And You Think Your Job Stinks?

The first year of university was an eye-opening experience in many ways.  First, I learned that when you move to Ottawa, and leave your girlfriend in Hamilton, you blow all your rent money on phone bills, forcing you to get a job selling fries in a mall.  And because your girlfriend is six hours away, you don’t exactly go home to a warm embrace, if you know what I mean.  Brutal.

The school year ended, and incidentally, so did my relationship, and I returned home for the summer.  My friends had scored jobs with the government and other places that would look fantastic on their resumes.  I hit Hamilton without a single prospect, because, I had been so wrapped up in my big fry job that I didn’t really think to spend the time on getting a career-boosting summer job.

 

This was a period in my life where I wasn’t making my parents too proud.  First, I spent way more money on absolutely nothing than my super-saver father could ever imagine.  I called home for more rent money eighteen times in the eight months I was away, and Dad had decided that my second year would be a different story.  Never having spent one second unemployed from the time he was sixteen (or however old you were when you started work in the olden days), my hardworking father couldn’t possibly fathom how I arrived home with no hope, and a general lack of desire to work.

I looked for jobs in the newspaper.  Remember, I’m of the generation that lived the first 25 years of their lives without the benefit of the internet.  No jobs.  I went to student job centres, and asked around.  Nobody ‘networked’ back then.  One day, after I had long past given up hope, I found myself face to face with a Help Wanted sign, stuck to a pole.  Wanted:   Evening Help in Garden Centre, and a phone number.  It sounded like cash, so I called. 

Turns out it was one of those garden centres that sets up temporarily in the corner of the grocery store parking lot.  Evening help turned out to mean overnight help.  I had never worked with plants or flowers, and I had never once worked an overnight shift, so you can see how I was perfect for this job.  The manager told me to come back at 11pm, and I would start my training.  Minimum wage was about six bucks an hour, and that sounded like about six bucks an hour more than I was getting sitting at home.  It also offered the added benefit of being able to escape my dad’s looks of disappointment and disgust that I was unemployed.  

11pm arrived, and training commenced.   First, the rules.  There’s a trailer, but don’t sit in it.  In fact, it’s locked during the night.  There’s a cube truck, but don’t sit in it.  Unless it’s pouring rain, and only after all the tasks are complete.  It’s dark and it’s night, but don’t sleep.  These plants cost lots of money, don’t let anybody steal them.  Watering isn’t as easy as it looks, there’s a process, so don’t screw it up.  If the plants die, nobody’s gonna be happy, and somebody is gonna pay.  Enjoy your night, see you in the morning.  Training over.

If you’ve ever been to the corner of a parking lot by a grocery store, you’ll have noticed that there is no tap from which to get water.  Who knew?  As turns out, in the back of the cube truck, there was about 8 miles of hose.   I had to schlep that hose about 4 blocks to a gas station where my boss had negotiated some kind of deal to let us use their tap.   I then had to walk back the four blocks, and spend the next two hours painstakingly watering every freaking  bloom in the garden centre with exactly zero water pressure.  The first night, this two hour job took about six hours.  I then had to go back, roll up the hose, and return it to the cube truck, nicely coiled.  I very clearly knew nothing about watering.

I should have quit in the morning, but I didn’t.  I went home, exhausted, and slept until it was almost time to go back to work.  It had rained during the day, so when I arrived at work, they told me I didn’t have to water.   I know that it wasn’t digging ditches, or mining for coal, but a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders with that news.  What I didn’t know was that there was a much worse task waiting for me instead.  That day, they had received a shipment (a huge freaking truckload) of manure.  It was bagged, but bagged manure still smells, and after a day in the rain, forty-pound bags of manure are some slippery shit.

