Tag Archives: Work

Phantom phone syndrome

There’s nothing more depressing than phantom phone syndrome. Everyone experiences it to some degree, you’re walking around, maybe you’re at work, and you feel your phone vibrate in your pocket. This happens to me all the time, I’m waiting tables, I’m going over the specials or grabbing a refill on a Diet Coke and I’ll feel it, the buzz-buzz in my pocket. And this sucks because at my restaurant, like at most restaurants I’m sure, you’re not really allowed to be on your cell phone while you’re on the floor.

But what am I going to do, go seven hours without checking my phone? That’s cute. Come on, I’ve got to check my phone. Who knows what kind of emails I’m going to get, or text messages. Maybe something big, something I’ll need to respond to right away. Probably not, but maybe. With the no cell phone thing, I’m limited to a couple of options.

One, I can try to duck away into one of the store rooms, like where they keep all of the liquor in the back, or maybe by the lockers. I’ll whip out my phone and … nothing. But I was sure I felt a tingle. It wasn’t imaginary, I definitely felt something, maybe I’m going crazy, maybe the phone company sends out phantom texts every once in a while to keeps its customers’ attention focused firmly on their cell phones.

And then maybe my boss will walk in, there’s a very real likelihood that the longer I’m hanging out back here, someone’s going to pass by, they’ll see me on my phone, it’s probably someone in charge. Are they going to write me up? Is this going to be like a formal, “Rob, we’ve caught you on your phone and now you’re officially in trouble,” type of deal? Or maybe they’ll give me one of those, “Ugh, Rob, come on, haven’t we been over this? This is really annoying, you guys always on your cell phones,” more unofficial admonishments, while I’m not technically getting in trouble, I’m still getting a once-for, I have to make eye contact and say, “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have, I just, I’m sorry,” types of apology/thank-you-for-not-writing-me-up.

Back to work, back on the floor, try to pass by all of my tables, make sure that everything’s OK, “How is everything, OK?” and three of the people at the table smile or give me a thumbs-up or something, but that fourth person is chewing, and she gives me a weird look, I can just tell she’s already planning out what she’s going to write down on Yelp, something like, “Why do these stupid waiters always wait until I’m mid-bite to come over and ask if everything’s OK? I’m eating! I’m chewing! Ugh! These people are so stupid! Leave me alone!” and then I feel my phone buzz in my pocket again. This can’t be a phantom alert, I’m pretty sure I felt two specific, distinct vibrations, the “buzz-buzz” of a text message.

But I can’t risk the supply closet again, not tonight, definitely not tonight, in fact, I probably can’t risk getting caught in the supply closet again for at least another week, I can’t become a serial offender, an established slacking-off pattern emblazoned into the consciousness of my superiors. Imagining I got off with a warning that first time, this second time, “Two times in one night?” that’s definitely going to be a write-up, “Sign here please,” making me place my signature on a piece of paper, a confession really, an admission of guilt, yes, I was on my cell phone, not once, but twice tonight. Twice.

So I’ll go to the bathroom, definitely not an ideal environment to take an informal break, but whatever, at least the door locks behind me, there’s no chance of anybody catching me in the act. But remember earlier when I wrote that there’s nothing more depressing than phantom phone syndrome? There’s actually something much more depressing. It’s taking out your phone, realizing that despite the very tactile sensation of an electronic device vibrating in your pocket, there’s nothing on the screen, no alerts, no notifications. And then you get that sudden awareness that you’re standing in the stall of a public men’s room desperately searching for messages, for some sort of communication that simply isn’t there. It doesn’t exist. Nobody’s trying to get in touch with you. And you’re hanging out in the bathroom. That’s the most depressing thing I can think of.

The night drags along. I’ll feel more phantom buzzing here and there, but I’m not going to allow myself to fall for it again. Fool me three times, shame on me, right? But my cell phone is patient. Go ahead and don’t check me, it’s whispering, I’ve got tons of phantom buzz reserves. I’ll go off regularly. How does every ten minutes sound? You think you can get through the whole night without checking to see even once if somebody might have emailed or texted you something? Anything?

