The Story of Josh Part Forty Five … Everybody’s working For the Weekend Part 4: “The Day Job … at Night”
It’s the next morning for us at Joe’s childhood home and I have to admit that despite whose house it is I slept very well. The family is out on the back deck and invites me to join them. After we are done eating Joe goes inside to help his mom clean but when I get up to help his dad asks me to sit and talk for a bit.
I am beginning to wonder if I have a sign around my neck that says “I am broken help me”.
He asks me what I do for a living, what my trade and craft is if you like. I sigh and tell him that I want to be a writer. He stops me right there and asks me if I have ever actually written and or published anything. I tell him yes and give him a rundown. He laughs and I think he is mocking me but then I see the good natured humor through the thick lenses of his glasses. Son you are a writer. He says, then he looks harder and says but what do you do to support you and those that you love?
I knew I would have to eventually talk about this … but really who better to finally get it off my chest to?
As always this is a thing that resembles a therapy session and for all intents and purposes it IS a therapy session. Thankfully the doctor appears to be in.
All names of people and places in this one have been changed due to the questionable and possible somewhat illegal social media policies of my current employer.
I have been working at Angelica Gardens, the day job at night, since June of 2009. The Gardens is a high end retirement community and a state licensed nursing care facility in Dayton Ohio. I was working at Toys R Us, a job we have not gotten to but we will in out dirty little journey, when Karen and I decided to have one more baby and I knew that my twenty five hours a week for $12.00 at the toy store was no longer going to cut it. At this point I was still not recovered from the blow to my ego that I took from Palladium Book (for people that are tired of me bitching about that experience I say piss off, it is a defining episode of my life) and leaving a supervisory position for an employee position didn’t bother me in the least.
I put out a ton of applications in the spring of 2009 and had several interviews that did not pan out. Considering the state of the economy I am surprised I had that many chances. I was applying mostly for jobs in the commercial and medical sanitation fields considering my past experience. I worked for half a year and got my state certification at Kettering Hospital back in 2004 – 2005 and that managed to get me a first look by several people.
I was starting to worry about my chances and had already been working a second job for several months when I got a call from the Gardens. For two years the gardens became a comfortable boot. I loved the people that lived there. I liked the people I worked with. And the hours (2:30 pm to 11:00 pm) left me with plenty of time where I was not under the scrutiny of management and I could just relax and work. But there was one thing that stood head and shoulders above everything else. At night on my breaks I could write in quiet.
That had been the one thing that had made me hesitate leaving Toys R Us despite the bad hours and the bullshit way the company was run since it had been bought by Bain Capital. At Toys R Us I could commandeer the back room and write in relative quiet when my shift was over … and to honest even when I was working because I had carved out a niche where as long as my job got done and done right management didn’t give a shit what I did. Of course there was one asshole supervisor who took umbrage with everything but I killed his literary avatar in all its douche bag glory in The Shores of the Dead Book One: the Rising and it felt really good doing it.
Fuck you asshole.
Of course there were things I did not like about the Day Job. I didn’t get to see my wife enough (the idea that my depression and fatigue related to practically no testosterone didn’t occur to me at the time) and I always felt like I was being taken for granted by those above the supervisor level. Considering that was closer to true than false and that I was petrified of making waves and losing my job or sacrificing my pride made things even more complicated.
In May of 2011, one month before my second anniversary, I quit my job.
Mostly I quit because at the time I thought it was the only way to save my marriage. But I also wanted to just fucking do it. I just wanted to stop saying “I can always quit” and not actually believe it when the stress and disappointment got to high. I just wanted to climb that fucking tree and jump in the pond!
(For the purposes of this narrative pretend I related a heartbreaking and highly resonant story about a tree, a pond, and mean kids in my past)
So I quit, we abandoned our house because the bank was about to take it anyway, and we moved to the city where I had been tortured as a kid. And I can say that moment where we made those monumental changes was the beginning of the changes in my personality that have been like an out of control freight train this summer … oh and made my family very unhappy and dare I say some of them hate me.
Delah
But within two months I knew that we would not be able to make it financially with just my wife’s salary. So I got my job at Toys R Us back. Boy was that a fucking mistake. That company has been shredded and diced. Every corner that can be cut has been cut and asinine rules and rampant intimidation has become the order of the day. It broke my heart to see a place where I had worked for six years and had at one time loved turned into a faceless and soulless monstrosity.
But I then got a call from the Courtyard Marriott offering me a job so I told Toys R Us to piss off, literally walked off the job, and went to the hotel. Marriott was a great place to work. I was there for four weeks and I would not have left under any circumstances … however an unanticipatable circumstance is something else.
