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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Things are going well at my new job. “Going well”, if you just count the work, that is. Every other aspect of settling into a new office is going about as devastatingly awkwardly as you’d probably expect, if you’ve read anything at all on this site.
Or know me in real life. Or ever called me up as a telemarketer. It doesn’t take long to figure me out, see. I pretty much telegraph the weird.
I mentioned last time that I get a parking pass at NewJob — and that said parking happens in a lot under a local mall. One of my least favorite places in the world. Malls bring back memories of trying on husky jeans at Sears, bad cafeteria meals on sleepy Sundays and deluding myself in so, so many ways at the local Chess King.
(Yes, I’m dating myself badly here. Just another reason to hate even talking about the mall, dammit.)
I was just starting to reconcile myself to the screaming willy nightmare of parking, and walking through, a shopping mall every single work day of the week when the unreconcilable happened. On Friday, I used a different entrance to get into the parking lot. At this one, there was no place to swipe my parking card, so I took a ticket like everyone else. When it came time to leave, I cruised over to the ‘Monthly Passholders’ lane, swiped my card, and… nothing. No beep. No raising little bar doohickey. Bupkis.
I swiped again. Nada.
Another swipe. And another fat bunch of nothing. And then it began to wash over me, a tsunami of fear and nausea and sickly sweet Cinnabon funk — because I knew. I saw what they were doing, what was about to happen. I just parked in a mall — and they were never going to let me out.
I think I fainted at the wheel. An attendant came over eventually — mostly to see who was holding up all the johns who’d just been validated at the hotel next door and were lining up behind me — and pulled me together. Mostly by telling me that I could get out of the garage just by forking over the exorbitant all-day parking fee.
That was a bargain, given the state I was in. I was about to offer the guy my pants, the car and one of my kidneys, if I could just escape from that hellish cave. Instead, it cost twenty-two bucks. Maybe somebody up there likes me, after all.
Nah. But someone’s definitely telling me to use the right stupid entrance so I can swipe my card on the way to work. Message received, big fella. Stand down the locusts and plagues of boils.
“Pretty soon, you feel like you’re trying to pedal Refrigerator Perry up a waterfall made of molasses. In slow motion. While he’s eating a bucket of chicken. And molasses.”
It’s not just the parking that gets me, though. It’s everything. Take the gym, for instance. NewJob lives in a big office complex, and right there, in the very same building, is a full-scale, honest-to-Jack-Lalanne gym. You might think that would be a straightforward ‘win’ for someone like me.
(Might you? Really? Who are you, and what the hell have you been reading? Because it sure as hell isn’t this.)
Here’s the thing: a gym next door is good. A gym down the block, also okay. Those are distances that are close enough to be convenient, but not so close as to taunt you. Right in the same building you work in? Taunt city, baby. This gym is literally — literally — seventeen steps out of my way to attend. No excuse short of full dismemberment — and I don’t mean some hokey doctor’s note claiming ‘temporary invisible unmemberment’, either — will get me out of hitting the gym. I’m lazy — but it’s seventeen fricking steps. Nobody’s that lazy.
And this newfound rededication to gymming it up comes with a cost. Naturally. I’m an old guy, and haven’t belonged to a gym since the Clinton administration. Or maybe it was Carter. One of those grinny Southern guys.
the point is, it’s been a while. I’m out of shape, and happy to try to get back into some semblance of it. But — big, overstuffed but here — it’s best for everyone if I do it in private. Nobody wants to see me sweat. Or gasp. Or fall off a rowing machine and flop on the linoleum like a wounded Shamu. So while I can’t not go to the gym — seventeen steps! — I also spend most of my time there desperately hoping that I won’t be seen.
Did I mention that the gym’s in my office’s building? And that people in this company are really healthy? Probably because they all go to this freaking close-by gym?
Pick up the story this evening, and you can pretty well guess what happened. I waddled into the gym, decided to do a little exercise bike work — because who doesn’t want to get healthier sitting down? — and hopped on a machine. Sure, I was beside some guy — it was a pretty crowded night in the cardio lounge — but I didn’t even glance at him. Some random gym rat, probably. Face forward, kiddo. Eyes on the prize.