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

All right, there are still two hours left to go, and if I go to the bathroom one more time, I’m liable to set off some alarms, “Hey Rob, you might want to go to a doctor, you’ve been going to the bathroom an awful lot tonight.” Nobody would ever say that to me, because it would be painfully obvious what I was really up to, checking my phone. And there are only so many men’s room visits I can stomach during a single shift.

Plan C is for when I’ve exhausted all other options. It’s about hiding in plain site. I try to get to a computer terminal ideally situated ten to fifteen feet away from the manager on duty. I want to be looking right at the boss, huddled over the screen, making it appear as if I’m hard at work. And that’s when I casually reach my left hand around my back to grab the phone out of my right pocket. I slip it in front of the restaurant computer and go about my business as if there is no phone at all.

But, and I can’t believe this, nothing? No messages? No texts? I definitely felt something. I open up the Twitter app. Zero notifications. Facebook. Nope. I’m looking on my scheduling app, my calendar, all the useless apps that I never open up or use. Which one of you is making my phone buzz? What’s going on?

I jerk my head up. Where’d the manager go? Shit. He’s to my left. He’s making a beeline. Did I get lost? Was I at the terminal for too long? I must have been. I must have been swiping between menu pages too aggressively. Is it too late to get my phone back in my pocket? It’s too late. He’s two steps away so I put my phone on the counter and cover it with a tip tray.

“Rob is everything OK?”

“Yeah boss, I was just checking to see if I’d entered in table twelve’s desserts.”

“That’s it? You looked pretty concerned.”

“Yeah boss, that’s it.”

And that’s when the phone buzzes underneath the tray, audibly. It’s actually louder, like the buzzing phone made the tip tray buzz a little too, and it’s vibrating, it’s actually moving slightly across the counter.

“Rob. Come on man. Again?”

And what can I say? “Boss, it’s not what it looks like. It’s a phantom buzz. It’s not really buzzing at all. Trust me, you’re brain’s playing tricks on you. Sir, we’ve got to be careful, spending too much time online, on the phone. You get that, right? Phantom phone syndrome? That’s a real thing, right? I’ll send you an article I read about it online. I’m totally serious here, it’s all in your head, for real.”

Happy Labor Day

Happy Labor Day everyone, if that’s what you’re into. Personally, I feel like Americans are always looking for an excuse to take another day off, like the weekend isn’t enough time to sit around not being productive. Not me, I’ll be working extra today, double, or even triple if I can hustle fast enough. Because that’s what makes America great, working, getting back to work, taking a five minute break instead of a ten minute break, and then only using three of those minutes.

My grandfather always used to say, “Work smarter, not harder.” Out of respect for my elders, I’d hold my tongue. But now that he’s dead, I don’t feel bad holding back. That’s a lazy man’s motto. My motto is, “Work smarter and harder,” emphasis on the work. Just keep going, don’t stop moving, never stop working. There’ll be plenty of time to not be working harder when we’re dead.

And while I’m on the subject of dead people, talk about lazy. They’re laying around doing absolutely nothing, no work at all, zero productivity, and yet we have to get them nice suits, fancy coffins, we’re supposed to take time out of our busy days to reflect upon all the good times, visiting their graves every once in a while. What a bunch of nonsense. Look, I’m sorry that you’re dead and that you’re no longer of use to the workforce, but do you think it’s fair to be eating away at the billable hours of the living?

Look, this is probably all coming off as incredibly insensitive. It’s just that I always get riled up on Labor Day, another half-baked excuse for the hippies and the communists to loaf around all day and act like work is some sort of a chore, like sitting around and binge watching an entire season of Breaking Bad is something not only to be proud of, but something deserving of a national holiday.

Has anybody checked out the roots of Labor Day? I think it’s supposed to be an actual day of labor, like all right fellas, summer’s over, enough whining about the heat and trying to sneak out of work early at eight. Let’s hit the fiscal year hard, starting now, starting today, Labor Day. And that’s where you’d see your Labor Day sales, stores like Brooks Brothers and Sears would get you to load up on work shirts and trousers, so that way you couldn’t make up any excuses like, “I need five minutes to drop off my dry cleaning.” Just undo the buttons and put on a fresh shirt. And make sure you’re changing during your three-minute breaks, on your own time. We’re not paying you to put on a fashion show, here.

