The last of my temping adventures in San Francisco...
The next job was assisting with a health lawyers conference. As instructed, I reported to the Marriott in downtown San Francisco on Saturday afternoon. After being sent around to a number of different rooms, I finally located the conference registration table, where I would spend the next three days. I was greeted with a few grunts from the Conference staff and after asking a few questions, I pieced together my job responsibilities. As far as I could tell from the minimal information I was given, my job was to hand out registration packets to people as they approached the desk. Thankfully, Thomas, my partner in registration, appeared. He was the gay co-temp Heather and I had wished for during our FoFo days. Just minutes passed before Thomas and I began a running commentary on the conference attendees, including outfits, personality disorders, and who had the nicest ass.
Just as the evening started to get really boring, people began setting up for a wedding across the hall. A guy approached the registration desk and I immediately said, “Hi…your last name please.”
“Uh,” he stammered, “I was just wondering if I could borrow tape and scissors.”
“Sure. How long do you need it for?” I asked.
“Well, I’m going to that wedding over there and still need to wrap the gift.”
Thomas and I wielded our registration table authority and allowed the guy to hide behind the registration table and wrap his gift. I’ve never seen it take someone half an hour to wrap a present, but I think our analysis of health lawyers and wedding attendees was slowing him down. Wedding present wrapper guy finally finished up his work, invited us to the reception and was on his way. Suddenly Thomas and I became the information booth for the wedding. In between greeting health lawyers from across the country, we fielded all sorts of wedding related requests. A pack of martial artists who were performing at the reception asked where they could practice. Not having any real clue, we set them up in an empty conference room down the hall. The bride’s brother showed up late so we snuck him in the back door during the Korean dance performance. Finally, the bridal party lined up in the hallway and paraded into the reception hall as Kool in the Gang demanded that everyone celebrate good times. We celebrated the fact that our workday was over.
I parked my car at 6:15am on Sunday morning and was picking the sleep from my eyes as packs of drunk people poured out of bars cheering. I had a hard time comprehending that anyone else was awake at 6:15 on Sunday morning, let alone that they were so happy about it. Eventually I pieced it all together. Aside from the contingency of hardcore alcoholics, most of the happy folks filling the streets were celebrating the fact that Brazil had just won the World Cup. Well yippee for Brazil. I wanted to celebrate with a nice long nap.
With Sunday came the return of Thomas and the addition of Alaina. Alaina, with her long bleached blonde hair, Britney Spears cleavage and twenty-one year old flirty personality brought a whole new flavor to the registration table. Seeing as we had practically nothing to do, I didn’t mind listening to Alaina’s endless stories about her boyfriend Marco and all the other guys that she had a crush on. Thomas, Alaina and I could not have been more different but the three of us entertained each other for the next twelve hours. At one point, there were a few lawyers waiting for their nametags to be printed up and Thomas and Alaina attempted to entertain them with jokes. The jokes were fairly dumb but, in my sleep-deprived opinion, worthy of at least a chuckle. Obviously the lawyers disagreed. I chimed in, “Hey guys…I thought of a joke. How do you make a lawyer laugh?”
Alaina and Thomas in unison, “I don’t know…how?”
“Apparently you can’t.” As expected, the hardy guffaws of the temps were met with lawyer silence.
“Can you please watch this for me for a while?” a woman asked as she placed a life sized bronze ferret on the table. It was the much-coveted “Golden Ferret” award. This was the award given to the lawyer with the kookiest case of the year and was named after the woman who defended a doctor attacked by a patient’s pet ferret. It didn’t take long for the ferret to become our new pal. Not only was having a life sized ferret standing on its hind legs a conversation piece, the ferret was great at saying what we were too afraid to say. Whenever any of us wanted to say something obnoxious, we just picked up the ferret and mustering about our best ventriloquist skills, had the ferret say it for us. Since everyone at the conference secretly or not so secretly wanted their name to be added to the list of Golden Ferret awardees, they just laughed at whatever the ferret said. “What’s that, Ferret?” Alaina asked when a stuffy guy stood in silence after she spent fifteen minutes helping him.
Thomas immediately shrunk down behind the table, and uttered, in the voice of a ferret if a ferret could talk, “Ferrets like it when people say please and thank you!”
The guy looked around and then said, “Uh…thanks.”
When a particularly grumpy gentleman was having trouble figuring out what seminars he had signed up for, the ferret said, “Ferret thinks you should consider attending the seminar in conference room 10 called, “Show us your pearlies!” The fun thing about people with no sense of humor is that they have no idea when you’re making fun of them.
I stepped outside for lunch and entered an alternate universe. Market Street was packed with people cheering as a float went by, carrying a slew of men in leather chaps. Ah….such a refreshing change of pace from life behind the registration table. I spent my lunch hour walking down the street taking in the many glorious sites and sounds of San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade. Rainbow flags, happy gay families, men wearing pink angel wings, and dykes on bikes were just a few of the highlights. I stopped to get a slice of pizza and overhead a guy on his cell phone, gay pride emanating from his every word, “Hey! It’s me…I’m at Pride. Wish you were here. I hope you’re loving the new Michael J. Fox book as much as I did! Love you! Bye!” I leaned against the outside of the pizza place and people watched as I ate my pizza. There was an old homeless guy sitting next to me. As a cable car full of dancing men wearing nothing but fluorescent speedos cruised by, he looked over at me, took a drag from his cigarette and said with a smile, “God bless America!” Amen to that.
