I know that a lot of Straight Doper’s aren’t Christians, so apologies in advance. But this deals with human politics as well, so bear with me.
After a year-and-a-half of fairly voluntary unemployment, I started with the St. Louis office of Mettler Toledo Industrial Scales right before Halloween.
I’m now a scale technician. Little scales. Big Scales. Scales big enough to drive a rail car over and weigh to the pound. I calibrate 'em, and diagnose 'em, and fix 'em when they’re broke. Rain or shine, warm weather or biting cold. I’m like the U.S. Postal service.
I wasn’t sure they were going to hire me; I went through my first interview with my fly open. As Homer J. would say, “DOH!” But after a Personality Profile Test (and a pre-employment physical which almost tanked me because of a recuperating rotator cuff which I somehow blew out earlier this year) I was hired on and “thrown into the deep end” almost immediately.
If I have one serious gripe, it’s that the local office didn’t really brief me in on the “Mettler Toled ‘Way’;” I was left to my own devices on figuring out what (and how) I’m supposed to do. But a couple of weeks in and a few hints (here & there) from co-workers has left me secure in the knowledge that this job is practically a license to print money.
And now we come to the annual Christmas party.
Being hired on in late October, and being left pretty much to my own devices, I haven’t developed a real sense of the intra-office politics. So lo-and-behold I’m the only “worker bee” from my office to actually show up at our District’s Office Party. Our District Office Manager (my immediate boss, and a 1st class snake-in-the-grass) has the dinner tab, and our District Sale Manager (another 1C SitG) has the bar tab. I load up on good wine, a pricey appetizer, and an above average entree.
Dinner is nice enough (even if I made the mistake of ordering seafood in St. Louis in December; the shrimp were tough as shoe leather), with plenty of small talk passing back-and-forth between me and the spouses. But the District Office Manager and District Sales Manager are performing the Corporate America version of comparing penises.
Which means that they’re trading “There I Was…” anecdotes about business mettings, and dealings with various customers. Having worked with some of those customers, I can interject the occasional “Front Line Witticism” and leave my own urine mark against the “Corprate Tree of The Pack.”
Being as I’m the only “Worker Drone” present, I have an invaluable opportunity, as well as a very dangerous Corporate precipice to edge along. Profanity is right out, what with the spouses present, but I must appear “manly” in some fasion or another. Yet I cannot make either the Office Manage or Sales Manager look or feel bad about their cushy “office” jobs as compared to one of us “field dogs.”
I feel like a soldier who sudenly realizes that he’s smack in the middle of a minefield. Any step, in any direction, has potentially catastrophic results.
Fortunately, I’m “peon” enough that neither feel the need to drag me into their pissing contest, which means I’m safe to discuss such mundane topics such as The War In Iraq, abortion, and gun control with the spouses.
About four glasses of wine into the meal, I realize that I need to slow down on the vino; in vino veritas looms threateningly on the near horizon, and I must avoid it, for the sake of any potential future pay raise, even as I want to tell both of the “Managerial” pukes that they wouldn’t last a day in The Cav.
Dinner being over, yet the night being young, We decide to head over to a local “Comedy Club.” We manage to sneak in right before the Cover Charge hits, and listen to a weak routine by a comedy troupe who take suggestions from the audience on a wide variety on topics and incorporate those suggestions into a routine. For “non-historic personalities,” I suggest Spiro Agnew; for famous movie quotes, I suggest “I know it was you, Fredo.”
For Grand Topical, I toss in my sig line, and three people in the audience caught the reference. None of the “performers” did, though. But I get two-out-of-three, so I’m content.
My boss and the Sales Manager being weak, they cut out at 11 PM., and I listen to the band through four or five (I forget) songs; they’re like Three Doors Down taken down a notch or two. But I give 'em full props for dong their thing, even if I can’t listen to them any more without barfing, and leave.
And here I am.
Weak as it sounds, what the hell did you do tonight, besides reading this lame-assed post?
Now my neighbors (a buncha college-age kids) are having a raucous party, and I’m heading out to tell 'em that their neighbors are a lot less likely to call the cops for a Noise Complaint if you invite them to your party and offer tham beer.