All the Stuff

I am watching you for two reasons: boredom and skimpy outfits.  Please stop trying to appease me with Ferris Bueller references.  You will never win me over.  I will not like you.  

Author: Me, Age 23

Time: Winter 2005

A fancy Irish hotel downtown called me and asked if I was still interested in the job.  I couldn’t remember what the job was or whether I had ever been interested, so I said yes, absolutely.  I spoke with the head of the hotel restaurant and he told me that I’d be bartending downtown for swanky patrons paying exorbitant prices.  Not only that, but I could more or less make my own hours based around my schedule and he would have the other bartenders fill in the rest of the time.  We decided to meet on the coming Saturday at 10:00 AM.  I was so excited.  I started to imagine how it would be:  he would show me the place I’d be working and we would talk about his motorcycle and how he came to get his job.  The he and I would be the best of friends and the customers would be a sort of side project that we worked on when we weren’t having the best time of our lives. 

I woke up on Saturday at 11:30 with a yawn and a stretch.  I looked up at the clock, and for a moment I believed that it was Friday and I still had a whole day before my interview.  If it was 11:30 then it couldn’t be Saturday, because I was getting up at 10:00 on Saturday.  My alarm was set and everything.  I got up and inspected my computer.  CNN.com seemed to believe that it was Saturday, despite my evidence to the contrary.  Even my computer’s internal clock betrayed me.  Knowing now that I was the only one in possession of the truth, I did what any man would do in this situation.  I called my mom.

“I was supposed to meet the guy at 10:00 and it’s 11:30 now and I don’t know why the alarm didn’t go off and I’m going to be more than 2 hours late now, and there’s no way that I can make this work out.”

“Honey, just call the guy and tell him that you’re running late and you’ll be in as soon as you can.”

“But I’m not running late, I’m not even running yet!”

“Just call him and tell him you’ll be there later.”

So I called him.  He sounded, well, not perturbed, but as though he was sort of surprised that I called.  It was as if my failure to arrive had shown him that I had never existed in the first place.  Having a conversation with me over the phone was like seeing a dodo walking down the street, extraordinary except who cares?  

I told him I’d be in later that day and he told me I wouldn’t.  He had other people to interview and he’d call me back later in the week with another time to meet.  I was shocked.  He had other people to interview?!  I thought that he and I had an understanding; he would give me a job with great perks and the potential for a lot of money if I would take it.  I was holding up my end! 

I felt, correctly, that he would never call back.  It turns out that an inability to arrive within an hour and a half of the agreed upon time is not an attractive quality to employers.  Perhaps disability would be a better word than inability.  Regardless, I had blown a chance at employment because…well, I still don’t know why.  That alarm clock has never failed me before and never failed me since.  But on that day it was the worst enemy I had.

Dejected, I went the route of one of my roommates, that is, I became a temporary employee.  What appealed to me about this position was its name.  Temporary employee.  I had other things I had to be doing.  I didn’t have time to be on staff.  I’ll do your work, but only so long as it suits my whims.  The moment I tire of you and your office, I’ll be on my way to do more important things.  Even Darren, the director of the agency, seemed to believe this.  He told me that he once negotiated a contract wherein the temp could bring his dog to work.  This temp was not blind, nor did he have any reason to bring his dog to work. He didn’t even have a desire to bring his dog to work.  Darren had negotiated this contract just to see if he could. 

I was in awe of this man.  He had incredible energy, a real knack for getting people work, and he spoke with such speed that I sometimes thought his lower jaw would fly off.  On the negative side, his memory was not so hot on certain things.  An example: to make sure that you really want employment, you are required to call in every day that you aren’t working and let the agency know of your availability.  I woke up at 8 on my first day of association with the agency and called right away.  I spoke with Darren himself, which I later found out is a rarity, and he said he was glad that I was on board and ready to go.  He told me that he was working on something for me and that I should call back around 3.

     I thought, wow, this afternoon?  That’s fast work.  Bruce has been going here for weeks and all he gets to do is check coats at some museum place.  I’m here one day and I’m getting something worked on. 

     With a certain sense of superiority I rolled over and went back to sleep.  My day hadn’t even begun yet and I was already having a good one.  Hours later I was telling Bruce of my impending victory.  He was not especially happy to hear the news, but it didn’t matter to me, I was only a phone call away from employment. 

     Three o’clock rolled around and I sat with Bruce in the living room.  The TV was on and I was mostly watching him to see if he’d remind me that it was three and it was time to call.  Of course, I had been aware of each passing minute and how it brought me closer to my ultimate goal.  At 3:04 I casually stood up and announced that I had just realized it was after three and I guess I’d better call Darren and see what all the hubbub was about.

     I called, spoke to Anna, the very nice girl who always answered the phone “How can I make your day?” which I don’t think meant what I thought it meant, and asked to speak to Darren. 