The final three days at the health lawyers conference were spent “monitoring” seminars. This meant passing out evaluations, doing a head count of attendees, and collecting evaluations. In other words, my entire job could have been done by two boxes, one that said, “Please take an evaluation” and one that said, “Please return evaluations here.” But this way I got to sit in on fascinating seminars about tax law and medical code updates. During the breaks, the temps would all meet and get the latest information on Alaina’s drama with Diego, the conference attendee from Puerto Rico. For some reason, she was surprised that he wanted to have sex with her, after she spent the day with him, let him buy her a hundred dollar jacket, made out with him in the cab and then went back to his hotel room. After I questioned whether she was serving herself up some crack with a side of dumbass, she whined, “What happened to people just enjoying each other’s company?”
“When he’s a middle aged guy in the country for a weekend conference and you and your twenty-one year old firm boobs agreed to go back to his hotel room, then I think it was fairly clear that he expected to enjoy your company. If by company, you mean hooch.”
“You crack me up, Mary!” Alaina said while laughing hysterically.
“That’s good. But I’m not kidding.”
I gave up on trying to make sense of Alaina’s love life and switched to one of our other favorite conversations, which was developing the life stories of various attendees including “Mr. I’m too sexy for my bowtie”, “Dennis the Menace Boy” and “ Fun Aussie Woman.” That took us right to the end of the day and the end of our time at the Marriott. Alaina demanded that we exchange phone numbers and we hugged happily with the knowledge that we had next to nothing in common and would most likely never see each other again.
As the BART train sped me back to the East Bay, I reflected on the previous ten months of my life. Although I yearned for a full-time job, life as an office temp had given me a great introduction to California. The stereotype of the state being a wacky place to live may be correct. But, I had to admit, that’s what I like about it. And that’s why California is growing on me like pot grows in Upstairs Mark’s apartment. The co-workers, bosses, fellow BART riders…these are the people in my neighborhood. May I never again take for granted the lessons learned from Sesame Street.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Thursday, November 9, 2006
Helen
I just found out that Helen, a fantastic woman who was one of the elders I got to know at my old job, died. She was 84. Here’s a little bit that involves Helen, from something I wrote about my old job a while back. It was just one simple afternoon spent among friends, but it was the kind of afternoon that I’ll always remember.
It was with great joy that Cristin, Gina and I agreed to go to tea at Ben’s house. Ben invited us over to share stories and pictures of is trip to France with Helen and Joe. The organization I worked for sponsored a two-week trip to France and 92 year old Ben and 83 year old Helen went, accompanied by Joe, our star volunteer.
From his crisp cardigans to his perfectly combed white hair, Ben is sharp. His zest for life, subtle sense of humor and Polish accent continue to lure in the ladies. It is hard to detect from his warm smile the difficulty that Ben has endured. Ben survived the Holocaust, but his first wife and son did not. A tailor by trade, Ben picked up painting in his retirement. It is through his artwork that Ben has found a way to express his suffering and survival. Helen, a native of Boston, is vivacious, self-deprecating and simply put, hilarious. The traveling trio was made complete by Joe, whose easy-going demeanor, kind heart and appreciation for people of all kinds, made him the perfect travel partner.
The six of us, ranging in age from 23 to 93, gathered around Ben’s dining room table set with fine china, in his elegantly and comfortably decorated home in the Sunset district of San Francisco. As the travelers shared entertaining stories of their trip, including miscommunications due to their lack of French knowledge, the pilgrimage to Lourdes, and descriptions of their new companions from across the world, Ben kept our cups full with deliciously brewed coffee and fed us homemade fruit salad and danish. When recounting their bus ride to Lourdes and how out of place the three of them felt, Helen shouted in her thick Boston accent, “There we were…two heathens and a Jew…going to Lourdes!” Ben showed us each photo, careful to point out all the women he found attractive. Ben said he wished he spoke French because he spotted an attractive woman and wanted to tell her that she dressed well for a woman of her size. Let’s hope that would’ve gotten lost in translation. “There’s that woman that danced on the table,” Joe remarked while flipping through pictures. Ben grabbed the photo, slowly nodding his head as he smiled and said, “She did a nice job.”
The world is definitely a better place for having had Helen in it. I still find myself quoting her, with that great Boston accent full of charm and life, when something shocks me. “It’s inSAAAAHHnity!!!” I had the pleasure of sharing Helen’s 82nd birthday with her. We were on a trip to the California coast with a group of about 12 people. After celebrating with cake and singing, Helen kicked my ass at Uno, making fun of me the whole time. Helen is an example of how a great sense of humor will get you through hard times, and that when it comes to appreciating table dancers, being willing to take risks, seize opportunities, and laugh at the little things, age ain’t nuthin but a number.
