Tag Archives: boss

You’re not supposed to hang out on the stairs

I was taking the train a couple of weeks ago. Where I live, the subway is aboveground, so if you want to take a ride, you’ve got to walk up these two flights of stairs to get to the platform. And exactly halfway up, I ran into my old friend Greg, he was coming down the opposite direction, man, I hadn’t seen him in probably like five years, maybe longer. We caught each other’s eyes right away and stopped to say hi.

A lot of the time it’s a pain to have to stop and say hello to someone when you’re just trying to go about your day. But this was different, Greg used to be a pretty good friend, at least for me, this wasn’t your typical “hey how’s it going,” I mean, maybe it was a chore for him, but if it was, he was doing a good job of not letting me know it, trying his best to seem genuinely pleased to see me.

But after maybe fifteen seconds of pleasantries, right after we got the “It’s been such a long time!” automatic intro sentences out of the way, but right before we could really get into any specific “Where are you living these days?” advanced conversation points, this MTA employee comes up from behind me and gives us this really curt, “Listen, you guys can’t congregate on the stairs, OK, you’ve got to move.”

And yes, it wasn’t the ideal spot to catch up with an old friend, but it wasn’t super crowded, and we both made sure to move as far to the side of the staircase as possible. People were going around us. I’m very aware of whether or not I’m causing a traffic jam, and this was definitely not at all impeding the flow of foot speed.

So I kind of motioned to the MTA employee, like I didn’t say anything to him directly, but I made eye contact, I nodded, and then I looked back toward Greg with renewed urgency, like, yes, let’s continue what we’re doing here, but let’s maybe speed it up a little bit, because we are on the stairs, we can’t very well stand here for too much longer.

But the MTA guy wouldn’t have it, he wouldn’t even let Greg and me get in another back-and-forth, I was just about to ask what he was up to these days, but this guy shouts, “Look, I can’t let you just hang out here. OK, you either have to up the stairs, or you have to go down the stairs, but you can’t just stand here on the stairs.”

And I instantly got kind of annoyed, like yes, I know that we shouldn’t be standing here, but this is where this conversation happened to take place, OK, it’s not like I was like, hey, Greg, do you want to get together this afternoon to catch up? Yeah, great, meet me at the Broadway stop of the N train, the Northwest staircase, about halfway up.

Also, I resented this guy’s message, like, here, let me spell it out for you, let me give you one of these long detailed overly worded I’m-in-charge ways of communicating to you what could easily be said in three or four words. So I turned around, I looked this guy in the eye and I said, “Thank you,” while trying not to appear visibly pissed off, like I tried to smile, and I hoped to get the message across that, OK man, I hear you, we hear you, but thank you, now please go back to doing whatever else it was that you were doing before you came over here to start vigorously enforcing the no-standing-on-the-staircase rules.

So Greg and I kind of continued talking, but it was only like a word, maybe two words, because the MTA guy in his orange neon MTA worker’s vest was not having it. “Gentlemen,” he interrupted. And now I thought, OK, this guy’s not going to let up, maybe we should move? But where? Was I going to go all the way back down the stairs? Because Greg didn’t look like he was willing to walk all the way back up. What if one of us made that effort and then the conversation fizzled out? What if it turned out to be nothing more than a heavy initial dose of nostalgia before we both realized, wait a second, there’s a reason I haven’t seen this person in years, it’s because whatever it was that we had in common wasn’t strong enough to sustain a lasting friendship?

And this got me even more annoyed, like what the hell man, you can’t just let two people run into each other and say hi? Can’t you just take a hint? OK? I took your hint, right, you don’t want us standing here anymore. Hint taken. Can you now take my hint and leave us the fuck alone? Just for like a minute? How long do you really think we’re going to stand here? Is it that important to you that we move right this second?

And so I turned my attention from Greg toward the MTA guy, I started giving him the business, throwing out stuff like, “Why don’t you just back off, all right?” and more stuff like, “You’re not a cop, OK? You want to call the cops? Call the cops, because the last time I checked, MTA guys don’t really have too much in the way of actual authority.”

