The Interview

Today I interviewed for my seasonal retail job.

I attended my big retail reunion. Everybody was there. Scampering manager, paper shuffling human resources lady and computer savvy assistant.

“…but it wasn't a dream! It was a place! And you - and you - and you - and you were there.”

"Are you nervous?" asked my queen, before I left, as I stared into the mirror.

"No," I assured her, cinching my tie with a really cool dimple just under the Windsor knot. My hands were steady, my mind was sure. Sure that I didn’t need to worry about a retail interview. I could show up dead and know equal excitement.

“More brains…”

Still, once I’m in the car and down the road, the coffee in my veins offered more concerns than mindless zombism. I jittered with antici…………pation . It wasn’t an “I won’t get the job” jitter--okay, it was exactly that, but for different reasons than you might think. The coffee tapped Morse code reasonable factoids on a left brain node, reminding me that interviewers are anything but constants. This sent my right brain into a scenario free-fall. What if I interviewed with some twenty-something lackey, as familiar with the interview process as Zsa Zsa Gabor was familiar with Motel 6?

Left brain analysis followed:

Q: What's worse than landing a retail job?

A: Being rejected by a retail job.

Now both brain sides are spiraling into chaos. I speed past my turn-off. Great, now I might be late. Nothing makes a better interview first opinion.

Shut up, coffee.

I rein my brain back in, turning all control over to my ego. 

“Bout time,” he says, slapping both lobes into submission as I park the car.

It’s funny. Once I walk in the door, it's like I never left: cosmetics on the bottom floor, home store on the top.

"Where are the elevators?"

That’s not me. That's a customer asking me. Yeah, apparently I look like I belong here. My ego raises my right arm, pointing to the elevator alcove to the back of the building. “It’s over there ma’am.”

It’s time to disengage the ego.

He did his job though. Its 11, I'm on time for my interview.

"They're running late, someone will be with you shortly. Have a seat."

"Thanks." I take one.

So does Lidia, the 11:30 and Bonnie, the 12:00.  The good news is that there are two more seats, should the interviewers current activities run later than 1:00. The HR woman mentions that department managers are conducting the interviews.

Great, that’s just what I was worried about. The coffee in my veins starts brain tapping again.  I try to ignore it. Caffeine is my left shouldered devil whispering failure.  I concentrate on the world around me instead. Somebody’s no longer working in one department.  A manager comes up to get the hours released so that anybody else can work them.

Shortly after 12:00, a side door opens beside the HR counter and a small blonde woman steps out, “Robert?”

I stand, and smile.  I’d like not to, but it’s like the smile is ingrained.  What kind of weird water torture did they do to me the last time I worked retail that I can’t stand without smiling? What other weird idiosyncrasies are programmed in my brain?

” I think I’m getting this rash. Oh!  I forgot my nametag!”

Greeter woman’s nametag says “Nancy.” Nancy leads me down a long corridor. We pass several rooms with people sitting behind desks.  I don’t know these people, but I know who they are. These people are the “executives.” The dukes and duchesses of the retail world.   

Almost at the end of the corridor is a small room.  Nancy peeps her head in the door and says, 

“This’ll work. Come on in Robert.”

I won’t bore you with the interview details. Only one of us should be bored through that. Nancy asked me hypotheticals like, “Tell me about a time when you saw somebody, a friend or a fellow employee, do something dishonest.  How did you handle it?”

I didn’t even think about my response.  The words flew out my mouth like a flock of truisms (yes, truisms travel in flocks and yes, these flocks were spewing from my mouth).  She nodded and moved to the next easy question which was answered by another flock. I was astonished. This was the first time in a long time that anything other than a murder of crows came near my lips.

Fifteen minutes in the interview, Nancy leaves the room.  “I need to check something.  Don’t worry, I’m hiring you!”

Trust me that was the least of my worries.

I know?  I sound like such a pompous jerk!  If you were them would you hire me? Me neither! They’ll let anybody run interviews in retail!  Still, Nancy loves me, and I don’t know why.

Nancy returns with another woman who introduces herself as Betsy. Betsy is the manager I saw at the HR counter asking to get hours opened. She has a position in suits she needs filled.  It’s a commission department and she wants to know if I want it?

After what Nancy’s told me about the non-commissioned hourly wage, commission doesn’t sound too bad. Still, commission is the reason I left retail. I don’t want more sales pressure.  I just want to make a little spare money.