It was with great joy that Cristin, Gina and I agreed to go to tea at Ben’s house. Ben invited us over to share stories and pictures of is trip to France with Helen and Joe. The organization I worked for sponsored a two-week trip to France and 92 year old Ben and 83 year old Helen went, accompanied by Joe, our star volunteer.
From his crisp cardigans to his perfectly combed white hair, Ben is sharp. His zest for life, subtle sense of humor and Polish accent continue to lure in the ladies. It is hard to detect from his warm smile the difficulty that Ben has endured. Ben survived the Holocaust, but his first wife and son did not. A tailor by trade, Ben picked up painting in his retirement. It is through his artwork that Ben has found a way to express his suffering and survival. Helen, a native of Boston, is vivacious, self-deprecating and simply put, hilarious. The traveling trio was made complete by Joe, whose easy-going demeanor, kind heart and appreciation for people of all kinds, made him the perfect travel partner.
The six of us, ranging in age from 23 to 93, gathered around Ben’s dining room table set with fine china, in his elegantly and comfortably decorated home in the Sunset district of San Francisco. As the travelers shared entertaining stories of their trip, including miscommunications due to their lack of French knowledge, the pilgrimage to Lourdes, and descriptions of their new companions from across the world, Ben kept our cups full with deliciously brewed coffee and fed us homemade fruit salad and danish. When recounting their bus ride to Lourdes and how out of place the three of them felt, Helen shouted in her thick Boston accent, “There we were…two heathens and a Jew…going to Lourdes!” Ben showed us each photo, careful to point out all the women he found attractive. Ben said he wished he spoke French because he spotted an attractive woman and wanted to tell her that she dressed well for a woman of her size. Let’s hope that would’ve gotten lost in translation. “There’s that woman that danced on the table,” Joe remarked while flipping through pictures. Ben grabbed the photo, slowly nodding his head as he smiled and said, “She did a nice job.”
The world is definitely a better place for having had Helen in it. I still find myself quoting her, with that great Boston accent full of charm and life, when something shocks me. “It’s inSAAAAHHnity!!!” I had the pleasure of sharing Helen’s 82nd birthday with her. We were on a trip to the California coast with a group of about 12 people. After celebrating with cake and singing, Helen kicked my ass at Uno, making fun of me the whole time. Helen is an example of how a great sense of humor will get you through hard times, and that when it comes to appreciating table dancers, being willing to take risks, seize opportunities, and laugh at the little things, age ain’t nuthin but a number.
Friday, November 3, 2006
Temporary Insanity, Part 3
Part 3 of my adventures in temping in SF...
After that little stint, I was offered a job, expected to last about a month, in which I’d the Executive Assistant to the CEO of a tech company in downtown San Fran. I was looking forward to a month of stability. What I wound up with was a month of living hell. It started out okay. As soon as I got off the shaky elevator that made scary rumbling noises, I met Joyce. She was the very meek, soft-spoken human resources woman who had conducted the phone interview. That’s right- a temp job that required a phone interview in which Joyce was much more nervous than I. Joyce showed me to my desk, where I would spend the day “training “ with temporary employment’s answer to Nicole Kidman, complete with long strawberry blonde hair, porcelain skin and an Aussie accent. The boss was not in that day so I spent my time reviewing Sharon’s uber organizational style in action and watching numerous guys walk past the desk and drool while having their less than subtle “Eyes Wide Shut” fantasies.
It seemed that my main responsibilities were answering Raul’s phone, managing his schedule and taking minutes at meetings. The next day was my first official day on the job. I “pulled in the phone line” as I was specifically instructed to do twelve times the day before, and it immediately started to ring. “Get me Mike!” said a voice with a thick Columbian accent. Fortunately I interpreted that correctly to mean “please transfer me to Mike.” Because I had eight hours of training, most of which were focused on how to use the phone, I was able to accomplish that task successfully on the first try. Most of the day was spent fielding the zillions of calls coming in on Raul’s line- all of which were from Raul himself. Many were demands that I transfer him to someone, some were requests to check and re-check his barren schedule, and others were just unintelligible ramblings on a variety of topics. At one point he called me to chat about the job and my responsibilities. I told him that my focus was on non-profit Program Development and he quickly ignored me, which I later learned was one of his favorite pastimes. “I think you will begin to really like it here,” he said. I reiterated that I was temping and saw this as a short-term position and he interrupted me to say, “Yes…like I am saying, you will learn a lot from working here and I think you will find it to be very interesting.” Well, he was right. I learned a lot. I learned about what it’s like to work with Satan and it sure was interesting.