My job…move the pile of bags exactly three feet to the left, and stack them neatly.  That job took all bloody night.  Some bags ripped open, some flew out of my hands, and neither my arms nor my back were at all prepared to move a ton of cow shit.  Again in the morning, I thanked my boss for the privilege, and went home exhausted.  The next night, same job, but this time, sheep manure.  Have you ever smelled sheep manure?  I don’t know what those fluffy bastards eat, but holy crap, it’s the most sickly sweet gross poo you’ve ever experienced.  Again, a full night’s work, but this time, I also had to do the watering.  My shift was supposed to finish at 7…that day, I didn’t get out til after 10.

The following night, all I had to do was water and organize the plants, which was welcome news after two nights of poo duty.   I was getting pretty excellent at the whole watering thing, and had my chores done by about 12:30.  That left about six and a half hours.  I couldn’t sit in the trailer.  I couldn’t sit in the truck, and I couldn’t bring a lawn chair.  I was however, allowed to bring a book.  That night, I fashioned the most beautiful throne out of bags of cow manure that I am sure anyone had ever built.  I perched myself on the pile of poo and read the night away, stopping just in time to re-stack the manure before my manager arrived.

I would like to tell you that the garden centre job ended well, but it didn’t.  After a couple of weeks of absolutely no contact whatsoever with my boss during the nights, I let my guard down.  I was exhausted and feeling cocky, so I decided that a little sit in the truck would do me a world of good.  It wasn’t raining, and my jobs weren’t complete.  I don’t remember closing my eyes, but I certainly remember being woken up by my boss pounding on the window.  He obviously didn’t know the rule about jolting a chubby dude out of a sound sleep.  He asked if I had seen him moving the geraniums on the perimeter of the centre, and when I looked at him stunned, he relieved me of my duties, right then and there.  Canned at two in the morning.  Very uncivilized, and no HR or Outplacment representative anywhere in sight!

No more manure thrones.  No more shifting shit from one spot to another spot, just two feet away.  No more watering.  A whole lot more disappointment from my dad.  The story does end well, as from there, I got a summer job working for the Ontario Human Rights Commission doing intake on new human rights complaints.  It was a great job, but ultimately it was still dealing with shit…just a different kind of shit.

Wet Clean Up, Aisle Three

A few years ago I worked for a company that had a special summer program where the high school aged children of employees could work for a two week period in the summer to ‘experience’ office life.  As a manager, you put in your request, students were assigned to you, and you welcomed them to the world of work with a list of tasks nobody in your office wanted to do all year long.  Filing, blowing the crud out of keyboards, cleaning storage rooms, stuff like that.  Real money for real work.

For years I had taken part in the program, with mixed success…I had some real superstar students, and others who were, shall we say, less than superstars.  I remember one year having to follow one around and wake him up.  Wherever he sat down, he slept.  He might actually have suffered from narcolepsy, but it’s more likely that he suffered from being 14.

I transferred from Saskatoon to Toronto, and in the larger offices, you were assigned kids who belonged to parents other than your own direct employees, so one summer, I got a kid whose mother worked for the company, but I didn’t know her at all.  No problem.  We received a directive from Planet HR that this year the summer work was to be ‘meaningful’.  Like blowing a year’s worth of crumbs and dead skin out of keyboards isn’t meaningful.  So instead of the usual list of grunt tasks, I gave my student an office and a bunch of data sheets that needed to be entered into a spreadsheet or something.  Much more meaningful.

The office was set up such that you could see the computer screen from the door, and beside the door, there was a window, so even with the door closed, you could see into the office and what was on the screen. 

So he was at it for a day or two, and I was heading to see someone, and noticed that the office door was closed.  I thought that was odd, as there was no reason for the door to be closed, so I approached the office.  From outside, through the side window, I could see his screen.  You guessed it.   Porn.  His back was to the door, but it was very clear that he was enjoying  some of the very best XXX content that  the internet has to offer.  As I was about to bust in, it became obvious that this was not simply passive viewing.  He was doing what most teen-aged boys do when they’re alone with a computer and porn.  Viewed from the back, and from outside the office, his arm was going so furiously it looked like he was sawing a log.