Betsy and I discuss her opening. Betsy’s a great manager. I’d love to work for her. She’s honest. She knows her peoples strengths and their weaknesses. We both agree that when it comes to her opening, I might be the weakest link.  See, although Betsy’s great, her department is what I’ve known in my past retail life as a shark tank. They smell blood, and leave no trace of their prey.

I’ve worked the tank. I’ve been the shark.  No more. As I explain to Betsy, my strengths are building relationships with the customers and the fellow employees—and this part I don’t tell her—even if I’m not planning on being here forever.

So Betsy and I shake hands and agree to stay in touch. 

After Betsy leaves, another woman comes in to talk with Nancy.  There’s some confusion over Lidia and Bonnie, the other two girls interviewing. Nancy wants to interview the one who’s applying for a cosmetics job, and wants the other woman to interview the other. Unfortunately, there is some confusion as to which interviewee is which.

“Bonnie’s the cosmetics girl. Lidia is the other interview.” That’s me. I know the answer. I was sitting in the HR office with both these girls. My ego’s burst his bonds with the “I told you so” tone.

Nancy and the other woman look at me then at each other, and then the problem is solved. The other woman leaves. Yup that’s me. Retail Rob: problem solver. Sigh, I feel myself slipping back into a skin I shed so long ago. 

I try to shake it. Looking at Nancy, I ask, “so when does this seasonal position end?”

Nancy stands and offers a hand and her big retail smile, “This isn’t a seasonal position. We’re hiring you as a regular employee. Welcome aboard.”

I feel an itch in my chest. I think I’m getting a rash. My left brain reminds me that it’s not a rash. It’s only that I’m missing my nametag.

The Job of Humility

"You act like you already have it," my queen says.

"That's because I do," I reply.

That's right, after two-and-a-half years of "freelance work" (pronounced "unemployment") I've got a job interview I know I'll nail. How do I know the job is mine? Because I don't want it.

In all my blog-long days, I've aimed my little pointer at a wall-poster portraying a writer as seen page 1543 of Webster’s New World Dictionary and said, “That’s me.”

“Rob I thought I asked you to keep your pointer private in public.”

In public or private, I’m a writer. I’ve soul searched, career searched and word searched. Paid or unpaid, a writer, that’s who I am.

That's why tomorrow's seasonal retail sales associate interview transfuses my vein’s blood to bile. Trust me. There’ll be no writing there. It’s all smiles and serving the whims of a less than adoring public.

“Do you have this same muffler in a microfiber teal?”

“Well, it’s called ‘the great grey wooly.’ I’m gonna say no.”

“Why don’t you check anyway?”

Ready to serve…

"I hate retail!” so went my post-collegiate cry, followed by the words, “I will never return!” Notice the audacious pride in my voice. That's how you know I really said it. The mark of a true writer is his proclamations of pure melodrama.

“I’m wounded to the soul!”

“uhm, suck it up honey, it’s called a hangnail.”

“My lifeblood…spills…out…”

“Yeah, I’ll catch that in this great grey wooly thing you brought home.”

So if we move the self-pity train back down the tracks to six months ago, we’ll see my queen and I talking about work: why she does it, and why I don’t. Words are tossed in the air, “writer,” “underappreciated,” “freeloader,” and the like. This is where I walk off in a huff. Right after she suggests I take a “nametag” gig.

"Retail is like saying, 'I failed.'" I say. Unemployed or not, I am not a failure. Once again I proclaim to never see my name punch-stamped and glued to a plastic logo-broach again—ever—never-ever.

“…and I’m here to tell you, that’s a mighty long time.”

So here I am, at the end of a mighty long time feeling mighty disgruntled.

I mean, what the heck? I spent twelve years of my life in retail. I did everything from sales, to stock, to manager. It's why I went to college. Then there's the four years to earn a bachelor's degree, the ten years in another career, and all the lines in-between scrawling out my after school special story. Why the hell would I return to retail?

Because apparently God wants me to.

Yes. For anyone who's read my life, there shouldn't be any confusion: Where God leads, I follow. Usually I follow feet first while my hands claw for finger-holds in the where-I-wanted-to-go tundra.

In the past two years I've clutched for regular work. I'm a writer. Employers need writers, why don't they need me? Their lacking has been my disheartening. In the time I've known the Pirate Queen, she's landed two jobs while I can’t stick one.

That hasn’t stopped me from trying. I've applied for jobs as copywriter, web writer, and even Hallmark writer and still have only gotten one callback.

Roses are red

Violets are blue

You need a job

But we don’t want you.

Happy Unemployment!