It was not until my fourth day that I finally got to meet Raul. He was exactly as I had expected with his medium height, beer belly and thick black hair with a number of grays to represent his self-induced stress. He appeared slightly frazzled, between his tousled hair and his Brooks Brothers shirt popping out of the back of his pants. Most people in the company either feared or hated Raul. Either way, when word got out that he was in the office, everyone hid at their desks like hermits. I was still of the idealistic temp mentality thinking, “How bad can this guy be?” I walked into his office and introduced myself. “Oh Mary! Hello!” Raul said while spinning around in his chair and furiously chewing a piece of gum. We exchanged pleasantries and I thought, “This guy isn’t too bad.” I got back to my desk, and Anna, who sat next to me, whispered, “Beware. He’s always nice at first.”
The previous day, when Raul was out of the office and I had done all the scheduling and phone answering required of me, I got online to check my email. The CFO walked by and whispered, “Hey Mare…don’t ever let Raul see you online. He’ll freak out.” I said, “Okay…but he’s out of town. Plus, I have asked everyone if they need help with anything and the answer has been no. So, when I have nothing to do am I supposed to just stare at the carpeted walls of my cubicle?” There was silence and a nervous grin that seemed to say, “Yes. That is what we do here.” So after introducing myself to Raul, I returned to my desk and did my best “pretend to be doing work” paper shuffle.
“Come with me!” Raul yelled.
“I guess he was talking to you, Mary.” Anna said as we both watched him walk down the hall. I followed him and it turned out that it was time to take minutes at a meeting. This was the first of many meetings in which parts of my brain actually leaked out of my eyes because I was straining so hard to make sense of what was being said. Ironically, I began to make sense of the techie jargon being thrown around and became fluent in computer programming acronyms. It was Raul’s inability to stick with one point that resulted in a room full of scrunched up foreheads that seemed to say, “Dude…what the hell are you talking about?” Things inevitably got worse when Raul decided it was time to use the wipey board to demonstrate his non-point in picture form. It became like a game of Pictionary where people were shouting out guesses as to what he may have been talking about. “Oh…I get it…that’s the workplan diagram for the CDQ project!” “No!” said another; “I think it’s what he was trying to talk about at last week’s meeting about the RDIG.” In one of his Win, Lose or Draw frenzies, he went to use a marker that didn’t work. He did what any professional CEO would do and threw it across the room and yelled at me, “We need markers! Get me markers!” After confirming his insanity from the exasperated shaking heads around me, I said,
“Before I look for other markers, maybe you could try one from the box of markers that is right next to you.”
Raul’s insistence on believing what he wanted to believe coupled with his inability to listen sometimes resulted in comedy. “Call Columbia and set up a meeting for this afternoon” he insisted.
“As I’ve said before, I don’t speak any Spanish. I can track down someone who does though.”
“No…you can do it. They speak a little English like you speak a little Spanish” he said, with an increased level of frustration in his voice.
“That would mean that they can count to ten in English, because that’s the extent of my Spanish.”
“It’s fine, just call them” Raul demanded.
After practically needing to hire a private detective to locate that number that Raul insisted would be easy to find, I made the call. The end result was about five minutes of mucho miscommunication followed by me saying “uh…un momento” and shouting over my cubicle, “Does anyone around here speak Spanish?” Someone graciously came to my rescue. After the call was finally confirmed, Raul said to me, “I want you in on that conference call.” I couldn’t help but laugh when I said, “Okay…but I don’t speak any Spanish.”
As I predicted, he said, “No…it will be fine. Just be on the call. I need you to take minutes.”
The following day I was on a conference call between Raul and Max. Raul was doing most of the talking and I couldn’t seem to make sense of anything that was being said. I attributed my confusion to the fact that this was an involved project that was new to me. My plan was to talk with Max afterwards and try to get a clear description of what was being done. Raul finally stopped talking and said, “Okay…so we’re all clear…everyone knows what needs to be done. Okay” and hung up before either of us could comment. As soon as I hung up the phone it rang again. “Hi Mary…It’s Max. What the hell just happened?”
“Let’s review Max…you’ve worked with Raul for twenty years. I’ve worked with him for six days. I have absolutely no clue what the hell just happened.”
Max started laughing, “I’m just glad he’s dragged someone else into this…so at least I’m not the only one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I guess if he expects either of us to do something we’ll hear it from him. Then we can just call each other and figure out what the hell it might be.” What a functional plan.
When I first began the job, Raul reiterated his reiterations on the fact that email was the best way to inform him of things. Since he was often on the road, I should email him his schedule every evening and every morning. One morning, before my butt had even hit the chair, the phone rang. My day began with the following greeting, “You can no just email me! That is not good! Sometimes I can’t check my computer. You should just know my schedule! What am I doing today? GO!”
“Most likely the same as yesterday…a bunch of useless meetings you’ve scheduled to make yourself look important” I thought. By this point, I was getting more and more fed up but had realized trying to explain reality to this man was a waste of time. However, it was some consolation that his craziness was not directed at me. I had escaped his wackiness for a few days while traveling east for a friend’s wedding. Word in the office was that he missed me and was even meaner to the temp who replaced me. Upon her arrival, she walked into his office to introduce herself and was met with, “Don’t come in here unless I ask for you!” Apparently he had worn his very grumpy pants that day, because then she was screamed at for reminding him of a meeting eight minutes ahead of time as opposed to the required five minute warning time.