Now this is what the experts refer to as a dilemma.  Do I bust in and shut down the party, scarring both of us for life, or do I wait for it to be over then fire his ass?  Keep in mind he’s a summer student, and Mom works for the company (which only suggests that there needs to be some thought in how he gets the boot, but doesn't question the need to do it).  I frankly had no interest in playing a leading role in this kid’s nightmares for the rest of his life, so I retreated to my office to ponder, figuring that at the rate he was sawing, that things would be over fairly soon.  

I called my HR business partner, who earlier had commented that I don’t really call until I’ve got big issues, and when she heard my story, she very nearly fell off her chair.  We quickly discussed the situation, and she decided we needed reinforcements, and this required the special expertise of the VP of HR.  So we raced to his office in some kind of freakish competition to see who could get the story out first.   The conversation was an interesting mix of shock, horror, belly wrenching laughter, and head scratching.  This was a new one for each of us.  We all returned to our offices to think about the next step.

By the time I returned downstairs, we were ready for a wet clean up on aisle three.  I went to see my little friend, who by that time had returned his little friend to his pants.  Not exactly knowing what to say, and still, not wanting to scar the kid for life, I told him that corporate security had called me because they could “SEE EVERYTHING YOU’RE LOOKING AT ON YOUR COMPUTER SCREEN”, and I introduced him to the window, and explained that its purpose was to allow people to see in.  Somehow I thought all this subtlety would get through to skater boy, but all I got in return were five fateful words, ones that ultimately ended skater boy's short stint in the summer program, ‘Um, ya, K, whatever dude.’

I called the VP and my HR Business partner and asked them to get him out of my department, and to have his mother never bring him back.  We decided to spare mom the humiliation of knowing that her baby boy was doing the ‘five knuckle shuffle’ at work, and told her that he had been caught viewing inappropriate content on the internet while he was supposed to be working.   Any mother would be horrified right?  Wrong.  This superstar employee, instead of hanging her head and apologizing for the actions of her stupid kid said, ‘Well, did you get him to sign off on the Acceptable Computer Use Policy?”

She left the office muttering something about killing that little bastard.  We never saw him again, but I can only assume the ride home from work wasn’t much fun for skater boy.

Yes, But It Was A Very Manly Pink Car...

As a manager, it’s not that hard to piss people off.  You can piss them off without even trying.  In fact, you can piss them off without even knowing.  I remember a time, as a manager in a hotel in the Rockies when I had the entire housekeeping team ready to quit because of one passing comment that I made without two seconds of thought.  I was helping out because we were understaffed and very busy, and I, instead of sitting in my cushy office was out in the rooms, making beds and cleaning toilets.  I imagined that I would be revered by the housekeepers as one of the suits who wasn’t afraid to get into the trenches.  I’m sure it was going pretty well, and my rep was being appropriately elevated until I uttered those five fateful words…”well, this isn’t rocket science”.  

Typically in this hotel, to get any kind of work-related announcement circulated, it required a meeting, followed by a memo, followed by nine emails, and then a letter attached to paycheques, and at that, only 50% of people read it, and only half of them paid attention to it.  My five words spread like wild-fire.  It took about 8 seconds for every single housekeeper, including those who weren’t working to hear that I had completely slagged the profession of hotel housekeeper and that I didn’t respect them or the work they did.   I’m fairly certain that word of my disrespect even spread outside the property in this close-knit mountain resort town because I was getting more side-ways looks than usual at the Safeway.

I had to have a meeting with the executive housekeeper and her supervisors to explain myself, and to this day I’m certain that if she wouldn’t have smoothed things over (read:  pleaded with her team) that we would have been replacing the entire housekeeping staff.  In that resort town, it was, and I’m sure still is, an employee’s market.  They hold all the power.

I mention this because it puts me in mind of another situation where I clearly pissed somebody off.  It occurred under very different circumstances and generated a significantly different reaction.