So it was quite a surprise when, in the middle of my workout, this person finished, toweled down a bit, and said: ‘Oh — hi, Charlie.‘
Crapcicles.
It was one of the guys pretty high up in our company — someone I’d interviewed with back in the meet, greet ‘n’ grovel process. Really nice guy, and someone I’d be more than happy to have a conversation with… but there was just one thing. At the moment, I was strapped to some demented cardio-blasting pedal demon, and it was juuuust about to crank the pitchfork into high gear.
As a quick aside, I’ll relay how I’ve figured out this particular machine works. You sit on it, and it asks you what sort of workout you want. You tell it ‘Cardio’. It asks if you want to ride for a half hour, and you reply, ‘Hell, no, twenty minutes, chief. What do you want, I should pop an aneurysm on top of you?‘
Then it asks for your age. You round a little. And it asks for your weight. You round, a lot. Then it calculates what target heart rate it thinks you should shoot for. And you knock ten or fifteen off that ridiculous number, too.
Finally, it starts you off on a gentle, breezy ride. For two minutes, and if you haven’t reached your target rate, it makes things harder. Another two, and more resistance. Another two minutes, another more pain. Pretty soon, you feel like you’re trying to pedal Refrigerator Perry up a waterfall made of molasses. In slow motion. While he’s eating a bucket of chicken. That’s “level 4”, and it kicks in six minutes into the ride.
(Before it kicks the hell back out soon after, when the bike detects that you are, in fact, hanging on by three fingers and a foot, rotating fully up and under the bike with each rotation. Level 4 sucks. It’s hard as hell, painful, shaming, and honestly, I think the machine only displays levels 5-9 to scare small children at night. They can’t possibly be unleashed on human beings at will. The Geneva Convention wouldn’t allow it.
So, of course, this guy from my office wraps up and wants to chat at approximately the fife minute and fifty-three second point of my course. As soon as I said ‘Hi!’, it was on. Gears grinding. Calves burning. Teeth gritting, and all the while trying to have a light, appropriate, intelligent conversation with this person who probably counts as my boss’ boss’ boss’ boss’ boss. Or something.
Meanwhile, I looked — and sounded — like a constipated parrot with a bad case of vertigo. If I focused on him, I lurched to one side. If I looked at the bike, I repeated everything he said because all the blood from my brain was running into my shattered calves. I parrot-babbled something at him for a couple of exchanges, and soon enough he looked worried, crossed himself, and moved on. Just about the time the bike straightened up, and I could pedal again without a medicine ball bouncing on each knee.
So that’s going to be awkward, the next time I see this guy. And I’m guessing this same scenario — or scenes infinitely more mortifying — will be playing out in the gym for many, many months to come.
Because that’s how it happens, kids. Work is fine. But work-ing is never easy. And you’re usually left stammering, wiping down your own equipment, and stranded in a mall parking lot.
Jesus. It’s a wonder any of us make it to work, now that I think about it. Kudos to us, I guess. Yay?
Permalink | 1 Comment(For those in the Boston area, come by and see me — if you dare! — during ImprovBoston’s SketchHaus, Saturday nights in January. I’ll be performing with the high-larious sketch group The Ruckus; shows are just ten bucks and start at 10:30pm. Come see. There’s beer. Good times.
While I’m at it, the latest Zolton Does Amazon piece is up over at ZuG.com. Stop on over to Kiss Your Career Hello, If you’re into that sort of thing.)
I’ve just finished my first week of work at a new office, and things are going generally peachily. In fact, if there’s any teensy, weensy, tiny little horrific nightmare involved in the deal, it has to do with one of the perks the new company provides.
Parking.
The office building is — like ninety-nine percent of everything else of any value, utility or interest in the Boston area — in a neighborhood where parking comes at a premium. Minimal street spots, exorbitant garage fees, and parking cops who’ll ticket your chrome-bumpered ass fourteen seconds after the meter expires. It’s brutal.
But wait! New company will subsidize parking in a nearby lot. A perk available to all employees, including me. So to avoid tickets, boots, tows and the inevitable impound lot breakout adventure, I signed up for a parking pass. And got one. And since Tuesday, I’ve been nestling my car snugly in a lot, as planned. There’s just one thing I didn’t know:
It’s a parking lot for a shopping mall.