Raul was a big fan of starting up trouble right before I was scheduled to leave. One night I was just getting ready to shut down my computer, when I heard, “I need you to redo this spreadsheet! I can no compare the prices for these companies!” I tried to explain that the reason he was having a difficult time comparing prices was because the prices did not exist yet. According to the email, to which this spreadsheet was attached, someone was going to call for prices the next day. “Just change it so I can compare!” I quickly redid the spreadsheet so he was unable to compare prices in a different way, and got right out of there.
“We need to talk about you being proactive!” Raul shouted when I picked up the phone. By this point, I knew that “we” meant “he”, so I just waited for his tirade to kick in. “When I send you emails that say “remind me about this” I don’t expect you to just remind me!”
“So you mean, in today’s email that said, “remind me about the presentation tomorrow…you’d like me to actually put that presentation together?” I asked, politely leaving out the “you friggin crackhead.”
“Yes! Remind does not just mean remind!” he shouted.
Seeing as no one in the company had the information to prepare that presentation, I was fairly confident that expecting the new temp to put it together was a little ridiculous. But I just said, “Okay. I think there was a communication breakdown regarding our differing definitions of the word remind. Just let me know what you want me to do.” But of course, he had hung up before I finished speaking.
“That man is a fucking lunatic” Anna said nonchalantly as she chucked me a hard candy. “First of all, he’s not smart. But I also think he may actually be crazy and that doesn’t help either.”
After about a month of being continuously yelled at for tons of ridiculous reasons, I decided that I could take no more. I called the temp agency and told them that I was at the end of my rope. After explaining my plight to one of the employees, it was decided that this was a situation for the head honcho. I scheduled a meeting with the owner of the agency. Aside from watching her Christmas party dance routine, my last interaction with Jocelyn was when I had gone into the agency to pick up a check and she uttered the phrase, “Isn’t it great to be in a job where you don’t have to support a wardrobe!?” So I was looking forward to her perspective on Raul. After explaining the situation in detail, Jocelyn’s head nodding in amazement the entire time, she said, “Okay…it’s clear that you should not work there anymore. And it’s also clear that someone needs to tell this guy off. That person is you.”
I had to admit I liked what I was hearing. I wasn’t sure if I’d actually be able to say what I’d imagined saying to him, but I was intrigued. So Jocelyn and I strategized various ways to do it and then settled on the email. I agreed that the rest of my afternoon would be spent constructing an email telling him what a wretched person he was. The subject, like those that I wrote him each night with his calendar attached would be “Reminders.” I would hit send immediately before leaving and never return. I went back to the office and drafted an email which I sent to Jocelyn:
Raul,
I am writing to inform you that today is my last day. I hope that you'll take the time to read this explanation of why I am leaving. I believe that you want to be a good person, but the way you treat me and everyone else in this company has created a toxic work environment. I am a smart and capable person, and I do not appreciate nor will I tolerate the lack of respect you
show me and everyone else.
Perhaps no one else ever told you about the extremely negative way you come off to others. You do not listen when others are speaking and this seems to create lots of unnecessary confusion and frustration. There is an office full of very smart, capable and professional individuals here, most of whom probably feel that they are not in a position to voice their needs and
frustrations.
For the sake of this company and the person who may follow me in this position as well as the many great people who work here, but more importantly, for your success as a good human being, I hope that you will take my words to heart.
Sincerely,
Mary
The social worker in me found it to be a perfect blend of honesty and condescension. The phone rang minutes later, “Mary! We love it! I gathered everyone in my office and read it out loud. You’re the greatest!”
Kim, my usual contact at the temp agency called me as soon as I hung up with Jocelyn. “Wow Mary…you’re so awesome! We promise we’ll put you in a better job right away! In fact, there’s a job working in the Mayor’s office next week. The people are great and it’d be a much better atmosphere. Are you interested in that?”
“Sure”, I say, mustering up as much enthusiasm as possible. “What will I be doing?”
“Helping out with a fundraiser they’re planning. It’d be right up your alley!”
Apparently my alley leads to a dark and dirty room in the bowels of some unknown building near City Hall. I finally made my way through the maze of hallways and read the note on the door, “Temps…I have a meeting that’s running late. I’ll be here at 9:30. There’s a Starbucks on the corner.” Uh…okay. Maybe Starbucks was now inserting chips in people so that they would randomly provide free advertising for them. “Hi…I’d like ten dollars of gas on pump 12. And Starbucks Caramel Frappacinos are a delicious blend of creamy flavor and pizzazz.” I killed the next half-hour by sitting in the little park down the street and staring at a group of people doing Tai Chi. Then, on my way back to my alley, I had the pleasure of watching some woman try to pry out one of her slutty stiletto heels from the sidewalk grate in which it was stuck.