I’m sick and tired of people afraid to roll up their shirtsleeves and put in an honest day’s work. Everyone’s always taking bathrooms breaks or hanging out by the water cooler or dropping of their parents at the oncologist. What ever happened to a good old-fashioned work ethic? Since when did sweat and a little elbow grease become such scarce resources?

Oh no, it’s fine, I understand, your family’s having a barbeque today. Excuse me, I didn’t realize that sitting around and eating hamburgers was somehow beneficial to the economy, good for the bottom line. I’m sure the shareholders will understand why our revenue was off by about a fifth this week, “Sorry ladies and gents, but the boys felt like sitting around and drinking beer today, blowing up stupid inflatable pools for their snot-nosed little kids, even though they’ve just had a whole summer not going to school, not learning anything, because their lazy teachers with their socialist unions refuse to work for two months out of every year.”

And we wonder why China’s catching up, right? I hate to say it, but that’s a country, a people that really value the meaning of the word labor. Every day is Labor Day in China, and in a good way. Not like the commies over here, everyone looking for a government handout, another excuse to take the day off, “But boss! It’s Christmas! But boss! My mom just died! But boss! I’m just so lazy!”

Think about it. Think about what makes us great. Think about what gives your life meaning. Think about you, sitting in your backyard, shoving hotdogs down your fat face. If you change your mind, you know where to find me, I’ll be in the office, working. Let’s get back to work people. Happy Labor Day.

About that new guy at work

I’m always running my mouth, at home, on the Internet, at work. Especially at work. At the restaurant, it’s not like I’m even trying to get in anybody’s way, I just can’t help myself. I’ll see two or three people standing around doing what they’re doing and I have this compulsion to go over and start talking. And I don’t even have anything to say, not really, I’m just bored, I just want to hear the sound of my own voice, I just want some distraction from the mundane of the workday.

For example, maybe two people will be polishing silverware and I’ll walk up behind them and insert myself into whatever it is they’re doing. I’ll pretend like I’m in charge, like I’ll start giving critiques on what they’re doing, something like, “Ooh, hey guys, let’s make sure that when we’re polishing, we’re like really polishing, like let’s make an effort to really make sure that we’re getting each piece of silverware just really sparkling clean. Is that cool? I’m not saying you guys are doing a bad job. No, not a bad job. A great job? Well, definitely not a bad job. Let’s just constantly strive to focus on how we can improve, like how can we be doing this better more efficiently, stuff like that.”

Like one or two sentences in, one of them is sure to walk away, but I can’t stop myself. I just have to keep going. I have this natural ability to go on and on and on like that, without pause, for hours. I could have stood there talking about silverware for the rest of the shift. But like I said, I’ve gotten to the point at this job where people will see me start to open my mouth, and they’ll roll their eyes and look for some other direction in which they might escape.

And so it was getting rough there for a while, me, constantly in need of attention, everybody else, not wanting to give me any attention at all. I’d try to go a whole night without running my mouth, like maybe I might gain back the esteem of my colleagues, and then after a couple of weeks of acting like a regular employee, I could slowly start making long-winded jokes again. But I tried, and I couldn’t even get through one night.

It got to the point where I figured I’d exhausted the patience of pretty much everyone on the staff, and so I was just about ready to hand in my two-week’s notice, to move on to another job with a new group of coworkers. But then we got this new hire, a guy about my age. He made it through training no problem, and as he started his first few nights on the floor, I thought, well, maybe he’ll listen to me for a while, maybe I can joke around with the new guy without having to worry about him walking away mid-sentence.

So I went up to him one day while he was at the computer and I was like, “Hey man, I bet you can’t guess what number I’m thinking of.” I would do something like this pretty often. Even if whoever I asked wound up guessing correctly, I’d never admit it. I’d just keep saying, “Nope. Nope. Nope,” until it was painfully obvious that I was just wasting everybody’s time.

But this guy, as soon as I said, “Hey man, I bet you can’t guess what number …” he just blurts out, “Seven,” and he’s looking me right in the eye and I’m taken a little by surprise, I mean, it’s not like I was really trying to pick a number, I never do, but I guess yeah, seven kind of was in my head, like maybe just formulating that question, my mind picked out a number at random. I think. Or did he say seven so quickly that it caught me off guard? Like maybe he said seven and I started thinking about seven right away?

