter could be resolved by simply not eating the macaroni on the days that it was served, but this was not satisfactory to Bill. So at 2 pm, when she knew the cook would be taking her mid-day nap, she snuck up to the house and threw out all the macaroni in the pantry.
Two days later, he again presented himself in her office. It was breaktime, and he was loudly insistent that the groceries had been stolen, throwing accusations at the local housekeepers who worked days at the guesthouse. She defended the housekeepers, and in a patronizing tone, explained how quickly groceries get eaten in a house of 15 people. She reminded Bill of her long-standing experience in matters relating to the crew house, and ushered him out the door, promising to buy more food. She went out and bought two kinds of cookies and tea, a dozen very green bananas (at $6/lb), a wide assortment of non-macaroni foodstuffs, brought them to the house, then went back to work.
The next day, Bill returned. Again. He was clutching a black plastic garbage bag that appeared to be mostly empty. His hands quickly fell limply to his sides, dropping the bag. It hit the floor with a muffled thud, and the bag rustled in the draft that blew under the door. He took two steps towards her. He took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. She could only imagine what the problem was this time. "They were the only bananas I could get, Bill. It's the Arctic. I am doing my best. But you need to meet me halfway." He opened his eyes. He took another deep breath. He nudged the bag towards her with his steel-toed boot. He looked her in the eyes.
"Some fuckin' eskimo got into the fuckin' kitchen. She corrected him, reprimanded him for using the offensive term. "Shit, man. In the kitchen." Again, he nudged the bag with his boot, pushing it even closer to her. "Someone got into the house. Someone got into the kitchen." "We went for break. We went for cookies and tea." "And bananas", she interjected, sarcastically. He looked her in the eye. He was not amused. "My men," he continued, "sat down for tea. In the kitchen." In the kitchen, he said, on top of the garbage can, they found a pair of men's briefs. The briefs had been "unloaded in", he said. Deliberately removed, then extensively, enormously, and attentively shat in. "You asked for shit for the kitchen?" she joked. He did not laugh, and she had to buy two $11 cartons of orange juice a day for a month so he wouldn't tell her supervisor.
Just another day at work.
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