The walls of the small dark room were painted with the ultra attractive “Dirty Eggshell” circa 1974. In the room were six desks, with a phone on each one. The place reeked of telemarketing. My five fellow temps and I filed in and took seats at the desks. We’d spend the next five days calling people to determine if they were planning on attending, a fundraiser the mayor was having called “Breakfast with the Gov.” For eight hours a day we ran through the same script over and over again. After a while we each developed our own personal “Breakfast with the Gov” solicitation style. Carla took to hanging up in the middle of a call if the person was getting on her nerves. Jason’s style was more of the “realize that everyone else was actually making calls, so I can just sit here and play games on my cell phone” variety. After intense boredom set it, the dares began. “I dare ya to say, instead of RSVP, ‘respondez vous si vous plait’.” “I dare ya to use an English accent on the next call.” “Next call….Moviefone guy’s voice.”
“Oh my God,” Jason said with exasperation oozing from his soul. “I just saw a spider walk out of here because it was so bored.”
“I know,” I said. “And I heard it singing “It’s too Late Baby Now” by Carole King on it’s way out. Must’ve been from all the Muzac it’s heard today.”
“Hi…This is Mary calling from the Mayor’s office,” I said for the zillionth time.
“Hold on!” said the voice of a crotchety old man. “TV too loud! Hearing aids too low!” Seconds later he returned, “Now what the heck can I do ya for?” Half an hour later Joe Thompson and I were still chit chatting about life, the Mayor, television and the many changes he’s seen in San Francisco over the decades. Joe Thompson beat out practically nothing to earn the title of “my favorite thing about inviting people to “Breakfast with the Gov.”
After that little stint, I was offered a job, expected to last about a month, in which I’d the Executive Assistant to the CEO of a tech company in downtown San Fran. I was looking forward to a month of stability. What I wound up with was a month of living hell. It started out okay. As soon as I got off the shaky elevator that made scary rumbling noises, I met Joyce. She was the very meek, soft-spoken human resources woman who had conducted the phone interview. That’s right- a temp job that required a phone interview in which Joyce was much more nervous than I. Joyce showed me to my desk, where I would spend the day “training “ with temporary employment’s answer to Nicole Kidman, complete with long strawberry blonde hair, porcelain skin and an Aussie accent. The boss was not in that day so I spent my time reviewing Sharon’s uber organizational style in action and watching numerous guys walk past the desk and drool while having their less than subtle “Eyes Wide Shut” fantasies.
It seemed that my main responsibilities were answering Raul’s phone, managing his schedule and taking minutes at meetings. The next day was my first official day on the job. I “pulled in the phone line” as I was specifically instructed to do twelve times the day before, and it immediately started to ring. “Get me Mike!” said a voice with a thick Columbian accent. Fortunately I interpreted that correctly to mean “please transfer me to Mike.” Because I had eight hours of training, most of which were focused on how to use the phone, I was able to accomplish that task successfully on the first try. Most of the day was spent fielding the zillions of calls coming in on Raul’s line- all of which were from Raul himself. Many were demands that I transfer him to someone, some were requests to check and re-check his barren schedule, and others were just unintelligible ramblings on a variety of topics. At one point he called me to chat about the job and my responsibilities. I told him that my focus was on non-profit Program Development and he quickly ignored me, which I later learned was one of his favorite pastimes. “I think you will begin to really like it here,” he said. I reiterated that I was temping and saw this as a short-term position and he interrupted me to say, “Yes…like I am saying, you will learn a lot from working here and I think you will find it to be very interesting.” Well, he was right. I learned a lot. I learned about what it’s like to work with Satan and it sure was interesting.
It was not until my fourth day that I finally got to meet Raul. He was exactly as I had expected with his medium height, beer belly and thick black hair with a number of grays to represent his self-induced stress. He appeared slightly frazzled, between his tousled hair and his Brooks Brothers shirt popping out of the back of his pants. Most people in the company either feared or hated Raul. Either way, when word got out that he was in the office, everyone hid at their desks like hermits. I was still of the idealistic temp mentality thinking, “How bad can this guy be?” I walked into his office and introduced myself. “Oh Mary! Hello!” Raul said while spinning around in his chair and furiously chewing a piece of gum. We exchanged pleasantries and I thought, “This guy isn’t too bad.” I got back to my desk, and Anna, who sat next to me, whispered, “Beware. He’s always nice at first.”
The previous day, when Raul was out of the office and I had done all the scheduling and phone answering required of me, I got online to check my email. The CFO walked by and whispered, “Hey Mare…don’t ever let Raul see you online. He’ll freak out.” I said, “Okay…but he’s out of town. Plus, I have asked everyone if they need help with anything and the answer has been no. So, when I have nothing to do am I supposed to just stare at the carpeted walls of my cubicle?” There was silence and a nervous grin that seemed to say, “Yes. That is what we do here.” So after introducing myself to Raul, I returned to my desk and did my best “pretend to be doing work” paper shuffle.
“Come with me!” Raul yelled.