“Nope,” I told him, he was like, “Really,” the whole time looking at me right in the eye. Man, this guy was such a weirdo, always straight-faced. I mean, yeah, I spend probably a little too much time goofing around at work, but this guy, it’s like he’s a machine, an emotionless, soulless robot. And he just kept staring at me, this creepy gaze.

One time a couple of days later, he’s standing around with a group of three or four other coworkers, they’re not doing anything, everybody’s checking their cell phones. I decide to walk over and start talking a bunch of nonsense, I say, “I’ll give anybody two hundred bucks if they can guess what song I’ve got stuck in my head.” It’s classic, because they can never prove it, I’ve got their attention, and even if they got it right, there’s no way I’m paying two hundred bucks.

But again, this new guy, he looks me right in the eye and he starts singing along with the exact song as it’s playing in my head. And I can’t make excuses for it this time, there’s no trying to justify whether or not who put what in who’s head. This is like, line for line, he’s in my head, I’m hearing this song, and he’s mouthing it out in real time. And that gaze is locked, I can’t pull myself away, I can’t turn the song off in my head, everything’s out of control. I’d like to freak out and run away, to say something, anything, but I’m frozen.

Finally the song ends, I can feel him let go of the mental lock, he stops singing, he just opens out his hand and says, “Pay up.”

Black, laceless, size fourteen

Every once in a while I’ll find myself in a shoe store. I have a size fourteen foot, so it’s unlikely that they’ll have anything past thirteen. But sometimes there’s going to be something, and maybe it’s not a fourteen, maybe it’s a thirteen but I’ll try it on anyway. And it looks great, I feel like I’m doing a normal thing, buying shoes at a shoe store, I’ll do like a whole series of laps around the showroom just to make sure I’m not tricking myself into thinking that these things are going to work out when they shouldn’t. And I’ll do it, I’ll buy them.

And it always turns out that, despite my in-store laps, I had tricked myself. Because whatever pace I was maintaining on that soft shoe store carpet, now that I’m outside, man, these things are way too tight. It’s the kind of discomfort that only starts to manifest like an hour, two hours after continuous wear.

One time I bought this pair of black shoes for a job at a new restaurant. I needed a very specific style, laceless, black, some sort of adhesive grip on the bottom. I don’t know, it was all a lot of very exact rules for buying these shoes. And I had like a week to make it happen. And so I went online, I found the shoes, they showed up maybe five days later, but they were too big, like way too big. These things said fourteen but they felt like a seventeen.

And so now I only had three days left. I placed another online order, but I wasn’t sure they were going to get here in time. And they didn’t, so I wound up at the shoe store again, tricking myself into buying those thirteens. Don’t worry, I told myself, you’ve got this. These are going to work out fine.

But that slow pain that starts after an hour or two, it was crippling after three or four. By the time I got out four hours after that, my toes were practically purple. Thankfully, while I was at work, that second online order arrived at my house, and so I didn’t even bother to try to them on, I thought, well, I’m definitely never wearing the thirteens ever again, and I don’t have anything else, so they have to work, they simply must fit.

The shoe store lady kind of put up a fight when I went to return the thirteens. “Did you wear them?” and I should’ve just said no, like, what is this lady, the shoe judge? No, just accept the return, thank you very much, you have a nice day too. But for some reason I was overly honest, “Well, yes, but just for one day.”

“One day?” she looked up at me, recoiling the handheld barcode scanner that she was just about to use to zap the purchase clean from my credit card. “What do you mean one day?” and usually I’m much more confrontational, like usually I would’ve been like, “What do you care? Just zap it, what are you, personally invested in this pair of shoes?” But I was so defeated, my feet still swollen from the day before, I think I might of started to weep, a soft weeping, but still, I was like, “Come on, please, they hurt so badly, I can’t …” and she kind of deflated, like I could tell she was looking forward to that confrontation, but this, I had to have been weeping, it was a pity zap, she thought I was pathetic.

And I got to work, my second day on the job, and these shoes, the second online delivery, they said thirteen, and these actually felt like a thirteen. I couldn’t understand it. The fourteens felt like seventeens, but the thirteens a strict thirteen? There was no winning here. It was another painful night. I thought about how I was going to go forward. I thought, am I going to have to find a new job? Why is it this hard to find a pair of shoes?