Which, I don’t know what I was going for here, it was a pure reaction. If I was thinking that my display of defiance might have somehow bought Greg and me a little more one-on-one time, I was wrong. Because even though this MTA guy might not have had any actual enforcement abilities, he was still wearing that vest, he still had a few non-arresting powers at his disposal.

Like getting-in-my-face powers, asking me if I was aware that threatening an MTA employee was a felony offense. “Who’s threatening? I’m not threatening?” I shot back with my hands in the air.

At this point Greg started heading down the stairs, “All right man, it was great to see you. Let’s catch up soon!” and I thought about going down with him, continuing the conversation at on the sidewalk, but that was it, the goodbye was said. And would our forced continued discussion be required to talk about the sort-of argument I had just engaged in with this total stranger?

Yeah, that conversation was over, I’d probably never see Greg again, not that it really mattered, not really. I was already feeling that nostalgia buzz start to die down somewhat. And then it was just me and the MTA guy, he was just staring at me, sort of smiling, like, ha, there goes your friend. I just turned and headed upstairs, muttering, “Asshole,” under my breath.

“What was that?” he screamed out after me, I guess I muttered it a little louder than I thought. But just as I considered saying something else, I realized, no, I muttered that exactly as loud as I had intended, just loud enough for him to hear me say it, and now I’ll just slip back into the background of the city, paying no attention to this crazy guy in an orange vest yelling up at some other guy already disappearing into a crowd of people waiting for the N train.

Workout pro

When I started working out last month, I expected to get some results, eventually. I mean, this is all so new to me. Just basic techniques like stretching, how to correctly handle a small dumbbell, these were all foreign concepts to me. Push-ups. I started doing push-ups and I could barely get to ten. And I’m sure my form was way off, my back arched, by the sixth or seventh, I couldn’t really tell if I was going all the way down and up.

But that was just a month ago, and it’s like now I’m already a completely different person. I can’t even begin to think of to what I can attribute my rapid success. It’s like, week one, I was terrible, I was sore, I couldn’t do anything. And then immediately into week two, I somehow transformed into this workout pro. I don’t know how to explain it.

Like the push-ups. Remember how I said I could barely do ten? Now I have yet to find my upward limit. The other day at the gym, I was almost getting frustrated. What turned into a pre-workout warm-up wound up consuming the entirety my afternoon. I said to myself, you know what? I’m just going to do as many push-ups as I can.

I lost count. It was somewhere around four hundred when my mind couldn’t keep up with the monotony anymore. And by the time I looked up at the clock, not only had I gotten lost in my physical routine, but I’d completely lost track of time. I was only supposed to be there for an hour, but the gym guy had to tap me on my back, he was like, “Hey bro, we’re closing.”

“Closing?” I couldn’t believe it, “You mean I’ve been doing push-ups here for six hours straight?” Shit, I thought, that means I definitely must have missed work. What was I going to tell my boss, that after only six days of starting a New Years workout resolution, I’ve somehow made enough progress to where I’m able to continuously do push-ups, one after the other, with no sign of ever needing to stop, even for a small break?

“And the craziest thing is, I never even felt tired!” I tried telling my boss, who, it’s not just that he was skeptical, it’s that he wasn’t interested in even entertaining my story. “It’s true,” I tried to catch his attention again as he turned away, “I’m telling you, watch, look, I’ll get down right now. One. Two. Three. Four.”

But he was just like, “Get off the floor Rob, you look like an idiot. I have a restaurant to run, I’m not going to sit here and watch you do push-ups. Just … if you miss one more shift, that’s it, we’re going to have to let you go.”

And right as he was saying that, I got this idea, like fine, I don’t need this stupid job anymore. I could work for the gym. I could be like a personal trainer. So I said, “How about I let myself go,” and I threw down my apron and stormed out. And I went straight to the gym.

“Hire me,” I told the guy at the front desk, “I want to work here at the gym.” And the guy said, “Well, I guess we could use someone to make sure all the weights go back on the racks after people are done using them.”

I said, “No, I don’t think you get it. I want to be a trainer. I can do like an unlimited amount of push-ups.”

And he said, “Well, that’s great, but you know, you have to get certified to be a trainer, and even then, you’ve got to build up a clientele, so if you bring say, ten or eleven people here, get them a gym membership, I mean, we could give them a preferential rate, then maybe we could talk about giving you a cut.”

