we shall overcome!
I’ll admit, I once had a phobia towards fat people, but I was only a kid. Kid, being the operative word here making the phobia pardonable. Kids are stupid, kind of like old people, but a lot cuter. At least I was and that alone directly led to the root of this phobia. I remember it vividly. I had to have only been like 4 at the time and out of nowhere this fat lady, grabbed me, picked me up to her fat sweaty face and said, “Oh- you are so cute, I could just gobble you up!” That scared me retarded! Needless to say, I eventually overcame my fear so now, like anyone else, I just don’t pay any attention to them at all unless I have to.
Point in case; back to temping. I show up at whatever the place was called, jacket and tie, updated resume in hand and I step towards the receptionist window where I am handed a clipboard to fill out my information and attach my resume. The woman behind the desk hands me a fluorescent colored pen with the companies name, address and telephone number on it. It was so neon, hip and funky. I filled out the info, took the mandatory computer skills assessment tests and then waited in the area again. Finally I heard a swish- swish sound getting louder with the ground vibrating under my chair as if the subway somehow got detoured to the twenty eighth floor of the building. Then I see her and that song that goes ‘I feel the earth move under my feet’ got stuck in my head, “Mr. Hamilton, nice to meet you. I’m Tina Vesneski.”She says.
Actually, I just made up her name as I really don’t recall what it was, because she was fat and Tina sounds like an appropriate name for a fatso. Vesneski was my fifth grade teacher. In all fairness to her, she wasn’t really morbidly obese, but then again I think anyone who wears a size four or greater should maybe run around the block every once in a while or at least try throwing up their lunch- lazy pieces of crap. I think Vesneski is an appropriate name regardless, because she farted once and I thought that was grossly unprofessional.
“Nice to meet you…” I said. The dialogue is really not important as the content of my experience. We made our way to her desk.
So I’m sitting at the fatty’s desk at placement agency XYZ to go over my Excel and Word scores. “Well Michael, your word scores here are excellent, but your Excel is only at the intermediate level.” “Does this mean I’m not worthy of your assistance?” I asked and she told me, “There is no need to worry, your results are actually better than most, besides we don’t really rely too heavily on the scores if we see talent that can go out and represent our company. That’s my job. I seek out the diamonds in the rough.” Blah blah blah, Jesus Christ! Shut up already. I couldn’t get a word in otherwise. It was like this big fat abundance of energy sucking the life out of me and spiting it back out at me like diarrhea. That is if diarrhea came out of your mouth, but it doesn’t. It comes of your butt, which is what this fatso’s face looked like- a big fat butt! What a sloucho. Again, not that I have any phobias against them like I once did in my OCD hey day, but my experience has always been that if they didn’t waste so much time cock blocking you from their one hot friend, or blaming their fatness on a thyroid or some bullshit like that, maybe they wouldn’t be so medicated. My girlfriend has a couple of fat friends and I feel they all take issue towards me, because they don’t have their own boyfriends to bitch about. My solution to that has already been stated and my response is simply until you get your own boyfriend- get off my back. You have no authority what so ever to give advice. Get a boyfriend and no, I don’t have any good looking guy friends (that would ever be seen with you).
So she’s talking a mile a minute, blithering with the confidence of a hot chick and I can’t help thinking, why doesn’t she throw up, like normal girls? My mind begins to wander again as I take the neon pen from behind my ear. I start twirling it around in my fingers like a little drum stick while pretending I’m listening. I look up, make eye contact, nod, smile warmly and look back down at my pen. I then kind of spaced out with that stupid song in my head again as I’m not really focusing on anything, but then as I was looking at my pen and her purple shirt which called attention to every nook and cranny of her torso. This woman had more nooks and crannies than an English muffin and a belly button hole big enough to store a butter-ball turkey.
I then got this imagery of star wars where in the Empire Strikes back there’s a scene where Hans Solo is on some weird planet. It’s kind of like a tundra or snowstorm whatever, but he’s freezing and there are like these huge weird animals. I forgot what their called, but I had a toy one when I was a kid. Anyway in this scene, Hans Solo takes his light saber and cuts a giant hole in the animals gut so he could hibernate in there to escape the elements.