At the end of the shift, peeling those thirteens off, the rush of blood to my deprived extremities, I said, screw this, I don’t care. No way am I going through another night. I returned everything, all of the boxes, take it all back, I give up. I went into the back of my closet and reached for my trusty pair of blacks, laced up, a little scuffed on the edges, soles so smooth I could slide across the floor with little more than a brisk two-step.

And you know what? Nobody said anything. That stupid rule book that they gave me when I was hired, what a joke. Someone must have written it up years ago and that was the last time it was ever seriously consulted. One time I was on the floor and one of my managers even stopped me, he was like, “Hey Rob, your shoe lace is untied.” I was like, “Hey thanks a lot boss, good eye man,” and he gave me one of these winks, a really mild thumbs-up, like keep up the good work Rob, nice shoes buddy.

I miss summer vacation

What am I supposed to do for the rest of the summer? The Fourth of July is long gone. There aren’t really any holidays to look forward to until Labor Day, which in my line of employment, it’s more of a joke than an actual holiday, because I always work Mondays at the restaurant, and especially on holidays, especially on holidays that don’t really have anything to do with anything real, it’s like people go out to eat in droves. Personally, I’d never wait on line for more than ten minutes to sit down and eat, but I’m clearly in the minority here, because on any sort of a day off, it’s like, let’s go out to a restaurant everybody.

Labor Day, it’s an actual day of labor for me. So I’m not counting that as a holiday. And then Columbus Day? Again, it’s the same. Most jobs still make you come in anyway. I think it’s just banks that take the day off. But that’s not until fall. I’m losing track of where I was going with this. It’s still technically summer, and I can’t think of anything special to do.

And I don’t know what the problem is, really, because when you think about it, there’s nothing really at all different about July or August than there is February or March. They’re all just regular months, go to your regular job, wait for the next holiday, which is always way too far away. It’s just the weather that changes. I’m freezing, and then the next thing I know I’m way too hot.

It just sucks because we spend the first twenty-two years of our lives having summer as a vacation. Even if you had a job growing up, which I always did, you still got two months where you didn’t have to go to school. When I was in high school, and then during those summers in between college, I’d love to work some crappy job. One, regardless of how pointless the work might have been, it was all very temporary. And two, it was a break from the normal routine. No school, no classes, something different.

And then you’re an adult and the weather starts getting warmer and there’s still that expectation that something different is going to happen, that for two months anyway, even if I’m not going to be able to sit around and do nothing, I’ll at least get a well needed change of scenery.

Now I’m twenty-nine, so I’m still at this point where the majority of my life experience is telling me something different than what I’m actually experiencing: a life of going to work over and over again, maybe I don’t hate it, maybe sometimes I do hate it, but it’s something that I have to deal with, because it’s never going away, there’s no rest at all. Once in a while maybe I’ll take a day off or a couple of days, a week or two once a year, but that’s it.

It’s just so soul crushing. And I hate sounding like such a whiney little brat, I totally realize how entitled this all sounds. But I just hate the fact that we have this warm weather, that all I really want to do is just go outside and run around and relax and play with my dog and cook a nice meal. I’d get my writing done when I felt like it, I’d have plenty of time to read the newspaper or some books, all of the stuff that I never get to do.

Because my real life is just waking up, struggling to get a run in, making myself sit down to write all of this stuff out, why? Because I want to be a writer. Why? So that way I could do all of this fun stuff that I’m talking about without having to sacrifice seven hours a day at a restaurant. And again, I don’t hate it. I definitely don’t love it, but in terms of a job that I have to do to pay my bills, whatever, I could have it a lot worse.

But all of that stuff, the reading, the cooking, more exercise, more time to just take a walk with my dog, maybe do a little gardening, there’s never enough time. I always go to bed at the end of the day thinking that there was so much more that I wanted to do that I wasn’t able to because I had to go to the restaurant and run around like a crazy person getting this, doing that, and by the time I get home, I always tell myself, you can do it Rob, you can stay up a little bit longer and get some more work done. But then I’m asleep. And then I’m waking up again. And it’s the same old, same old, every day, winter or summer. I just want to go outside. Just give me two months to go outside and hang out. That’s not so bad. We’re a pretty rich country. This is a pretty advanced society. Can’t we make it so we take turns working? Right? Wouldn’t that be nice?