The dread kicks in not long after the coffee and the mind looks for excuses while trying not to think about the why. It’s not the job. Not the tedium itself. All jobs are tedium. That thing they sold us when we were kids- what guidance counselors, college recruitment mailers sold us – was a lie. A career is a tedium that (in theory) you get trained for. A job is a tedium you’re thrown neck deep into after a two hour orientation video. But it’s not the tedium. I’ve accepted the tedium because it’s temporary. All jobs are temporary. All careers too. The why is that slight twinge in my right leg left over from last night when the pain grew up out of the cement and through the soles of my feet up my legs into my lower back. But I tell myself as I swallow back the dread that the pain too is temporary. Unconvinced I leave my chair anyway.
Category Archives: fiction
King of the Horse Players
10 years ago when I lived in Phoenix, I used to drink with the king of the horse players. We hung out at the same bar with an in-house OTB. He’d come in while he was out “running errands.” Getting his Caddy washed. Running out for a quart of milk. He’d bring the milk in with him and Myka the bartender would put it on the bar fridge. He usually nursed one cocktail over 4 or 5 hours and always played the 10 cent superfectas. His other rules were simple : never bet more than you can afford to say you didn’t win and always bet on the gray horse. He rarely lost. He always tipped Myka well. And he almost always forgot the milk.
TMI
Why don’t you substitute teach? My supervisor decided to spend more than three words on me after I didn’t lose my shit using that wand/security/MIB Forgety-Memory-Thingy on the incoming crowd to the university football home opener. I didn’t take it personally. The football game was my 2nd event with the company and my first big event. The first was a double-header soccer game: women’s first, then men’s. I don’t know that much about the game but to this casual observer, college men’s soccer is not nearly as cutthroat as college women’s soccer. The men do a lot of strut running and fast cutting moves. Fucking showoffs. But the women are basically street fighting on the field and the refs have little or no interest in stopping it. Roll Trips. Elbows to ribs. Surreptitious pushes and shoves. Reminds me of the girls I went to middle school with. They’d take your eye out with a mascara pencil at recess and then get their boyfriends to flush your clothes when you’re in the shower after gym class. And that was only one day. Cutthroat bitches.
Most of the people going into the game were cooperative. This is the world we live in, right? Metal detectors in elementary schools. Felt up and unshod by the TSA. And it was 9/11 after all. The event director, a Wal-Mart Greeter named Al, made sure to tell us “a word on security” before we got randomly shuffled to our assignments. It was important, he told us, to make sure and not overlook the new bag and purse policy. I didn’t especially like telling someone’s derringer-packing granny that she couldn’t take her too-big-not-clear-plastic purse into the stadium. But, you know, terrorism. That’s what Al said. A few people made comments about anal probes to keep me from reminding them they weren’t allowed to take open bottles of beer into the bowl. I told them all I wasn’t paid enough. They all laughed and ditched the bottles.
The supervisor’s name was Mary. I found out that she’s a high school teacher. That helps. I know how to talk to teachers. When I tell Mary about having once taught college, I leave out the unpleasant details. I’ve found over the years that no one ever really wants to hear the unpleasant details. I’ve never read a book about how to engage in small talk in the workplace, but if I did, I’m betting one of the important chapters would be called “Don’t Add Too Many Details (Because No One Really Cares!!)” She told me again that I ended up do the job of two people because our gate was short staffed. The way she said it made me think maybe it was normal. She’s not working event security because she’s underpaid, but because she’s paying for her goddaughter’s competitive dance. Mary said it costs about 10 grand a year. She didn’t tell me her goddaughter’s name and I didn’t ask.