“I guess he was talking to you, Mary.” Anna said as we both watched him walk down the hall. I followed him and it turned out that it was time to take minutes at a meeting. This was the first of many meetings in which parts of my brain actually leaked out of my eyes because I was straining so hard to make sense of what was being said. Ironically, I began to make sense of the techie jargon being thrown around and became fluent in computer programming acronyms. It was Raul’s inability to stick with one point that resulted in a room full of scrunched up foreheads that seemed to say, “Dude…what the hell are you talking about?” Things inevitably got worse when Raul decided it was time to use the wipey board to demonstrate his non-point in picture form. It became like a game of Pictionary where people were shouting out guesses as to what he may have been talking about. “Oh…I get it…that’s the workplan diagram for the CDQ project!” “No!” said another; “I think it’s what he was trying to talk about at last week’s meeting about the RDIG.” In one of his Win, Lose or Draw frenzies, he went to use a marker that didn’t work. He did what any professional CEO would do and threw it across the room and yelled at me, “We need markers! Get me markers!” After confirming his insanity from the exasperated shaking heads around me, I said,
“Before I look for other markers, maybe you could try one from the box of markers that is right next to you.”
Raul’s insistence on believing what he wanted to believe coupled with his inability to listen sometimes resulted in comedy. “Call Columbia and set up a meeting for this afternoon” he insisted.
“As I’ve said before, I don’t speak any Spanish. I can track down someone who does though.”
“No…you can do it. They speak a little English like you speak a little Spanish” he said, with an increased level of frustration in his voice.
“That would mean that they can count to ten in English, because that’s the extent of my Spanish.”
“It’s fine, just call them” Raul demanded.
After practically needing to hire a private detective to locate that number that Raul insisted would be easy to find, I made the call. The end result was about five minutes of mucho miscommunication followed by me saying “uh…un momento” and shouting over my cubicle, “Does anyone around here speak Spanish?” Someone graciously came to my rescue. After the call was finally confirmed, Raul said to me, “I want you in on that conference call.” I couldn’t help but laugh when I said, “Okay…but I don’t speak any Spanish.”
As I predicted, he said, “No…it will be fine. Just be on the call. I need you to take minutes.”
The following day I was on a conference call between Raul and Max. Raul was doing most of the talking and I couldn’t seem to make sense of anything that was being said. I attributed my confusion to the fact that this was an involved project that was new to me. My plan was to talk with Max afterwards and try to get a clear description of what was being done. Raul finally stopped talking and said, “Okay…so we’re all clear…everyone knows what needs to be done. Okay” and hung up before either of us could comment. As soon as I hung up the phone it rang again. “Hi Mary…It’s Max. What the hell just happened?”
“Let’s review Max…you’ve worked with Raul for twenty years. I’ve worked with him for six days. I have absolutely no clue what the hell just happened.”
Max started laughing, “I’m just glad he’s dragged someone else into this…so at least I’m not the only one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I guess if he expects either of us to do something we’ll hear it from him. Then we can just call each other and figure out what the hell it might be.” What a functional plan.
When I first began the job, Raul reiterated his reiterations on the fact that email was the best way to inform him of things. Since he was often on the road, I should email him his schedule every evening and every morning. One morning, before my butt had even hit the chair, the phone rang. My day began with the following greeting, “You can no just email me! That is not good! Sometimes I can’t check my computer. You should just know my schedule! What am I doing today? GO!”
“Most likely the same as yesterday…a bunch of useless meetings you’ve scheduled to make yourself look important” I thought. By this point, I was getting more and more fed up but had realized trying to explain reality to this man was a waste of time. However, it was some consolation that his craziness was not directed at me. I had escaped his wackiness for a few days while traveling east for a friend’s wedding. Word in the office was that he missed me and was even meaner to the temp who replaced me. Upon her arrival, she walked into his office to introduce herself and was met with, “Don’t come in here unless I ask for you!” Apparently he had worn his very grumpy pants that day, because then she was screamed at for reminding him of a meeting eight minutes ahead of time as opposed to the required five minute warning time.
Raul was a big fan of starting up trouble right before I was scheduled to leave. One night I was just getting ready to shut down my computer, when I heard, “I need you to redo this spreadsheet! I can no compare the prices for these companies!” I tried to explain that the reason he was having a difficult time comparing prices was because the prices did not exist yet. According to the email, to which this spreadsheet was attached, someone was going to call for prices the next day. “Just change it so I can compare!” I quickly redid the spreadsheet so he was unable to compare prices in a different way, and got right out of there.
“We need to talk about you being proactive!” Raul shouted when I picked up the phone. By this point, I knew that “we” meant “he”, so I just waited for his tirade to kick in. “When I send you emails that say “remind me about this” I don’t expect you to just remind me!”
“So you mean, in today’s email that said, “remind me about the presentation tomorrow…you’d like me to actually put that presentation together?” I asked, politely leaving out the “you friggin crackhead.”
“Yes! Remind does not just mean remind!” he shouted.
Seeing as no one in the company had the information to prepare that presentation, I was fairly confident that expecting the new temp to put it together was a little ridiculous. But I just said, “Okay. I think there was a communication breakdown regarding our differing definitions of the word remind. Just let me know what you want me to do.” But of course, he had hung up before I finished speaking.
“That man is a fucking lunatic” Anna said nonchalantly as she chucked me a hard candy. “First of all, he’s not smart. But I also think he may actually be crazy and that doesn’t help either.”