Hallmark

And yet (and this is an even more important and yet) writing may be who I am, it may even be who I'm called to be, but it's not feeding my family. My queen makes good money, and it's enough to survive, but it's not enough to pay for one wedding, four tires and uncounted emergencies. We need Rob to get paid.

I've been doing some reading to counter my writing. I read a book on facing giants, like David faced Goliath. At this moment, a job is a big giant staring me down, daring me to work.

One of the chapters in the David book dealt with humility. It talked about looking down on others in lesser standing. Sort of a reverse giant deal. You know, suddenly I’m the giant, and some lesser retail idiot is the—yeah, anyway I don't do that, but I do look at some work being more worthy my time than others. I am, after all, a writer, and writers don't do retail.

But out of work writers do what they have to. I thought of what I could do. I can't get a job, so now what? I remembered the book I was reading. I remembered retail. I remembered humility.

So I said a prayer. I reminded God how much I hated retail, how much I hated working weekends and holidays, and I reminded him how little I could actually make and that I'd need suits. I told him that I would give him my cry, and let him decide.

I applied for Christmas seasonal work, and spent the rest of the day in mourning. By Wednesday God gave me my answer. I'd been invited for an interview.

Now it's my turn to keep up my end. Tomorrow I swallow my pride, and I give the interview that gives me the job. Right now, this is about humility.

Hog Wash

The blog you have reached has been changed. Please check the ISP and dial again.

I've moved.

Hey! Remember back, in the old days, when you'd move and have to change everything from your cable service provider to your butt hair braider to match your new address? Remember how it seemed like that was just yesterday?

For me it was yesterday.

And today.

And tomorrow.

And on into next week; that’s when I call the braider. The list of changes due to moving is never ending. So is the list of surprises.

"Honey, have you seen the checkbook?"
"Wasn't that in the grey file-box?"
"The one we threw away?"

Surprise!

Many people think the move is the hard part. The move is wonderland cake piece.

Eat Me!

Unless you handle your personal life like FEMA in Katrina-wake, the move is simple. You load boxes; boxes go on truck; wave good-bye to truck; now move! Blow out your cake candles cuz that’s all there is to it.

Oh, you can stress about breaking stuff, but let's face it. We break stuff everyday. What’s more, if you're the Pirate Queen, it's not called "breaking" it's called "spring cleaning."

"But that was my Fra-gee-lay lamp!"
"And it's now lighting a landfill somewhere in East Ontario."

The point is, things break. Things change. There's nothing you can do to stop it; so why stress about a move that will only further the inevitable? Move or no move your list of unbroken stuff inevitably shortens.

If you've invited family for a slice of move cake, disregard all that "don't stress" crap. Put on diapers. Family will make you wet your pants as they wedge grandma’s 200-year-old curio cabinet between the broken glass relief of Abraham Lincoln and the Canadian bear trap collection. A diaper will give you something to toss at uncle Teddy as he proclaims, "It fits!"

No, family and moving was actually on a college entry exam I took once. "Family is to move as bull is to

a) Pamplonian toe goo.
b) American Politician.
c) China shop.
d) Wisconsin Cheerleading."

I know. I got that one right.

And I got this move right. No family was used in the dissemination of Rob-goods. No family except the Pirate Queen, and she had a vested interest.

"Uhm, what happened to my boxes of comic books?"
"I packed them in the shredder."
"oh..."

Our move was exhausting, but simple. So was the drive across country. That's not to say that two cats in the backseat of a Hyundai Sonata didn't create challenges, but really it's not any different than traveling with kids, except the smell of cat urine is a little more ammonia-like and takes longer to get out of leather.

Yeah. I know that too.

But still, it's all just a great big adventure, until the truck is emptied and the box pile blocks everything from bedroom to bathroom. In that instant, that very moment, a line of demarcation is crossed. The side of fun adventure bleeds into the seventh ring of hell. Yes, That's the Devil dancing on the box of Ho-Hos. He didn't think they were packed tight enough.

Remember being a kid? The pile of toys you'd create in the middle of the floor to hold the burning Barbie sacrifice? Remember when you're parents would say, "You aren't going anywhere until you clean your room and that smell of burnt plastic is gone?" Well imagine the Barbie sacrifice actually called the Kraken from your closet and every item in the house, from Mom's authentic faux Elvis figurine collection to Dad's nose-hair of the presidents presentation, was pushed atop the altered-Barbie altar for you to clean. That's a post move.

That's our post move. Right down to the presidential nose-hairs. Now it’s time to figure out where it all goes. Post move is all about gathering the pieces of your old life and finding an equivalent fit in your new life.