One day out of the fucking blue I got a call from the department manager at the Gardens asking me to come back. I said yes, I had missed the job, I had missed the environment, I missed the people. I was brought back on first shift but was assured that when a second shift position opened it was mine. Eight months later a second shift position, my old position if you can fucking believe it, opened and in April of this year I was back where I started … but I was wiser and happier.
I have had little to no complaints … till today.
One of my many jobs at night is cleaning empty apartments for occupation. I go into an apartment and clean it top to bottom, depending on the size it takes anywhere from 30/40 minutes to 2 hours. Last week I was told to clean the apartment of my friend who had passed away, I am glad it was me it would have angered me if anyone else did it. There were still things that the maintenance guys had to do so I had to split it to two days and if anyone remembers I was sick as fuck last week.
That is not an excuse that is just an explanation so get off my dick.
So today one of the people from the Marketing department, let’s call her Bitch Pants, took the crappy welcome basket to the apartment for the poor SOB they are fleecing for everything they have to live here. While in there she inspected the apartment, not her responsibility but Bitch Pants got her fucking name honestly.
What did she find?
Well kids she found that yours truly fucked up. When I was cleaning the kitchen (I vacuum every surface before I wipe down in an apartment) I forget to wipe out the three drawers by the fridge and there is a lazy susan in the same area that I forgot to detail. I had soaked and scrubbed it because it was caked with food but I had forgotten to go back with a magic eraser and really get it clean. People make mistakes and once upon a time you could say hey I made a mistake and people would accept that and move on. In three years this was the first time that I had ever had to go back and fix an apartment clean … except for the “Oven Incident” but we will never speak of that one.
So what did Bitch Pants do?
Bitch pants tore into my supervisor. My supervisor is one of the best, maybe the best, bosses I have ever had. She works hard, she manages well, and she backs her people. You know what she did today? She fucking backed me! Un professional Bitch Pants was yelling so much that she could be heard on the entire floor as she took my boss to the apartment and tried to humiliate her, she failed but gods what a bitch!
After she left I fixed it, it took fifteen minutes. No big deal and my supervisor agreed with me in public and private because I flat out said it was my fault but that that bitch over fucking reacted!
From now on I know that she can never be trusted … not even with the color of the sky.
Days like this I wish I had a pet bear.
Steve laughs at the last statement and his smile is infectious. He asks me if it is easier for me to handle things like this since coming back from my four month “Vacation”.
I have to think for a minute and then I tell him that knowing that if push comes to shove I can keep my pride and walk away makes it infinitely easier to deal with situations like this and people like Bitch Pants.
Good he says. Then he invites me to stay a few days and rest before I hit the road again.
It appears that is all the time we have for today.
I am beginning to wonder if I have a sign around my neck that says “I am broken help me”.
He asks me what I do for a living, what my trade and craft is if you like. I sigh and tell him that I want to be a writer. He stops me right there and asks me if I have ever actually written and or published anything. I tell him yes and give him a rundown. He laughs and I think he is mocking me but then I see the good natured humor through the thick lenses of his glasses. Son you are a writer. He says, then he looks harder and says but what do you do to support you and those that you love?
I knew I would have to eventually talk about this … but really who better to finally get it off my chest to?
As always this is a thing that resembles a therapy session and for all intents and purposes it IS a therapy session. Thankfully the doctor appears to be in.
All names of people and places in this one have been changed due to the questionable and possible somewhat illegal social media policies of my current employer.
I have been working at Angelica Gardens, the day job at night, since June of 2009. The Gardens is a high end retirement community and a state licensed nursing care facility in Dayton Ohio. I was working at Toys R Us, a job we have not gotten to but we will in out dirty little journey, when Karen and I decided to have one more baby and I knew that my twenty five hours a week for $12.00 at the toy store was no longer going to cut it. At this point I was still not recovered from the blow to my ego that I took from Palladium Book (for people that are tired of me bitching about that experience I say piss off, it is a defining episode of my life) and leaving a supervisory position for an employee position didn’t bother me in the least.
I put out a ton of applications in the spring of 2009 and had several interviews that did not pan out. Considering the state of the economy I am surprised I had that many chances. I was applying mostly for jobs in the commercial and medical sanitation fields considering my past experience. I worked for half a year and got my state certification at Kettering Hospital back in 2004 – 2005 and that managed to get me a first look by several people.
I was starting to worry about my chances and had already been working a second job for several months when I got a call from the Gardens. For two years the gardens became a comfortable boot. I loved the people that lived there. I liked the people I worked with. And the hours (2:30 pm to 11:00 pm) left me with plenty of time where I was not under the scrutiny of management and I could just relax and work. But there was one thing that stood head and shoulders above everything else. At night on my breaks I could write in quiet.