After about a month of being continuously yelled at for tons of ridiculous reasons, I decided that I could take no more. I called the temp agency and told them that I was at the end of my rope. After explaining my plight to one of the employees, it was decided that this was a situation for the head honcho. I scheduled a meeting with the owner of the agency. Aside from watching her Christmas party dance routine, my last interaction with Jocelyn was when I had gone into the agency to pick up a check and she uttered the phrase, “Isn’t it great to be in a job where you don’t have to support a wardrobe!?” So I was looking forward to her perspective on Raul. After explaining the situation in detail, Jocelyn’s head nodding in amazement the entire time, she said, “Okay…it’s clear that you should not work there anymore. And it’s also clear that someone needs to tell this guy off. That person is you.”
I had to admit I liked what I was hearing. I wasn’t sure if I’d actually be able to say what I’d imagined saying to him, but I was intrigued. So Jocelyn and I strategized various ways to do it and then settled on the email. I agreed that the rest of my afternoon would be spent constructing an email telling him what a wretched person he was. The subject, like those that I wrote him each night with his calendar attached would be “Reminders.” I would hit send immediately before leaving and never return. I went back to the office and drafted an email which I sent to Jocelyn:
Raul,
I am writing to inform you that today is my last day. I hope that you'll take the time to read this explanation of why I am leaving. I believe that you want to be a good person, but the way you treat me and everyone else in this company has created a toxic work environment. I am a smart and capable person, and I do not appreciate nor will I tolerate the lack of respect you
show me and everyone else.
Perhaps no one else ever told you about the extremely negative way you come off to others. You do not listen when others are speaking and this seems to create lots of unnecessary confusion and frustration. There is an office full of very smart, capable and professional individuals here, most of whom probably feel that they are not in a position to voice their needs and
frustrations.
For the sake of this company and the person who may follow me in this position as well as the many great people who work here, but more importantly, for your success as a good human being, I hope that you will take my words to heart.
Sincerely,
Mary
The social worker in me found it to be a perfect blend of honesty and condescension. The phone rang minutes later, “Mary! We love it! I gathered everyone in my office and read it out loud. You’re the greatest!”
Kim, my usual contact at the temp agency called me as soon as I hung up with Jocelyn. “Wow Mary…you’re so awesome! We promise we’ll put you in a better job right away! In fact, there’s a job working in the Mayor’s office next week. The people are great and it’d be a much better atmosphere. Are you interested in that?”
“Sure”, I say, mustering up as much enthusiasm as possible. “What will I be doing?”
“Helping out with a fundraiser they’re planning. It’d be right up your alley!”
Apparently my alley leads to a dark and dirty room in the bowels of some unknown building near City Hall. I finally made my way through the maze of hallways and read the note on the door, “Temps…I have a meeting that’s running late. I’ll be here at 9:30. There’s a Starbucks on the corner.” Uh…okay. Maybe Starbucks was now inserting chips in people so that they would randomly provide free advertising for them. “Hi…I’d like ten dollars of gas on pump 12. And Starbucks Caramel Frappacinos are a delicious blend of creamy flavor and pizzazz.” I killed the next half-hour by sitting in the little park down the street and staring at a group of people doing Tai Chi. Then, on my way back to my alley, I had the pleasure of watching some woman try to pry out one of her slutty stiletto heels from the sidewalk grate in which it was stuck.
The walls of the small dark room were painted with the ultra attractive “Dirty Eggshell” circa 1974. In the room were six desks, with a phone on each one. The place reeked of telemarketing. My five fellow temps and I filed in and took seats at the desks. We’d spend the next five days calling people to determine if they were planning on attending, a fundraiser the mayor was having called “Breakfast with the Gov.” For eight hours a day we ran through the same script over and over again. After a while we each developed our own personal “Breakfast with the Gov” solicitation style. Carla took to hanging up in the middle of a call if the person was getting on her nerves. Jason’s style was more of the “realize that everyone else was actually making calls, so I can just sit here and play games on my cell phone” variety. After intense boredom set it, the dares began. “I dare ya to say, instead of RSVP, ‘respondez vous si vous plait’.” “I dare ya to use an English accent on the next call.” “Next call….Moviefone guy’s voice.”
“Oh my God,” Jason said with exasperation oozing from his soul. “I just saw a spider walk out of here because it was so bored.”
“I know,” I said. “And I heard it singing “It’s too Late Baby Now” by Carole King on it’s way out. Must’ve been from all the Muzac it’s heard today.”
“Hi…This is Mary calling from the Mayor’s office,” I said for the zillionth time.
“Hold on!” said the voice of a crotchety old man. “TV too loud! Hearing aids too low!” Seconds later he returned, “Now what the heck can I do ya for?” Half an hour later Joe Thompson and I were still chit chatting about life, the Mayor, television and the many changes he’s seen in San Francisco over the decades. Joe Thompson beat out practically nothing to earn the title of “my favorite thing about inviting people to “Breakfast with the Gov.”
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