It’s boxes. It’s notifications. It’s madness. It’s finding cat puke in a bowl and knowing that you moved that plop of joy across country.

At the same time it’s like Christmas. It’s finding things that you didn’t remember owning, and then losing them again amidst all the packing.

I think this is the time that speaks most to your faith. This is the time where you trust that God will show you the location of the TV remote. It should have gone in the TV box, but that’s life, right? Nothing is ever as it should be. Life is making the best of what you have and hope the neighbors don’t get too mad while the volume of Alex Trebek’s voice rattles the walls.

That doesn’t make it easier though. Life, like moving, is change. Change is hard because even when we know what’s going on, we don’t know what to expect. We just open the next box, leading to the next day of surprises.

I guess moving is like reading my blog, only with direction. So here’s your box to open today. Go ahead.

Don’t worry. I’ve already found the nose hair collection.

Ducks in a Row

This week I’m getting all my ducks in a row. Every ducks is a moving duck, so better duck: duck-stuff’s a’ flying. Well in our case Rob-duck-stuff is moving in a big duck truck, not really flying per se, but don’t let that stop you; you should still duck.

Our stuff is flying and we don’t know where.

That makes duck lining a tough thing to get down. How do you make a line to nowhere? Right now I guess it’s more of a circle-line than line-line. Our stuff is a ring of dropping ducks around your coffee cups.

Remember those shooting gallery tin-ducks, ducking off the edge of a conveyer only to reappear on the other side? Well, while those vision tins of painted-ducks dance through your head, picture each duck with a box on its back. You’d think the box would slide off tin-duck like water off a ducks back, but it doesn’t. It just come back up the other side. Same ducks. More boxes. Never ending.

Endless ducks in endless row carrying endless boxes. Our boxes. Our stuff. Our Ducks.

Leading those ducks over the edge are our duck scouts. Our ducks scouts are portrayed by Ma and Pa Pirate Queen. Think of the pirate parents as the Lewis and Clarke ducks exploring the Michigan wilderness for the new Rob and PQ homestead.

The pirate parent duck scouts are the old wise ducks, pa duck the old duck, ma duck the wise duck. Picture Gandalf the grey duck and Elmer the Fudd duck waddling from open house to open house like traveling pilgrim evangelist ducks.

“Have you heard the good news? RobBlogger may be moving here!”

This line of duck talk will probably get me Dick Cheney buck shot.

“Wobby season!”

So I’ll continue.

The Queen and I wanted to be house ducks. We’ve acquired whole lots of duck stuff and we need a duck nest to house it. A house nest holds more duck stuff than an apartment nest does.

QED.

Storing boxes means moving boxes and all our storage needs require a flock of moving packages. Some find the duck boxing daunting. I don’t.

Aim for the bill. I don’t know what that means. Go ahead and reread it. You’ll figure something out. I’m sure it refers to the expense moving. Moving isn’t about the moving price though. Moving is about the moving experience.

You know what? For all the times that I’ve moved, I don’t mind being moving ducks. It’s better than being sitting ducks, and like many other life events, moving a thoughtless moving task. If someone shoots the box out of my hand, it’s done. There’ll always be another box to replace it in the next circular revolution.

In our revolution, Lewis and Clarke ducks scouted prime landing sites. Unfortunately Michigan homes are swooped up by other migrant ducks undergoing America’s economic resettlement before we can quack an offer. Squatters thwarting our manifest destiny. I offered a solution:

“We’ve bring you blankets.”

The Pirate Queen said no.

This moves us across the line to apartment ducks. That means more of our duck stuff is duck dropping and not duck coming. Can we survive that?

I dunno. I line a deep nest, but I’ve been lining my nest with Thoreau lately. All that box duck stuff just weighs us down. If we didn’t have stuff, we wouldn’t have to move stuff. I’m burdened by a duck conveyer of my own making.

Time to cut ducks and trim fat. I’m the judge jury and executioner of all things Rob-ducky and I’m knee deep in duck stuff. I have to evaluate if every duck should stay or go. I’ve kept and coddled these ducklings for 15 years. Is it time to let them fly--if for no other reason than that there’s one less duck in the row?

And the ducks I reject may haunt me forever.

“Out! Out! Damn spotty Daffy rug!”

My feathers are more than a little ruffled and there are other ducks besides stuff ducks to line against the wall. This is my quacking orchestration. Power ducks, gas ducks, phone ducks, travel logistic ducks all need to be set into motion. If the right ducks don’t tow the duck line, my duck row could look like British teeth. Or even worse, I may lose all ducks altogether.