Now, for some people that would be a godsend. Roll into the lot at eight, shop on the way to work, shop at lunch, work some more, shop shop shop, work work work, call it a day and head to the car. While shopping. I know people who’d consider that heaven.
“I hate shopping. I avoid malls like most people avoid playing Twister with a bunch of lepers.”
None of those people are me. I hate shopping. I avoid malls like most people avoid playing Twister with a bunch of lepers. Until this week, that is. Because now, every day is Mall Day. Not only do I park there, but the only way out of the garage is through the mall. And the shoppers. And the kiosks. And?
The horror.
So far, every trip to and from work has brought back screaming willy flashbacks of trying on clothes, waiting in lines and haggling over return receipts. Some people see those as just the cost of shopping for things. I decided a long time ago that frankly, I just dont like things that much. If I have to not own things to avoid shopping for things, then so be it. I’m guessing this is how most monasteries get started. Think about it.
The disgusting irony of it is, I just finished getting out of going to a mall. I usually only see the inside of one in late December, when Christmas looms and I’ve neglected to buy the requisite baubles and trinkets online. My wife usually gets a mall-bought gift or two, as does my family. The mall for me is a place for panic, guilt and deep remorse — and I somehow miraculously managed to miss it this year. I planned ahead, ordered some gifts on the internet — and the missus and I made a pact not to trade anything big. And I navigated the holiday Scylla and Charybdes without experiencing the interior of an Old Navy or Toddler Gap. I was quite proud of myself.
And now I’m practically living in a mall. Partly because I have to park there, but mostly because I haven’t yet figured out how the hell to get in and out of the stupid place through the same door twice in a row. On Wednesday, I played Marco Polo for a while before someone showed me the exit. Yesterday, I set my car alarm off from halfway across the garage, to get a vague notion of which direction to wander. And today, I spent half the day trying to navigate my way out.
(I’m serious here. I left the house at a quarter past eight. It’s a twenty minute drive. I finally got to my desk at half past lunchtime. It was nightmarish; if not for the Cinnabon on level three, I could’ve collapsed and keeled over in that godforsaken place.
And who’d save me then, eh? Abercrombie? Fitch? Jesus Christ Penney? Honky, please.)
Anyway, other than that, things are pretty good. If I could just beg, blubber or breadcrumb my way out of that hellhole mall a little quicker, I’d be just peachy.
In the meantime, if there’s anything you need from Victoria’s Secret, let me know. I’ll be there on Monday. And Tuesday. And possibly forever. Yaaa-aaaa-aaaaay.
Permalink | No CommentsI am officially unemployed. But only for the next ten hours or so, which is comforting.
Actually, I’ve been unemployed for most of the long weekend. My final day at the last office was Friday, and my last “official” day Saturday, the 31st.
“On the way out the door Friday, they took my keys, my ID card, my logo travel mug and thirty bucks from my wallet.”
I’m not sure how “last working day” and “last official day” differ particularly in this case. On the way out the door Friday, they took my keys, my ID card, my logo travel mug and thirty bucks from my wallet. I also had a shoe print on the ass of my jeans and a ‘NO WORKY HERE NO MORE‘ sign taped to the back of my shirt.
So it wasn’t like I could come in Saturday to do any work, if I’d wanted. Maybe I could’ve still called a press conference as a ‘representative of the organization’? Or gone on strike to protest the sorry state of tater tots in the cafeteria? Coached first base for the company softball team?
Don’t know, and when the ball dropped on Animatronic Dick Clark’s New Year’s Overtanned Eve, it was all moot, anyway. I was no longer affiliated with the old place, after eight-and-a-half years of employment.
(You might think that’s even longer than I’ve been writing this drivel.
You’d be mistaken. This particular website endeavor began as a distraction to give me something to think about other than the fact that my company-before-last was planning a tsunami of impending layoffs at the time, and my wife and I had just bought and moved into our first house. Complete with crushing mortgage payments and a furnace system that was possibly older than I was.
The life crises, they can make some awfully strange bedfellows. And some wonky-assed websites, to boot.)