“Wait a second,” I told him, “Client base? Do you want to see me do push-ups? Seriously, ask the guy who closed the other night. He had to kick me out. I was doing push-ups for like six hours straight.”

“Look, that’s terrific, really, but this is a business, so unless you can somehow make a successful business model out of those push-ups … well, like I said, you’re more than welcome to start part-time racking weights.”

And that sucked, because it was only like seven an hour, and I had a lot of bills to pay. My old boss wasn’t that forgiving either, he let me back, but I had to start over as busboy, which meant a lot of hours for a lot less pay. In fact I was spending so much time at the restaurant that I didn’t have any time to work out, I barely had any money to pay for my gym membership.

By the time I found an hour to sneak away, it was like months later, all of that muscle I’d built up, well, if you don’t use it, you lose it, right? And so I was back to square one, I couldn’t even finish ten push-ups. And of course, guess who walked by right as I was struggling around number seven. It was the gym owner.

“Keep pushing there buddy, you’re doing great.” Why couldn’t he have walked by when I was at the top of my game, huh? Because I don’t think he believed me, if only he could have seen, I was just cranking out push-ups, I could have powered a small city just on upper body strength.

“Keep pushing!” he wasn’t even talking to me anymore, he was just walking around the gym, doling out generic motivation to everyone in the room, “You’re doing a great job!”

At your service

I work in a pretty busy restaurant, and there are tons of managers, everybody’s in charge of me. “Rob, come over here and do this,” or, “Rob, go over there and do that,” and whatever, that’s my job description I guess, server, servant, and I can already hear the, “If you don’t like it, get another job,” rebuttals, which is fair enough, I mean, I could always just leave. But I’ve left restaurant jobs before, it’s always such a pain in the ass showing up at a new place, trying to make a good first impression, starting over somewhere else from the bottom.

And yeah, I don’t necessarily like complaining, but every once in a while it’ll just build up, all of those little interactions at work, constantly getting micromanaged by people that you see every day, only at work, this cast of characters in my life that serve no other purpose than to direct me from point A to point B.

I have a lot of energy. At work, I don’t even necessarily try, but I move around the restaurant pretty quickly. Some kitchen manager will ask me to grab a stack of plates and move it from here to there, and I’ll do it, I get it done without breaking a sweat. And that’s doesn’t even really bother me. It’s when these little orders and commands start to pile up, when I feel that, regardless of how fast I get something done, there’s no end to little chores and constant directions.

“Rob, go get me a stack of plates. Rob, go fold this pile of linens. Rob, get me another roll of printer paper.” After a while I start to feel like, the faster and more efficient that I complete every one of these little tasks, all I’m doing is making more work for myself. Restaurant bosses hate to see their employees standing idle for even a second. And so, as soon as I open up my mouth to start small-talk with a coworker, a manager is guaranteed to show up, to interrupt me midsentence, “Rob, can you make sure that the silverware is polished?”

Yeah, I get the argument that there’s virtue in work. Sure, I have this picture in my head of me marching around the world putting my best foot forward, giving everything that I do one hundred percent, just for the sake of giving it my all, a testament to my admirable work ethic.

But on a day-to-day basis, especially on days where I’m not really feeling it, where I wish that I didn’t have to still be waiting tables at a restaurant, running around, the expediter is telling me to back up ice, and on the way to the ice machine, a customer stops me in my tracks, he lifts up his soda glass and, in between bites of food, he says simply, “More Diet Coke,” and on my way to get his refill, I’ve got another two people in the kitchen looking directly at me, “Is anybody backing up ice?” obviously you just asked me to back up ice, obviously I don’t have the ice, why are you forming it as this general question? Why don’t you just give me a second and I’ll back up ice?

Yeah, on days like that, it’ll get to me, the ceaseless busy work, the realization that, the faster I move, the more work I’ll ultimately have to do. And for what? A few dollars an hour? That’s what really bugs me about restaurant work. The house isn’t even paying me a living wage, and yet they’re acting under the expectation that I’m to work under their absolute obedience, the customers’ absolute obedience, everybody in the restaurant is my boss, but the only ones contributing to my making a living are the people who, after they’ve settled up with the house, maybe they’ll throw me a tip. Probably. Almost definitely. But still, maybe. There’s always the potential for a maybe not.