By this time, I was a director responsible for a department of about 75 people in a company of about 1400 nationally.  I returned to my office in the middle of the afternoon on one very normal day.  I saw the flashing light of death on my telephone signaling waiting voicemail, so I listened.  I had to listen to it 3 times to make sure I really heard what I thought I heard.  Then I had to get somebody else to listen to it.  I had received my first death threat as a manager.  In fact, it was my first death threat as a person.

Another fateful five words…"You are going to die."  No hello, no goodbye, no reason, no nothing.  A very simple “You are going to die”.  Not even a timeline.  It would have been very handy to know when this was going to occur.

I thought getting a death threat represented some kind of right of passage for a manager, and one that was not to be taken too seriously, but others felt differently.  The person I asked to listen insisted that I call our corporate security for guidance.  Our corporate security gurus demanded that I call the police.  They also suggested that I move my car around the parking lot so it would be harder to track my comings and goings from the building.  To their credit, they had no idea that I drove a fushia-coloured Dodge Shadow, (surprisingly the only one in the parking garage), so it wasn’t exactly ‘Where’s Waldo’ when it came to knowing where I was.

Following directions, I called the regional police service, and it was apparently a fairly busy Thursday afternoon.   The somewhat pre-occupied duty officer took my story, advised that it would be three or four hours before an officer could get to me to take an official report, and to hold tight.  She also advised that I should lock my door and if anyone I didn’t recognize came to the door, that I shouldn’t answer.  I didn’t think it was too wise to interrupt her to remind her that it was probably actually someone who knew me that wanted me dead.

Then I waited.  And waited.   My lovely wife was also waiting, at home, and in those days, she didn’t exactly have the patience of Job when it came to my tardy arrival from work.  I can remember many occasions where I was greeted with a less than welcoming, “Look girls, your Daddy does remember where he lives…”  In order to head off certain grief at home, I decided that waiting another three hours for an officer to arrive was not in the cards.   So I called back the duty officer, told her I wouldn’t be waiting, and she informed me to be careful, and to call them if anyone tried to kill me.  I let the people at work who knew about the situation know that I was leaving (oddly nobody offered to walk me to my car), and I left for home, without incident.

Corporate security was insistent that I get this on the police record, so when I was back at work a few days later, I called the cops and they sent over their most junior, most disinterested officer to take my report.  The officer arrived in my office, asked about two questions and told me to call back if anyone tried to kill me.  He stood up and was making for the door when I asked him if he even wanted to listen to the message.  Our security people had made a copy from the voicemail system and emailed it to me (remember that if you’re ever planning to make a death threat on company voicemail).  He sighed and said, “Oh ya, I should”…so I played it for him.  

 Click here to hear the voicemail message

He got interested fast, and I’ll never forget his reaction…”Wow, cool…that sounds like it’s out of that movie Saw where the killer records a message for his victim.  Don’t worry, it’s probably just some crackpot.”  As he was walking out the door, I asked him what happened to those victims in the movie, and he said, “Oh, within a couple of days they’re dead.”  And he kept walking.

So notwithstanding the officer’s incredible ‘bedside manner’, I’m still very much alive, and that was my first and so far only death threat.  We never did officially pin it on anyone, but I’m pretty sure it was from a guy I had fired about a year before who I not-so-affectionately refer to as Porn Boy.  We’ll talk more about him later.

Out of the Wilderness

I am a firm believer that everyone needs to work in a fast food job.  It helps build the strength and character that’s necessary later in one’s career.  I will absolutely encourage my girls to go get jobs in fast food.  Fast food taught me lots of valuable lessons, the most important lesson, one that I think about all the time:  Just because the mall is empty it doesn’t mean you’re not going to get mugged when you drop your drawers in the restroom.

After the mugging, the sexiness faded from a career in speedy food service, so it was time to look around for a new job, and that’s when I discovered the car rental business which turned out to be my first, and final leap into the white collar world.   I jumped from selling fries in a mall to renting cars in an airport.  Well, at first, I didn’t even get the plum airport assignment, which, for the car rental business is the top of the food chain.  That’s where the car rental superstars really shine.  

