The inquiry, “Are you fucking kidding me?!” as it passes through the Brain-To-Mouth Filter, may ultimately sound like, “No thank you,” “Pardon Me?,” or “I’m sorry you feel that way,” et cetera, depending on the circumstances. The last couple of weeks, my BTMF has strained the limits of capability quite often. To keep things in perspective and not turn this into a venting rant, I’ll admit, I haven’t had any personal tragedies or anything, it’s just life; though maybe a little more of it than usual.
For the sake of confidentiality, I have to be careful about how many details I give out during my stories about work, but suffice to say, one of my team members has always been a “problem child” and she’s pursuing a steady nose-dive that I have to deal with. This situation has now achieved a new level of WTF.
The thing
is, I believe there are a small percentage of people that have the responsibility and authority to fire people. Most folks I’ve discussed this topic with, shy from the subject and claim they could never or would never want that to be within the scope of their work. But, somebody’s gotta do it. So, if you’re one of the people who can relate, then you’re familiar with the notion that employees fire themselves by their actions; we’re just heralds in passing.
Over the last couple of weeks, her journey on the disciplinary path has picked up speed, and every single time I have to deliver the next bit of news it comes as a big fucking surprise. Most recently this was also coupled with a screaming meltdown in the middle of the hallway at shift change. Yeah, that was pretty fuc
king awkward. So, when the next step came and it was time for me to have another conversation, I really didn’t know what to expect. Well, I should say what I didn’t expect was for her to tra-la-la to my office giggling and smiling and continue to do so as I communicated the next step in the process. I didn’t know if she was going to hug me or just go postal right there. It was a weird way to begin that day; I’m still not sure how the situation is going to ultimately pan out.
Onto more i
nteresting things: Over the past couple weeks I’ve gotten into five different situations that almost erupted into a fistfight. Fortunately, none of these were at work. I don’t allow myself to go there; life is expensive, I need my job. The thing is, I’m a full time bicyclist. My truck is fucked and I’m still deciding what I’m going to do about that. And I like riding my bike. Everything is close to home, I’ve lost weight, I don’t get DUI’s when I bar-hop, the miles per gallon (of water) is amazing, it’s a sweet deal. Mostly. Cherry Street in Tulsa is one of the more bike-friendly areas of town. That being said, we still have our fair share of incompetent and inconsiderate motorists in Mid-Town.
Maybe it’s the general lack of sleep. Maybe it’s just that I’m fed up with them. I’m not sure. Lately though, I’ve had absolutely no qualms whatsoever with directly confronting drivers who have elected not to share the road. Most of the time, they just roll up their windows and get the hell out of there; but not always. In retrospect, it’s astonishing no one has wound up in jail or the hospital. I acknowledge these outbursts may lead to an error in judgment eventually, but at least I’m not drinking as much absinthe as I was before, and I did take the machete off of my bike.
My ongoing pursuit to master the Spanish language prompted me to accept an employee’s invitation to join them for lunch this past Friday at an authentic Mexican restaurant called El Gallo Loco (“The Crazy Rooster”). The focus of this lunch meeting was to discuss some work things he had on his mind and more specifically, practico mi español. This place is truly a cultural experience—it’s pretty much habla español solomente. The staff is all Mexican, the patrons are about 95% Mexican, and the food seems very authentic.
During lunch, Jose and I chatted with some other Mexican guy at a table we shared, and at one point Jose suddenly suggested that I start dating his sister. In his opinion, this would be a great way for me to learn Spanish, AND I could loan him $3000.00 to buy another car since I’d be like family.
The flash-response from my brain-thoughts was, “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! THE LAST TIME A CO-WORKER WANTED ME TO DATE THEIR SISTER I WAS POISONED, I NEARLY HAD SEX WITH A GIMPY MIDGET, AND I ESCAPED BEING THE STAR OF AN AMATEUR SNUFF FILM!!” (This is a long story that I’ll tell some other time). So. With that in mind, one may understand why the processing time for that declaration to fully sift through the BTMF was a tad longer than normal. The best result I could muster was something like, “Uhm, actually I’m seeing someone right now…thank you though.”
On another interesting note, my suspicions were confirmed, and years of working in construction and industrial environments are causing me to slowly go deaf. Awesome. After my annual hearing test at work, the results showed a significant downward trend, so I had to get re-tested. Those results weren’t much better. On the bright side, I won’t have to listen to as much bullshit in the future. On the not-so-bright side, I do enjoy loud nasty sex, so that’s really going to suck if the volume is permanently too low.
Anyway, long story short, this probably was not the best time for me to decide to stop smoking. I did, for about three days. Oh well, it’s almost Halloween. Things are bound to get better.
“… Well, I can understand how you feel. You worked hard, studying for the spelling bee, and I suppose you feel you let everyone down, and you made a fool of yourself and everything. But did you notice something, Charlie Brown?... The world didn't come to an end.”
~Linus Van Pelt
“A Boy Named Charlie Brown” (1969)