And so what can I do? “Boss, I gave table thirteen excellent service, but they didn’t leave a tip.”

“Oh well, better luck next time. Can you throw these boxes away?”

So some days, and I hate doing it, but I’ll drag my feet. It’s super passive aggressive, and I doubt anybody’s really paying attention enough to even realize that I’m upset. But that’s the only real control that I have over my day, to just take it a little easier. Because it’s not like if I work really hard they’re going to let me then chill out for a second. No, it’s right back to work, there are always a million things that need to be done, no way that I’ll be able to do everything, and so I might as well just catch my breath, walk a little slower, try to keep those negative thoughts out of my head, just doing my best to be in a better mood.

Closed on Christmas

Unfortunately, due to budgetary constraints, we’re not going to be able to have that holiday party this year. I know, everybody was looking forward to getting together, or maybe not everybody, but Morris was definitely excited, remember last year? Ha. But we’ve got to look out for the bottom line, and in this economic climate, well, you never know when we’re going to need that money. Besides, think about the shareholders. Do you think they want to see us loafing around for four hours at an open bar?

I know what you’re thinking, you’re wondering about those bonuses. Yeah, well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that we’re still doing bonuses. The bad news is that it’s not for any of you. Haha. That was supposed to be a joke. The delivery, anyway, I guess the subject isn’t that funny. Just think of it as more of an incentive to work harder, year after year, and maybe someday you can become an executive, and hopefully then you’ll be eligible for a bonus.

We are buying some bagels though. They’re actually already here, I think Manny dropped them off this morning in Conference Room B. There was cream cheese in there, right Manny? No? I thought I told the secretary to get some cream cheeses, a regular one, and then something else, something with chives, or scallions. Manny, are you sure there wasn’t any cream cheese?

I’m actually just being informed that the bagels are all gone, apparently the nighttime custodial staff must have cleaned house on their way home for the day. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, right? Although, I probably should have had Marge make an announcement, an interoffice memo. As long as somebody ate them, I guess it’s not a total waste.

Morris, can we write off those bagels as some sort of a charitable contribution? How much do you think two dozen bagels cost, fifty bucks? Seventy-five? I’m just going to go ahead and write eighty, because I definitely ordered cream cheeses, I’m sure someone must have had them. Can we write it off as a teambuilding expense also? Does the IRS let us write off expenses incurred while building the team? That’s job creation right there. Just write it off twice.

Good news everybody, we’re giving everybody a half-day on Christmas Eve. It’s nothing, no need to thank me. Just go home and have a very Merry Christmas, you know, after three. The half-day ends at three. At least you’ll beat the afternoon rush home. But to help kind of make up for lost time, we’re actually going to open up on New Years Day. So, you know, you can come in a little late, let’s say nine-thirty, or nine. Let’s just say nine-fifteen. But yeah, enjoy Christmas Eve, but remember to come in on New Years Day.

Why the long faces? You’re still getting Christmas Day off. Right? Marge, check the calendar. Well, that’s got to be a typo. I’m not even sure the building will be open on Christmas Day. Well does Manny have an extra set of keys? Can he leave them with someone else? OK, no, yeah we’ll just keep Christmas Day. Why not? We’ll all stay home on Christmas. But let’s maybe rethink that whole nine nine-fifteen in time on January 1st. Let’s just make it nine flat.

Come on, don’t look at me like that. Don’t you want to be team players? Don’t just think of yourselves, consider the team, about everyone else. And to think, I was just about to send out for pizzas. Well, you guys can forget it. I’m just kidding, everybody march over to Conference Room C, I’ve got a couple of pies waiting for everyone. OK, so you brought lunch, that’s great, can’t you just take it back home and eat it for dinner?

What’s that? Manny, goddamn it man, I told you last night that I was thinking about ordering pizzas today, not that you’d order pizzas last night for today. Man, those’ve got to be … well, cold pizza’s not bad. I love cold pizza. Help yourselves, this place gets pretty cold at night, ask Morris, ask anybody, you know what this place feels like after five, so I’m sure that pizza’s still good. Enjoy.