I worked in some out of the way rental office that specialized in moving trucks and mini-vans, where I could go for days without seeing an actual customer.  We got a lot of phone calls, but on Sunday afternoon at that location, I could just feel myself growing old.  After a couple of months of work, and having rented a grand total of probably 15 vehicles, I got the call.   Somebody called in sick at the airport.   I felt like a ball player on the farm team getting called up to the big show.  I was going to fill in at the airport.

If you’ve been there, you know that the MacDonald Cartier Ottawa International Airport is not nearly as busy as you may think for an airport in the nation’s capital.  In fact, in those days, the early nineties, nobody even called the MacDonald Cartier Ottawa International Airport.  Even the airport location of this national car rental company did not do what you might consider to be brisk business.  And we were maybe the third or fourth busiest company at the country’s sixth or seventh busiest airport.  But that sure didn’t stop me from putting on my best uniform tie and running up there like a crazy man.

I showed up at the airport on Friday night at 5pm to cover the shift feeling pretty good about myself.  What I didn’t know is that I was going to be all alone, with the exception of one car jockey who would move cars around, but who I really think was sitting down at the service bay enjoying some time with his best friend, Mary Jane.  At 5:30 or 6:00 pm, everyone deserted the airport, leaving me in charge.  I looked at the reservation list, and I had about eight reservations, not exactly the big night I was looking for to launch me to car rental superstardom.  Looking down the row of car rental kiosks, it became pretty clear that the superstars didn’t work the Friday night shift.  Like me, all my colleagues at the other companies had nothing else going on, and working was better than nothing.

When the 6pm flight arrived from God knows where, it became painfully obvious that my two months of experience and the fifteen rental agreements for 14 foot cube vans that I had executed in the car rental wilderness had left me completely ill prepared to handle the eight passengers who expecting the speedy service promised in the brochure (remember now, this was pre-internet, when brochures were still king).

My first customer at the airport that fateful night was Dr. Orr.  I’m not changing his name, because he was a pretty cool dude.  I had absolutely no idea how to rent a car at the airport.  I couldn’t work the printers, I couldn’t find the car keys, I couldn’t even make a call because the phones were a different system than I was accustomed to.    Dr. Orr presented himself, and his reservation number and for some reason, expected to drive away in a car.  About 25 minutes into a process that should take 3 minutes at the most, Dr. Orr leaned over the counter, as other passengers were rapidly bailing to other car companies, and said in a very gentle way, “Are you alright son?  I bought my last car in less time than it’s taking you to rent me this one.”  All at once I was both relieved by his tone and resolute in my intent to rent him the fucking car.

I don’t know why, but the temporary assignment at the airport became permanent.  In the ensuing 18 months I became quite a pro.  Maybe even a superstar (in my own mind, at least).  I was whipping cars out of there in 2 or 3 minutes, and many of the regulars always got into my line.  I loved every minute of that job.  On Wednesdays and Sundays, the KLM flight came in, and I got to watch the KLM flight attendants walk by my kiosk.  They were beautiful, and that was a real highlight of the week.  One day, though, I was offered a supervisory role at the central office, which was closer to home, and I decided to accept it, even though it meant not being able to check out the KLM stews ( I did manage to often be at the airport on Wednesday afternoons, though).  

In a weird twist of fate, on the last shift at the airport, the six o’clock flight from God knows where arrived, and the last customer I served at the airport was the good doctor Orr.  You think I’m making that up, but I’m really not.  And since I have a memory for these bizarre things (ask anybody), I mentioned to him that it was my last night at the airport and that he was going to be my one of last customers, and that I thought it was pretty cool that he was also my very first customer almost two years before.  He looked at me with a look that could only mean one thing:  “Who the hell are you, and why are you bothering me…rent me the bloody car and get me the hell out of here.”  All he said was ‘Oh.  Good Luck.’   

So I learned a lesson that I remember very clearly today:  It takes a hell of a lot more than just showing up to make you a superstar, particularly as far as a customer is concerned.