Duck season. Heh, heh, heh, heh…

Sigh...

I’ve spent 43 years accumulating and moving my ducks. I’ve done it longer than any career I’ve held. I take my ducks personally.

I’m a ducking professional.

The first time I moved, it was a great adventure; stepping out into the world, becoming my own drake. I didn’t have much more than a room to move so it was pretty easy.

The next time I moved I wasn’t as eager but it was still fun. I had friends, beer and pizza to keep the duck-walk moving.

Then next move I grew a new appreciation for Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Oh, I still don’t enjoy the story, but burning a pile of books before a move now seems benevolent.

Today, moving is no longer about the adventure, it’s about the drudgery.

As a kid, the first time I saw a duck it was a ducking new experience. The duck might as well be a unicorn, cuz that duck was a first duck. As I got older, each new duck becomes just another duck packed together in a flock of ducks.

This time my duck walk leads to a duck apartment. The Queen has landed with a lease in bill and we’re moving on. Now my ducks are all moving ducks. I’m done. I’m tired. It’s no longer about the great adventure on the other side ( and I assure you, for a SoCal boy moving to Michigan, it is a great adventure), it’s about the same-ol’ same-ol’ process that gets me there.

Oh, I’ll snap out of my repetition, just as soon as the Rob ducks get on the road. Until then, well…everything is just ducky.

Detroit or bust.

Location.

Location, location, location.

Ask any Realtor and they’ll tell you it’s all about location. Bull riders agree; the location on the bulls back is far more agreeable than the location on the bull’s horns.

Earthquakes are about location. You don’t have them everywhere. We have them here. That’s our location. Location, location, location. We say it three times because we’re trying to point out a location while the earth is shaking.

Earthquakes teach you three things about location. One: any structure built on any location will come down after enough shaking. Two: a location’s value isn’t permanent. Three: location is more than location. Location is people, place, and atmosphere. They’re everything that makes a location a Location. After the Northridge earthquake, I lived in a Location built on rebuilding. People grouped together, standing on the shoulders of what had collapsed, and reached upward. The night the earthquake fell was pitch and flat, but the day after, a Location rose from its knees, determined.

The next week we forgot the whole thing, and started hating each other again, but that’s LA. It’s all about location, and earthquakes.

Tornados don’t care about location. In fact, they’re all about location redistribution.

“My house was in this location, now it’s in that location…”

Tornados are more about timeliness.

So am I.

What good is a good location if your timeliness is bad? Any swimming pool is a great summer location, until Mrs. McGitche’s third grade class shows up to pee in it. That’s just bad timing--and too much lemonade.

“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee...." 

I’ve spent almost twenty years in this SoCal location. Sometimes my timeliness has been great, other times my timeliness has been pee pool poor. Ask MyEx. She’ll tell you.

Talk to my queen, she’ll say she loves my timing. She’s not wild about my location. My queen hales from the land where the timing-tornados are great and the location-lakes are greater.

"’Superior,’ they said, ‘never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early…’"

Timing, timing, timing.

Timing is not a SoCal concept. For me, timing and finding employment in this location is like locating a snowball’s timing in Hell. I’ve knocked on every door at every location not selling french fries. My timing syncopates with opportunity’s knocking rhythm. Call me the little match girl.

No, really. I’m trying to start a trend. Trends are all about timing, and LA needs a new one.

My queen started a trend; she got a new job. Yeah, I can’t find a job needle in a unemployment stack, and she can’t shake her peg leg without stepping in one. This time she stepped in something big and squishy and it stuck.

It’s all about timing.

We’re moving.

And location.

Timing and location, I’m beside myself. And myself is leaving California.

It’s weird. For all the great leaving Los Angeles songs, I never thought that I would ever sing one. I’ve left LA before, but I’ve always returned. This time, I don’t think so. This time, the change of location song sings with the tones of permanence, like the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, only I don’t know these words.

‘At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said, ‘Fellas, it's bin good t'know ya…’"

Yeah, shut up Gordan. Nobody likes a six-minute and thirty-second know-it-all.

Location. I chose this location almost twenty years ago. I stood on the great ship LA, and here I stayed even when everything nearly capsized, and staying didn’t seem like what I wanted. It’s been a love/hate bull-ride relationship. I’ve taken the butt. I’ve taken the horns. Now I’m taking my leave.

“The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times…”

Goodbye Southern California.

I won’t miss much, but I will always miss your location.