That had been the one thing that had made me hesitate leaving Toys R Us despite the bad hours and the bullshit way the company was run since it had been bought by Bain Capital. At Toys R Us I could commandeer the back room and write in relative quiet when my shift was over … and to honest even when I was working because I had carved out a niche where as long as my job got done and done right management didn’t give a shit what I did. Of course there was one asshole supervisor who took umbrage with everything but I killed his literary avatar in all its douche bag glory in The Shores of the Dead Book One: the Rising and it felt really good doing it.
Fuck you asshole.
Of course there were things I did not like about the Day Job. I didn’t get to see my wife enough (the idea that my depression and fatigue related to practically no testosterone didn’t occur to me at the time) and I always felt like I was being taken for granted by those above the supervisor level. Considering that was closer to true than false and that I was petrified of making waves and losing my job or sacrificing my pride made things even more complicated.
In May of 2011, one month before my second anniversary, I quit my job.
Mostly I quit because at the time I thought it was the only way to save my marriage. But I also wanted to just fucking do it. I just wanted to stop saying “I can always quit” and not actually believe it when the stress and disappointment got to high. I just wanted to climb that fucking tree and jump in the pond!
(For the purposes of this narrative pretend I related a heartbreaking and highly resonant story about a tree, a pond, and mean kids in my past)
So I quit, we abandoned our house because the bank was about to take it anyway, and we moved to the city where I had been tortured as a kid. And I can say that moment where we made those monumental changes was the beginning of the changes in my personality that have been like an out of control freight train this summer … oh and made my family very unhappy and dare I say some of them hate me.
Delah
But within two months I knew that we would not be able to make it financially with just my wife’s salary. So I got my job at Toys R Us back. Boy was that a fucking mistake. That company has been shredded and diced. Every corner that can be cut has been cut and asinine rules and rampant intimidation has become the order of the day. It broke my heart to see a place where I had worked for six years and had at one time loved turned into a faceless and soulless monstrosity.
But I then got a call from the Courtyard Marriott offering me a job so I told Toys R Us to piss off, literally walked off the job, and went to the hotel. Marriott was a great place to work. I was there for four weeks and I would not have left under any circumstances … however an unanticipatable circumstance is something else.
One day out of the fucking blue I got a call from the department manager at the Gardens asking me to come back. I said yes, I had missed the job, I had missed the environment, I missed the people. I was brought back on first shift but was assured that when a second shift position opened it was mine. Eight months later a second shift position, my old position if you can fucking believe it, opened and in April of this year I was back where I started … but I was wiser and happier.
I have had little to no complaints … till today.
One of my many jobs at night is cleaning empty apartments for occupation. I go into an apartment and clean it top to bottom, depending on the size it takes anywhere from 30/40 minutes to 2 hours. Last week I was told to clean the apartment of my friend who had passed away, I am glad it was me it would have angered me if anyone else did it. There were still things that the maintenance guys had to do so I had to split it to two days and if anyone remembers I was sick as fuck last week.
That is not an excuse that is just an explanation so get off my dick.
So today one of the people from the Marketing department, let’s call her Bitch Pants, took the crappy welcome basket to the apartment for the poor SOB they are fleecing for everything they have to live here. While in there she inspected the apartment, not her responsibility but Bitch Pants got her fucking name honestly.
What did she find?
Well kids she found that yours truly fucked up. When I was cleaning the kitchen (I vacuum every surface before I wipe down in an apartment) I forget to wipe out the three drawers by the fridge and there is a lazy susan in the same area that I forgot to detail. I had soaked and scrubbed it because it was caked with food but I had forgotten to go back with a magic eraser and really get it clean. People make mistakes and once upon a time you could say hey I made a mistake and people would accept that and move on. In three years this was the first time that I had ever had to go back and fix an apartment clean … except for the “Oven Incident” but we will never speak of that one.
So what did Bitch Pants do?
Bitch pants tore into my supervisor. My supervisor is one of the best, maybe the best, bosses I have ever had. She works hard, she manages well, and she backs her people. You know what she did today? She fucking backed me! Un professional Bitch Pants was yelling so much that she could be heard on the entire floor as she took my boss to the apartment and tried to humiliate her, she failed but gods what a bitch!
After she left I fixed it, it took fifteen minutes. No big deal and my supervisor agreed with me in public and private because I flat out said it was my fault but that that bitch over fucking reacted!
From now on I know that she can never be trusted … not even with the color of the sky.
Days like this I wish I had a pet bear.
Steve laughs at the last statement and his smile is infectious. He asks me if it is easier for me to handle things like this since coming back from my four month “Vacation”.
I have to think for a minute and then I tell him that knowing that if push comes to shove I can keep my pride and walk away makes it infinitely easier to deal with situations like this and people like Bitch Pants.
Good he says. Then he invites me to stay a few days and rest before I hit the road again.
It appears that is all the time we have for today.
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