Man it smells like shit in here. Fuck! Not to get off the topic, but I’m on a bus headed to Boston and we just made a stop at Roy Rogers. Why anyone would eat that shit if they don’t have to is beyond me. That’s actually one of the reasons I decided to put a cap on my touring. When you’re traveling weeks and months at a time- your food selection is rather limited, so you have to eat that shit, cracker barrel or whatever is at the rest stops. Seriously my diet has consisted of snickers bars and red bulls for breakfast and lots of cigarettes. Sleeping patterns are even worse- three hours one night or twenty hours straight the next and you drink every single night. It’s not healthy and can really drive you nuts.
Tina finally asked me what I wanted to do, “Michael, if you could have any kind of job, seriously try me. If you could have any kind of job- what would it be?” I looked at her, raised my eye brows skeptically and told her that I would like to maybe get a job doing A&R at one of the major record labels. She said, “Alright, well, you’re in luck. I don’t have anything in the record industry, but I do have something in the Entertainment industry. Are you familiar with Hallmark entertainment?” I’m like, “No, but I do know they make like greeting cards and stuff- is that what your talking about? Is it the same company?” She said, “Yes Michael, it is the same company, but not the division that makes the greeting cards, which is what they may be more known for. They make made for TV movies. This is a great opportunity for anyone trying to break into the film industry.” I said, “Sure, I’ll check it out.” After all, it could have been cool- perhaps a stepping stone to somewhere else.
Boy was I fucking wrong! I show up at the office the next day at Hallmark entertainment with an open mind and the best of intensions. I wore a really nice outfit and was eager to take full advantage of the opportunity. I walk in and they have all their made for TV movie posters hanging up all over the office, like Gulliver’s travels and shit like that and I’m thinking whatever- these are stupid movies, but its a job. Then the woman who was I guess the temp agencies contact came out to greet me. “Hello Michael, I’m so and so and such and such.” I stuck out my hand, “It’s really nice to meet you.” I then made some friendly small talk, told her about myself and asked her where I was to be working. Perhaps she could maybe walk me to the area where I was working? “Oh Michael, its Michael write? Do you go by Mike or Michael?” Michael. “OK” she clears her throat, “uhm Michael.” like she never met a Michael before as if I was pretending to not be a Mike. Then she told me, “You’re not going to be actually working in this building.”
To make a long story short, she sent me over to Manhattan mini storage with a drill and the maintenance guy to disassemble filing cabinets. I couldn’t believe it, but it gets worse. We get there and the guy shows me what I’m supposed to do, which was not only take these things apart, but I had to then throw them out in a giant dumpster downstairs. He left and he left me there alone with my only company being a drill and the two hundred or so filing cabinets I had to take apart. “Dude, I don’t think I can finish this today!” He’s like “don’t worry about it. Just get as much done today as you can and then come back tomorrow.” I’m like, “where the office?” With a straight face he said, “No that won’t be necessary. You can just come straight here and I can maybe meet you here in the later part of the afternoon. It shouldn’t really take you that long.” He then showed me what to do and did like three of them in like ten seconds. “See it’s not that hard.” He then left.
That night I took the drill home. I thought it was cool and I wanted to show it to my brother to show him proof of how much of a piece of shit I had become. Needless to say, the job did have a lot of autonomy. I showed up the next day, disassembled two filing cabinets and then went to Dunkin Donuts. I wound up falling asleep shortly after that. Next thing I know it was a little before five o’clock and I got the maintenance guy back yelling at me. “Yo! What duh fuck yuh doin? How many of deeze tings have yah actually disassembled? Alright, I know I did like tree of dem, dares five apaht! Dats only…” I cut him off, “two, I disassembled two.” He starts yelling, “You been here all day and yestehday!” Then there was an awkward pause of like two minutes where we just stood looking at each other dumbfounded. I then gave him the finger and left. He chased me out of the building and made me promise that I’d throw them out if he finished them. He felt partially bad, because I told him that I never used a drill before and although it was easy for him, I had a difficult time and was doing my best.
Next day I had to throw all these things in this giant dumpster which wound up being too small for all of them. Then I got the Manhattan mini- storage guy yelling at me and said he was going to fine me if I didn’t put them all in there and if I didn’t just throw the (garbage) out, but instead stack them methodically, they could all fit. That meant I had to crawl in the dumpster where these dirt dicks were getting off looking at me do bullshit work. This mother fucker, I swear to God actually started chanting, “We shall over come!” I could have shot him. I don’t know what it is, but something about being in gigantic fucking garbage dumpster really put me in a fowl mood. This was good preparation, however, for all the shitty assignments that were to lie ahead.