Meanwhile, I’m not yet on board with my new job. That starts tomorrow, bright and eagerly cheerful chipper early — just like all of my mornings are, if any of my soon-to-be bosses happen to be reading. Yaaa-ay, morning!
(Oh, please. We’re all “sellouts”. Get over it, princess.)
The point is, I spent the weekend as a free agent. A rogue worker. A man without a comp’ny. Unemployedicado.
Fortunately for me, it was just a weekend. Last time — when my job canoe was swept away by that parenthetical layoff tsunami up there — it took a few months to get back to the grindstone. Now, I’ve only barely rolled my sleeves down, and it’s time to roll them back up again and jump in.
As a matter of fact, I got a head start on things. I took a quick jaunt over to the new office last week to settle some details, and the HR folks sent me home with some of the paperwork I’ll need to turn in tomorrow morning, to get the ball rolling more quickly.
Of course, I didn’t actually fill out anything they gave me. That doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a free agent — like myself — would do. But I did get a head start. I confirmed that the paperwork they gave me was, indeed, made of ‘paper’, and looked an awful lot like ‘work’.
So there’s that. I’m calling it progress. And maybe time for a beer. Because tomorrow, I’ll be a comp’ny man again. Starting at eight o’clock in the a-of-m. Bright and eagerly cheerful chipper early. Just how I likes ’em.
(Maybe I should drive over now, and sleep in the car. Just to be safe.)
Permalink | 1 CommentI mentioned a while back that I sent over a submission this year to the Mona Schreiber Prize folks. Their top three essays were announced this week. My entry, sadly, was not among them.
Still, in the ongoing spirit of turning my abject failures into your glorious entertainment — or at least into my slightly-less-abject blog posts — I’ll share my not-so-much-winning entry with you here.
Hey, it’s either that or I bash the holidays again. Or talk about my dog’s poop. Or blat out another sketch script. Let’s face it — you should thank me for this.
Anyway, enjoy. And head over to see the actual winners of the Mona Schreiber Prize, while you’re at it. You might learn something. Or at least grab a crumb of that ‘entertainment’ we were talking about earlier. Can’t hurt nothin’, right?
Bob and Lisa — hi! I’m so glad you made it to the open house. I just know you’re going to love this place; let me give you the tour.
“You really get a feel for the sophisticated style of the last couple who lived here — it’s like Bram Stoker meets Hello Kitty in Malibu Barbie’s ski chalet.”
We’ll start here in the foyer, featuring this breathtaking pink gothic fireplace. You really get a feel for the sophisticated style of the last couple who lived here — it’s like Bram Stoker meets Hello Kitty in Malibu Barbie’s ski chalet. I know — stunning, right?
And here’s a formal dining room, with the exquisite wainscoting along the south wall. Now, I see you looking up and I know what you’re thinking. Let me put your minds at ease — those stains on the ceiling are definitely NOT water damage. They’re just burns — wispy, superficial little burn marks that you could totally paint right over, if you like. The previous owners enjoyed a nice open bonfire in this room, from time to time. Which also explains the charred floorboards. And the missing wainscoting on the east, west and north walls. Easily restorable. Barely a trifle.
You’ll find the kitchen is state-of-the-art, with all the modern amenities — including this floating island here in the center. Though technically, it’s not ‘floating’, exactly. Instead, it’s surrounded by this convenient in-floor moat. It was apparently installed to keep the pets away from the dinner scraps. I forget exactly what they were breeding — something about ‘thoraxes’, but it’s all Greek to me. Anyway, we’ve sprayed for pests. And pets. And swarms of… things. Not a problem.
Also, note that where most kitchens might have an under-counter dishwasher, this one comes equipped with a pull-out bidet. Which is about the most convenient thing ever, if you think about it in the right light. You’ll also appreciate the walk-in meat locker and the dry-curing alcove, which can double as a warm and inviting breakfast nook, if that’s more your speed. Really, really warm. You can fry your eggs right at the table, ha ha!
The house features one-and-a-half baths in total. There’s a full bath over here, a one-sixth-bath off the master bedroom, another two-ninths-bath in the crawlspace behind the fireplace, the kitchen bidet, and a towel rack on the roof over the bonfire room. The fixtures are matching stainless steel, of course, and quite lovely.