     “Tommy! What’s up?”

     “Hey, I’m-”

     “You called this morning, right?  But you’re calling again, a real go-getter, huh?  Well, leave me alone!  Haha, I’m kidding.  I like that, you’ll do well.  OK, well I don’t have anything for you yet, but call in the morning as usual.  Take it easy man!”

     Click.

     I stood there astonished.  Not that there was no work, I had had a feeling that that would be the case, but that I had never said anything, and that he didn’t remember telling me to call back.  I guess there’s nothing wrong with being a go-getter, it might even get me work faster if he thought I was really eager to get to it, but the simple fact is that I am not, and never have been, and have never aspired to be, a go-getter.  I’m more of a stay-leaver.  Or, if I’m feeling really ambitious, a stay-ask-you-to-go-get-for-me-er.  

     I did eventually get work from them.  Darren called me to let me know that the RTA needed help at their office.  Apparently, and I have done no research on this whatsoever, the RTA is the larger group that encompasses the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).  I figured, hey, good news, I’ll show up, do my work for however long they need it, and then I’ll be on my way to becoming an ass-kicking temp.  I showed up at their building at 8 AM as planned and went up the elevator.  I was to meet a man named Grady and he would give me my assignment.  I wore my nice black shoes, khakis, and a white button down shirt.  I didn’t exactly look like the suave new office worker that I intended, but I looked alright.  I got to the RTA office and was let into a waiting room where I could await Grady.  Grady came in, he was a 6 foot 4 inch black man bordering on elderly.  He walked with a limp that would have retired most men.  He was wearing a Notre Dame sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.  His Timberlands were the shoes of a man who is not concerned with shoes.  People wear all sorts of things on casual Friday.  Grady wore this on Tuesday. 

     “You’re Tom?  Follow me,” he said as though I had answered.

     I followed him for what seemed like half a mile to a strange rear office featuring a series of small tables and uncomfortable looking chairs and a kitchen splattered in spaghetti sauce.  He told me to sit and wait for the others.  Apparently, there were others.  I was there for half an hour trying to remain patient while every person who came by asked me if they could help me with something.  If I had needed help I’m sure I would have been most appreciative of them, and I would have been angry at the people who walked right past.  But as it was I kept thinking, what would I need help with?  I’m sitting at a table at the ass end of whatever office this is waiting for the others.  Eventually Mark showed up.  He was the others, because he was the only one who showed up.  He was a 6 foot 7 black man with arms about as thick as my torso.  He wore a red flannel shirt of the kind that mostly lumberjacks wear, matched with a pair of jeans and timberlands that made Grady’s look positively elegant.  I looked at my barely 6 feet of height, my pale, sickly looking skin, my meager physique, and my pseudo-dressy threads and it occurred to me that I was not prepared for whatever task lay ahead. 

     The office work that we were contracted to perform was to move a desk, a bureau, and a couch from one office to another.  Not exactly what I had anticipated.  Although, I don’t really know what I had imagined could be done in one day at any office.  In any case, Mark and I moved the furniture while Grady supervised things and started discussions about things of which I have no knowledge like gospel music and the Bears.  Mark and I worked not very hard for about an hour and a half.  Then we took a cigarette break, during which I sat at the spaghetti table.  Then Grady came and said we were done and sent us on our way.  I made $8.00 an hour for an hour and a half of work.  So I walked over to the agency, turned in my timesheet and proceeded to the Mexican place down the street to eat a $6 burrito at 10:30 in the morning.  All together I made $6 (before taxes but after lunch) and got indigestion.

Author: Me, age 23

Time: Winter 2005

Before I came to Chicago I had never worked in an office before.  It had been my intention to come out here and improvise.  When Megan would ask me when I was coming to visit her, I would always respond that it all depended upon whether I would be in a play, or a resident at an improv troupe (whatever that means).  So I moved out here in October figuring that I could get a job bartending somewhere and that that would pay the bills until I managed to get myself into a play.  Then I could begin the starving aspect of my art. 

     I started my search in Wrigleyville, home of the world famous Chicago Cubs.  Fans of the cubs are rabid, fervent people; they are unlike most other baseball fans in that they are the same except they live on the north side of Chicago, and they support the entire beverage service industry in that region.  I, unaware even that the Cubs were quickly running out of home games, let alone that they were the sole reason for Wrigleyville’s bar scene, approached the situation bravely. 

     I had tended bar at a small, upscale Italian restaurant for the previous 3 months, and before that I had taken a course at the Authentic Bartending School, so named for the fact that they were a bona fide school that taught how to bartend and for the purposes of early listing in phone books.  This place had prepared me by spending a week and a half teaching me a few drinks, how to pour (not as easy as it sounds, but not much harder, either), and the country of origin for numerous unpopular liquors.  For instance, I can now tell you that Irish cream comes from Ireland, and that a rum and coke, when properly supplied with lime wedges, can be known as a “Cuba Libre”.  Lots of people know this, but no one orders it that way, because it’s stupid.  Following that week and a half, we spent one day on wine, which it turns out is truly more dense and complicated a subject than calculus could ever be, simply because, to my knowledge, calculus does not have a vintage and is just about the same in every region of the world. 