Me? Oh, no thanks, the board’s going out for our annual holiday luncheon. Honestly, it sounds a lot more glamorous than it is, you know these corporate wine-and-dines. Anyway, get back to work everybody, and Merry Christmas. Right, Happy Holidays, whatever, that’s what I meant. No, I wasn’t trying to exclude anybody, Jesus, just have a great day off, and remember, nine o’clock sharp on Thursday.

Chill out, have a snack

Whenever you’re feeling agitated, ready to jump out of your skin the next time someone so much as looks at you the wrong way, take a minute, make yourself a snack. I’ve always found that getting some food in my stomach helps get rid of ninety-nine percent of whatever’s floating around in my brain that’s causing me distress. And even then, I’ll just eat some more, and that one percent is slashed, cut down to almost zero.

Does your boss get on your nerves? Is he constantly telling you to do this, to work faster, to stop standing around? Make yourself a sandwich. Go ahead and add that extra slice or two of cheese, and don’t be shy with the mayo. Let Mr. Manager get his knickers in a twist, just block out that voice and take a big bite.

Yeah, it doesn’t work immediately, I mean, you’ll still have to put up with those crazy thoughts running through your head for about ten minutes or so while your stomach digests all of that delicious turkey and bacon into whatever it is that calms down the nerves, quiets those impulses to tell your boss what’s what. And yeah, during that time, you’ll still have to stand there and listen to more of that, “What, you don’t have anything to do? I’ll give you something to do. Go put this over there. OK? That’s it? Yeah, well go get that and bring it over here.”

Just try to ignore it, walk as slow as possible, give your body a chance to metabolize all of that delicious chipotle gourmaise dressing that you used instead of mayo. Did I forget to mention that? It’s not too late, even if you’ve already added mayo, add some of this gourmaise, it’s mostly mayo anyway, only it’s got tons of spices in it, man, I could eat this stuff as a dip for chips, so don’t get skimpy, it’s got a squeeze-top nozzle, and there’s plenty more where it came from.

But if your boss is like my boss, he won’t take no for an answer, even though you’re not saying no, you’re not saying anything, you’re just chewing, you’re eating that sandwich as fast as possible so maybe you won’t be so visibly angry, it won’t be as difficult to suppress that feeling of rage bubbling barely beneath the surface, in fact, you’re not really suppressing it at all, he’s yelling at you, you’re chewing, and you’re looking him dead in the eye, your eyebrows are locked in place, if you didn’t have a mouth full of cold cuts, who knows what sort of obscenities you might start hurling?

Get out of there man, just for a second, tell him you need to go to the bathroom, don’t ask for permission to go to the bathroom, just tell him, “I’m going to the bathroom,” and then sneak out to the deli next door. Buy a black and white cookie, trust me, it just looks big because you don’t realize how hungry you still are, that that’s why you’re in such a bad mood. Eat the first one right there, before you even pay for it at the register, and then grab a second one to present to the cashier, “You know what?” you’ll tell him, “Charge me for a Mountain Dew also,” and pick it up on your way back to work.

Don’t look at your phone, it’s probably just your boss sending you some toothless threatening text message, some unoriginal, “It’s not really professional of you to …” long text message, like you’re thinking to yourself, man, what exactly is your job? How much time are you spending writing out paragraph-long text messages to an employee that just needs a snack, just give me ten minutes to eat my sandwich and cookie and take a drink of soda, Jesus Christ.

But it’s OK, by now your system should be totally flooded with whatever it is your body’s released in response to the sandwiches, to the cookies. Enjoy that comfortable buzz in the periphery of your consciousness. The next time you look your boss in the eye, just think about that cookie, maybe softly caress the Snickers bar in your pocket. I did tell you to get a Snickers, right? Just think, five minutes, ten more minutes, tops, and he’ll leave you alone. Just go to the corner for a second, make it look like you’re doing some work, don’t do it too fast, because then you’ll be back to square one, task completed, no more work to do, “No work to do? I’ll give you something to do!” Just take your time, make that menial labor last, unwrap the Snickers and take little bites now and then. You’re just hungry, it happens to everybody, just chill out, just have a snack, just wait a half an hour and then go out for a smoothie or a milkshake.