That brings us to the bedroom where the family — sorry, I said ‘couple’ earlier; it was more like a ‘family’ — slept. It’s very roomy, as you can see. They put in the queen-sized quicksand pit over here, and they hung their clothes, I assume, on these butchers’ hooks dangling attractively from the ceiling — one per ‘family’ member, so a total of fourteen. They really give the room a sense of depth, don’t you think?
Did I say ‘family’? They were really more of a ‘troupe’. Or maybe a ‘clique’. Not a ‘gang’ or a ‘cult’, like some of the local gossips and newspapers and police reports sometimes whisper. People can be so nosy and judgmental, you know? Not that you’ll have to worry about the neighbors here. The mine field in the yard takes care of that. Remind me to get you the map, in case you venture out to see the patio. Or the mailbox. Oh, and did you park in the driveway? Oh, dear.
What else can I tell you? You’ll have to provide your own basement, which I’m sure you can pick up at any local hardware store. But they left a few of the shingles on the roof, which should come in handy. Frankly, I can’t imagine a better fit for you two. It’s perfect, I’m sure you’ll agree.
And that brings us back to the foyer, where — what? You say you heard something? Oh, you mean the voice? No, it’s not saying ‘GET OUUUUUT!’ I think it’s actually saying ‘GOOD HOUUUUUSE! GOOD HOUUUUUSE!’ It’s like your own full-time housewarming party — how charming is that, right?
No, I’m sure that’s not blood running down the wall. Probably the bidet just backed up a little. After someone filled it with ketchup, maybe. That’ll scrub right out, no worries.
Wait — where are you going? Lisa, Bob — come on. Don’t be scared of a little ‘fixer-upper’ project. Well, can you at least sign the attendance sheet while you’re fleeing?
What’s that? The pen’s out of ink? Completely dry? Aw, dammit. Everything was going so well, too. Now the open house is RUINED!
Permalink | No CommentsTraveling for the holidays is like sleeping with an angry cobra. You don’t know exactly when it’s going to bite you, or why or how often or exactly how much it’s going to hurt..
But it’s going to bite you. Most probably in the ass. And who’s going to suck the poison out? Nobody, is who. Because that’s what you get for bedding down with killer snakes. And for Christmas travel.
I thought — naively — that I might be spared this year. Weather wasn’t an issue. My travel plans were simpler, what with my wife and I splitting family time this yuletide season. What could possibly go wrong?
On the way to my parents’ — nothing. I took one bag, carry-on size, and a laptop. I checked the bag, mostly because I had two small jars of honey I was bringing to my folks as a gift. We bought it on our recent trip to Germany, and that is not something I wanted to send through the X-ray machine, for several reasons.
For one thing, what happens when you send X-rays through honey? I don’t know. I’m not some sort of radioactive apiary expert. Maybe that shit would kill you; maybe it’d turn you into some kind of buzzing wax-sucking superhero. Either way, not something I need my parents eating over the holidays. They want to try some dubious irradiated sweets for Easter, that’s on them. I’m not going to be the one pulling the bumblebee trigger, is all I’m saying.
Besides that, the TSA would probably confiscate the stuff from a carry-on. It’s liquid, sort of. It’s animal product, or byproduct, or something. And it came from Germany. That can’t be good. Those guys find a shampoo bottle or a half-empty Coke can in your bag, they throw it away and give you a stern look. They find two petite jars of sticky yellow insect spit with foreign language labels, and you’re looking at a full cavity search somewhere in the depths of Guantanamo. So the bag, on the way out, was checked. Very, very checked.
On the way back, things were different. The honey was gone, safely un-X-rayed, wrapped and delivered. No other liquids in the bag. I even conveniently ran out of contact lens solution, which left me squinty and red — but also jazzed for my flight. Because I was going to get through a Christmas trip — in one direction, at least — without checking a bag.
I can’t stress enough how thrilling this was. When my wife and I holiday together, we always check bags. She packs her things into a suitcase roughly the size of an aboriginal fishing dugout canoe. I use the same bag I had on this trip — but if you’re checking one monstrous bag, then why bother keeping your others with you? You’ll be living at the baggage claim for the next three days anyway. Don’t be a hero, I say.