Of course, I ended up working at a bar where wine was the number one beverage, barely edging out grey goose martinis and water.  I had a very nice time working in this restaurant.  The people were all exceedingly nice, I got along very well with the manager, and no one really bothered me.  People mostly went straight to their tables and ordered drinks at their leisure from there. 

My second night on the job Bruce Springsteen came to eat for his wife’s birthday.  Where I come from this is akin to a visit from the Pope, minus all the hats.  All of their cosmopolitans were dark red, and all their wine glasses had sticky fingerprints on them.  I was an awful bartender. 

Lucky for me, and for future patrons, rock-star or otherwise, George was an excellent manager.  He had been a bartender for close to ten years before meeting a girl named Irene and settling in as manager of her family’s restaurant.  He had been through a number of different bartenders in the years past, all of them terrible.  I had a 3 day a week position, and with the place closed on Mondays, it left 3 days open for Ricky.  Everyone seemed to like Ricky.  I didn’t, but that was only because I hadn’t met him and he was keeping me from making twice as much money.  Ricky was, according to numerous reports (mainly from George) a “bull in a china closet”.  Having only heard the “china shop” version of this expression, I found this image hysterical.  I imagined my parents china closet in our dining room.  In my mind I walked into the room and there was a bull crammed in there looking uncomfortable and more than just a little bit confused.  Every time Ricky came up in conversation I laughed out loud, to the bewilderment of my new friends. 

George trained me and I learned a lot about how to be a bartender (I also learned a lot about George’s motorcycle, but for the purposes of this story, which has already gone so far a field from its original subject matter, it shall be left out).  I learned how to…ummm, well I can’t really think of anything I learned, since I am even now without a bartending job.  More on that later.

I left this job, and my home, for Chicago, a place I had only ever visited once and only for 2 days.  My father and I arrived, greeted my roommates, and once we had finished moving everything in, he hopped a plane back home and I was independent.  By independent, I mean confused and subject to a self-imposed house arrest.  I called my bartending school and had them send me some “job leads”, a thing they advertise and which is the major reason anyone would go there and pay them.  Job leads, for those who don’t know, are a breakdown of jobs that you could have found on your own and that you wouldn’t have wanted.  Armed with the knowledge that I really was on my own, I headed out to Wrigleyville looking for work.  The first bar I walked into was nice enough.  A sports bar, obviously, and since it was between the lunch and dinner hours I was greeted immediately by a host.  He jumped out of his seat in a friendly manner and started to get a menu and lead me to a table when I interrupted him and told him I was looking for the manager.

He looked at me and said, “He’s around,” and sat down on his stool to stare sullenly at the wall.  I was shocked that his entire persona was dependent upon my interest in a table.  Despite his attitude, his statement was accurate.  The manager was around, in the sense that no one knew precisely where he was and no one seemed too concerned.  I took up a sentry position outside his office, figuring that he would have to come back to this place eventually, if only to get his jacket.  Lucky for me he returned almost immediately.  I told him I was looking for a bartender position.  He said, “OK.”  That was as pleasant as he got.

He told me to fill out an application form, attach a resume, and wait for callbacks.  As an aspiring actor, I was familiar with the notion of callbacks, but I wondered what this could mean for a bartender.  Would they have me come in and make them drinks?  I never found out, since I was never once called back for a job. 

Everyplace I went after that told me that since the Cubs season was over, there would be no work for me.  Not that there was no work, but that there was no work for me.  I started applying for jobs I had no interest in at all: bars where there was a weekly midget wrestling match, bars with filthy staircases just inside the door that led to filthier interiors all lit with neon blue lights, bars with no visible clientele whatsoever.  I began to apply for secret shopper positions and envelope stuffing schemes.  It was all getting to be rather pathetic.  I was swiftly running out of money and panic began to set up shop. 

Then relief came.

I recently uncovered an old Word .doc of mine.  It goes by the name “Just Some Bullshit”.  I wrote it almost exclusively while I sat at my desk at the most terrible job I’ve ever had.  A job so terrible that it gives me shivers even now.  A job so terrible that even now, 6 years later, I won’t go into the building where they keep that job.  It’s still there, you know, lurking.  Luring young people into its reach and then feeding on their juices until they’re twisted and angry.  

Anyway, I’m going to grab snippets from it, unedited, and post them here.  I think my original intent for them was to publish them somewhere.  This is somewhere, so… I guess that’s another goal accomplished!

*The title of this post changed when I regained the ability to spell simple words.