4.2.98

    I played no April Fool's jokes yesterday. Things just weren't going that well for me. T. and I are having "issues" and I'm trying to get the website I'm working on out the door. ("Captain -- she just can't take it anymore -- we've got to launch!") It's all about content baby. The funniest Fool's site was up at teevee.org and I just happen to know one of the writers. This entry in the L.A. stories is going to be somewhat wandering so bear with me.

"Right-o, Jimmy. You've done the circle, you've done the heart with the arrow through it and you've spelled Albuquerque in cursive now it's time for the ultimate test -- the question mark."

    I mean, you've got to practice, right?
    I've long been interested in the internal lives and connections that develop inside the confines of a job. I'm not that interested in the corporate networking schmoozefests which evolve but rather in the more real environments of, say, fast food or metal pipe construction. I have worked in two pizza restaurants, one in Bicester, England, and one in Texas. I have worked in a deli/video poker establishment in Eugene, Oregon. I worked a temp job as a receptionist/whipping dog at a PVC Pipe making factory. All of these places developed an inner support network, sort of a family of misfits who, if you played it right, would do anything for you and if you didn't would make work even more hellish than it was. Maybe it has to do with the toil of the service industry that brings people together in a different way. It's the smoke breaks and the after-hours cleaning sessions that bring out personalities and friendships that exist, mostly, within the confines of a hot kitchen smelling of bleach or an oil-streaked garage or any other place avoided by the weak of stomach.
    When I was living in Portland I was absolutely fascinated by the bus drivers. I took the bus to and from work every day and even around the city when my car went caput. I loved the snippets of conversation I would get when two drivers would meet. I would listen in as drivers waited at the stop for the proper departure time, smoking and dissecting the latest inter-office scandal. There was a husband and wife, a hippy who called out points of interest as though we were on a tour, a large-bellied driver who always gave a cheerful morning hello, a younger man who scowled, an older woman who snatched your ticket and cursed, a drag queen in full makeup who seemed so confined in the blue, boring uniform. I tried to imagine the break room and the morning cups of coffee between these people -- thrown together by the timing of their routes.
    At the pizza place in England I mostly remember Rhonda, Matilda and Dave -- all older and with kids. I was seventeen. We were friends, though, bound together in the tiniest of kitchens dominated by a heat-bellowing, pizza oven. Matilda and I used to sneak jalapeño juice into the pizzas of rude kids and I remember asking her once: "How come my parents get so upset if I want to go out late? If I go out at seven and come back at eleven what's the difference than if I go out at nine and come back at eleven?" And her reply was, "Gee, I don't know, it just seems wrong" which was when I realized that in fact Matilda was a mother whose daughter was my age and was in some of my classes. I always think how strange that was that I felt like she was a friend. Rhonda was a sweetheart who I felt needed a little protecting and Dave needed a friend like no other.
    Have you ever worked at a place like this?