Job 10: Where are we Headed? To The Top! What Top? The Very Top!
It was November, and somehow I found myself in Minneapolis. I thought for a while that I was going to Indianapolis. I kept thinking about that show "One Day at a Time". Didn't they live in Indianapolis? To me the United States was comprised of New York, to some degree New Jersey, a whole bunch of prairie and mountains and then California. I had no idea where Minneapolis was or Indianapolis for that matter. When I was flying over Lake Michigan I looked out the window and saw a huge expanse of water. I thought it was an ocean somewhere, and I started to panic thinking the plane had been highjacked. Geography was never my strong suit. It took me a few minutes in the cab ride from the airport to make the Mary Tyler Moore connection, and when I did I was able to gain some bearing. I was in MINNEapolis.
I needed to find a job. It may seem surprising, but my vast experience in gas service and lawn maintenance did not help me much in my pursuit of employment. Unfortunately for me, it was early winter, so landscaping was out, and Minneapolis had firmly embraced the self-service revolution, so my expertise as a gas jockey bared little fruit. I found an ad in the local newspaper that seemed promising. It asked, "Are you a motivated hard working self starter?" Oddly enough, I was. I read on. "Are you looking for a challenging opportunity that will help grow your career?" It queried. It must have been a strange coincidence, but I was.
The next day I found myself waiting at a bus stop in Minnesota at 6:00 A.M. in early November. It was colder than I had ever known. Being a punk-ass from New York, I could barely pronounce the phrase, "Winter Coat", none the less wear one. I had the standard punk-ass attire that was comprised of a flimsy jacket and a pair of sneakers with two pairs of socks. I wore no hat, and I never even considered the thought of wearing gloves. That's what pockets were for. After two transfers, one that left me stranded downtown until my toes turned blue, an hour and a half on the bus and a two-block walk, I arrived at Top Temporary. I had never worked at a temp place before. Actually, I had never even heard of one. I was asked to fill out an application, and was told to come back tomorrow morning at 7:00 A.M. It seems I had gotten the job. The woman who took my application was very enthusiastic, and told me to try and be on time.
I woke up bright and early the next morning and made my way out to the bus stop. I figured that the cold from yesterday had to have been some kind of fluke, and it would probably be warmer on this morning. To my utmost surprise and disdain, it had actually gotten colder. "How could it be colder than yesterday?" I thought. "Yesterday was the coldest day I have ever seen, but today it is actually colder." Thus began the months of cold induced psychological breakdowns. I would sit waiting for the bus, my feet frozen solid, and I would will with all my might for the bus to come. Every minute that I waited my frustration would build. I would clench my teeth in anger and tighten my fist until I felt I was going to burst, and then I would release my grip with exhaustion and hover for the next few minutes just above the point of breaking down and crying. I would oscillate between these two emotions until the bus came, and this timeframe would vary between ten minutes and sometimes a half-hour. The buses seemed to like the cold less than I did, and would often breakdown in protest.
I would arrive at Top Temporary a former shell of my once warm self. There would be a few rows of chairs lined up in the front room, and fifteen or twenty so people sitting around talking shit, smoking or eating the stale pastries Top had placed out for us. I didn't realize it at the time, but these were the dregs of Top's workforce, the unskilled labor, the warehouse workers, and I was one of them. I learned a valuable lesson from working at Top. If a fair percentage of your co-workers stink like booze from the night before, and they often use the phrase community service, you are probably in the wrong profession.
