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Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.
Friday 06/13/2003
Apply, rinse, repeat...and repeat...and repeat...and repeat
Wake up late. Arrive to work late. Arrive before your boss does, so decide that you really aren't that late, but decide to stay over to make up for the time anyway, which in the long run does not matter since you would have ended up staying anyway.
Stare at your desk covered in papers, reports, notes, trash, pens, markers, folders, memos, printouts, and several half empty bottles of Cranberry/Black Cherry flavored Crystal Geyser Juice Squeezes. Fight the urge to immediately turn around and go back home. Find a gift from the staff member who just came back from her cousin's wedding in Hawaii sitting on your chair and decide that maybe it won't be such a bad day after all. Realize that you have just jinxed yourself into oblivion.
Work on reports one through twelve for a few hours, while juggling phone calls and questions from staff, superiors, and folks who wander into the office. While doing all this, simultaneously review staff paperwork, write a memo, and conveniently ignore reports thirteen through fifteen, because they aren't quite due yet.
Hold an administrative hearing with a 65 year old woman who when you ask where her husband is (since they were both to have appeared), growls at you in gravely Spanglish: "That old boracho! He's back home sleeping off last nights drunk. The pendejo!" Don't react, then proceed with the hearing.
When finished with that, next talk to a man you hope to convince to comply with the law. As he nods and agrees with everything you say, idly wonder if he understands even half of what you are saying, because if he didn't you would have to make arrangements for a translator since no one in the office can speak much by way of Korean (other than saying hello and something that is occasionally recognized as thank you that is).
Switch to Spanish, which he understands better than English, and decide that the problem is not that he does not understand you, but rather that he does not particularly care about what you are saying. Finish the hearing, then get him out of your office so you can get back to work.
While reviewing a form filled with huge sums and numbers that you are responsible for making sure all adds up correctly, idly wonder how it is that someone who can't even balance their checkbook has ended up responsible for reviewing monies collected by your office. Look up and see that a subordinate you don't particularly like is standing at your door. He has come to point out an error (minor) that you made in imputing his workload.
As he makes a couple of snide comments about your error making him look bad, contemplate telling him that considering he has somehow managed to be too ill to come into work every single Monday in May and has started headlong into repeating this feat for June as well, he really does not need your assistance in looking bad. Decide not to. Your boss has already spoken to him about his interestingly repeating illness and lack of sick time, besides, you don't have the time to deal with sickboy today.
Don't let on that you don't trust him. Don't let on that he is annoying. Don't let on that while half of the staff suspects that he is spending his Mondays interviewing for other jobs, you are actively hoping that he is. Instead, add up the last column on the stupid report, initial it in the usual spots, and tell him that the error is not a problem, which is true, since it isn't, and use body language to tell him to leave, that is, get up and leave yourself.
Ignore his parting shot about your diligence in the accuracy of your own work and count to ten to calm down so you don't lose your temper. When that doesn't work, count from ten to one backwards, but get stuck on repeating eight over and over in your head, because you have forgotten the number seven exists and because each time you think eight, you picture wonderfully horrible things happening to that smarmy, snake oil salesman of a sickboy. Make your boss look at you oddly as you deliver reports one through twelve with a scary smile plastered across your face.
Go back to your desk and continue to work on more paperwork. Nod goodbye to your boss as he leaves for a meeting. Regret this within five minutes as you take a call from a constituent who demands to speak to �the main big boss of the office!� and that is now you. Spend the next half hour hearing how everything that has ever gone wrong in this person's life is your fault. The person is older and retired, so that is a lot of wrongs to cover. The person is also partially deaf, and considering that even on your best days you sound terribly hoarse, misunderstandings end up adding even more time to the confusion and yelling.
Finally get off the phone, only to have to take another call, this time because the clerk is gone for the rest of the day, and you are now the only Spanish speaker left in the office. Wonder how it got to be noon that quickly. Take another Spanish phone call. Then a third. Then a fourth. Then a fifth. In fact, end up having to answer the phone almost every fifteen minutes, however, because answering phones is not your job, while doing this, simultaneously continue to review forms, write reports, sign off on paperwork, input data, answer questions, and additionally, speak to a large smelly man demanding to speak to the boss because he �Ain�t going to bother talking to no peon with no authority to do nothing!�
Inform the large smelly man that you do not have the authority to do what he wants, then give him the phone number of a different government agency which can. When he finally leaves, wish that you had an air freshener handily available, then �Help� another person who has come into the office angry that the racist government is meddling in their lives for no good reason. When that person leaves, decide that the problem with working with the public is the public. Tell this loudly to any and all employees who have the misfortune of coming anywhere near you.
Realize that it now being the middle of the afternoon (and since you have not managed to eat yet), you are hungry. Eat lunch even though you don't have time to. While eating your sad little Trader Joe's brand rice bowl, take a phone call from a woman who is furious because your office won't send someone out to her house to catch the spiders in her bedroom that have given her monkey pox. Explain repeatedly that to the best of your knowledge, monkey pox is not passed through spider bites, but that if she is concerned over the bite mark on her arm, she should seek medical attention. Hold the phone away from your head as she screams at you for suggesting that she see a doctor because doctors are fools who don't do anything but take your money. Breathe a sigh of relief when she hangs up.
Look angrily at the bearer of bad news when you are told that there are two Spanish speakers on hold for you. Dispatch one person fairly quickly (oddly, a reasonable, nonyelling, noninsane woman who actually thanks you for your assistance), then spend nearly a half hour trying to get another woman to understand that besides being illegal, it would also be a really, really, really, bad idea for her to open a chicken slaughtering business in her apartment as she had been hoping to do so.
Decide you need a vacation. Put the thought of going vacation on hold, because according to your e-mail, there is now a priority report which has more priority than the other priority reports, solely because it is due ASAP and there is now little more than an hour left in the official work day. Give up on wondering what exactly the deadline for ASAP means as you stare at your desk covered in papers, reports, notes, trash, pens, markers, folders, memos, printouts, and several half empty bottles of Cranberry/Black Cherry flavored Crystal Geyser Juice Squeezes.
Sigh, then start trying to find the information you need for the new ASAP priority report.
My day was fine, and yours?
More later,
nico
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