This year, though — different. So I strode through the airport, laptop bag and suitcase in hand, and happy to strip the pain of waiting for bags out of my return trip home. I had two flights in total — one from a tiny airport near my parents’ house down south to Charlotte, and after a two-hour layover, from Charlotte back to Boston.
(Never mind that North Carolina is approximately nine hundred miles out of the way. Nothing about Christmas goes directly from Point A to Point B. That would be too easy.)
So I strolled through the gate at Podunk Tri-County Airport, toward the puttering prop-powered puddlejumper waiting to take us to Charlotte. As sometimes happens with these model toy planes, the stewardess informed us that the overhead bins on the aircraft were really just for show. You might fit a wallet in there, or a book of matches, but otherwise, they were essentially useless. So we should leave our bags on a rack on the tarmac; they’d get loaded in the cargo hold and meet us in North Carolina. Fine.
I left my bag with a few others, and the dozen or so of us on the flight rode to Charlotte. Upon landing, we exited and found the crew unloading our bags from the hold. We waited for them to bring the suitcases over. And waited. And waited. And waited.
“All that stood between me and my precious suitcase was a few yards of asphalt, a bunch of luggage jockeys and some damned fool airline policy.”
Finally, a guy came by and said, ‘Oh hey — yeah, we’re not allowed to give you these bags. Airline policy.‘
This is not a thing I’d heard of. I’ve dropped bags on the tarmac before. They always show up afterward. Checking a bag sends it into baggage claim purgatory. Leaving it at the tarmac means getting it back on the next tarmac. That’s how it works.
Or rather, worked. These guys steadfastly refused to walk the bags over. We could see our bags. I stood there, staring mine down from thirty feet away. All that stood between me and my precious suitcase was a few yards of asphalt, a bunch of luggage jockeys and some damned fool airline policy.
I spent the next twenty minutes negotiating the release of my toothbrush and dirty underpants back into my custody. Finally, I talked to a sympathetic luggagemonger who went to get baggage tags for our stuff. He pulled me aside, asked me to point out my suitcase, and promised to tag it and send it over to baggage claim post haste.
Great, I said, and thanks, and I made the long trek into the concourse, through the hub, out the security door and over to baggage claim. Sure, it meant that I’d have to go through security — again — and I’d have to stand around waiting for my bag — again — but at least it’d be there fast. Like the guy said.
When I found the claim carousel, our flight number wasn’t one of the ‘active’ ones listed. Two cases were on the bag-go-round, neither of them mine, and a handful of travelers huddled around, waiting. Oddly, none were from my flight. This should have told me something. But I’m just not that bright when it comes to flying nonsense. Or angry cobras, apparently.
I waited by the carousel for forty-five minutes. A few bags slipped down the slide, but none were mine. And no one from my flight ever wandered by. I would have known — there were only a dozen of us. Not so hard to keep track. Finally, just about the time I figured I should hit up the lost and found to try explaining the issue, something happened. A wrinkle. A development. A bite.
The baggage carousel stopped. No more bags. Flights over. Kaput.
So I hit the lost and found, wondering how long this jibberjabber was going to take. My bag had no tag from the original airport — there was no indication it was intended for Boston. Some guy said he’d send it, and it never came. Did he tag it? Did he send it? Did he open it on the tarmac and dance around a pile of my sweaty worn boxers? No idea. But I feared the very worst.
I got twelve seconds into my spiel with the lost and found lady, when her eyes lit up and she gasped, ‘Are you Charlie?!‘
I was. And am. The guy by the plane had sent my bag straight to this lady, without actually saying that that’s the sort of thing he was planning to do. Maybe the rest of my flight got the message, and paraded through that place while I waited, wilting, by the carousel mere yards away. Don’t know. Frankly don’t care. She passed my bag over — after calling me by name; how often do you get that from a lost and found lady? — and I sped back through the security point and to my gate for the flight home. I made it with just minutes to spare — my two-hour layover mostly sucked up in waiting to retrieve a bag I didn’t check from a carousel it was never sent to, by a guy who failed to explain precisely how he was attempting to circumvent an airline policy.
Meh. At least I didn’t have German honey in the bag. That cobra bite in the ass could’ve been a lot worse. It could’ve included latex gloves.
Man, it’s good to be home.
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